Teachers’ views about technical education: implications for reforms towards a broad based technology curriculum in Malawi

Abstract

Internationally there has been concern about the direction of technical education and how it is positioned in schools. This has also been the case in Malawi where the curriculum has had a strong focus on skills development. However, lately there has been a call for enhancing technological literacy of students, yet little support has been provided for teachers to achieve this goal. This paper reports from a wider study that looked at teachers' existing views and practices in technical education in Malawi. The article focuses on the findings from interviews that were conducted with six secondary school teachers to find out about their understanding of the meaning and rationale for technical education. It is also discussed how the teachers view technical education as involving skills development for making things and their thoughts on the benefits of such knowledge. It is argued that teachers' views about technical education were strongly linked to the goals of the curriculum vacationalization policies adopted at the dawn of political independence. Besides skills training they saw the potential to impart thinking skills related to design and problem solving, and the need for essential pedagogical techniques to support learning in technical education. Examination requirements, inadequate opportunities to conduct practical activities and a lack of supportive policy were seen as limiting factors. This article claims that teachers' views were shaped by their expectations and beliefs about the nature of technical education and what they perceived students may gain from such learning. Their views were also influenced by contextual factors which may have implications on reforms towards broader notions of technology education.

Technology education in primary schools: addressing teachers’ perceptions, perceived barriers, and needs

“…In addition to our findings on teachers' need for support, our participants mentioned several barriers to the integration of technology. Consistent with the existing literature on STEM integration (Chikasanda et al, 2011;Margot & Kettler, 2019;Park et al, 2017;Yu et al, 2021), most teachers referred to a lack of resources-namely, materials and school equipment (16 participants), lack of content knowledge (nine participants), time constraints (eight participants), and students' heterogeneity (seven participants). Our participants also referred to students' safety while working with tools and electricity (eight participants), the size of the classroom (five participants), the broad curriculum (four participants), and their self-inhibitions regarding technology (four participants).…”

“…Curricular and structural challenges refer to the inflexibility of students' schedules and curricular plans, along with the lack of financial support and technology resources in schools (Margot & Kettler, 2019). Several studies have reported that the broad and undefined curriculum standards are often perceived by teachers as some of the main challenges in integrating technology subjects in their classrooms (Chikasanda et al, 2011;Yu et al, 2021).…”

Bibliometric analysis and science mapping of global scientific publications on technical vocational education training (TVET)

“…Most of the published studies in Phase II discuss the stimulation of technology into the curriculum in the vocational education sector (Chikasanda et al. , 2011; Akuner et al.…”

“…Most of the published studies in Phase II discuss the stimulation of technology into the curriculum in the vocational education sector (Chikasanda et al, 2011;Akuner et al, 2012). Akuner et al (2012) state that technology practice in the curriculum will support teaching strategies that can be advantageous to the students.…”

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“…There also has been no change in the applied engineering college-level educator requirements to deliver remedial, introductory, intermediate, and advanced technical content to students in traditional-classroom, hybrid/blended, and 100% online delivery settings. As reported in the 2013 report, many faculty members are not only teaching typical lecture courses but also being tasked with managing student laboratories, advising students, participating in professional association events, continued service in faculty governance committees, financial responsibilities, and continued personal professional development at high competency levels (Chikasanda, Otrel-Cass, & Jones, 2010). Many faculty members have forsaken education as a profession due to these factors.…”