Teacher preparedness in Curriculum Delivery Processess for effective Christian Religious Education instruction in public secondary schools in Baringo County, Kenya

Abstract

This study sought to examine teacher preparedness in curriculum delivery processes for effective C.R.E instruction in public secondary schools in Baringo County, Kenya. There has been a relatively low performance of C.R.E in the county, and thus the question of what ails in the teaching and hence performance of the subject is of great concern. According to K.N.E.C reports of the years 2006-2010, the performance of C.R.E has not also been steady nationally. This was attributed to poor coverage of the syllabus, poor approaches of teaching among others. The objectives examined whether teachers : set instructional objectives ;structured the content to be delivered; covered the syllabus adequately ; used adequate resources ; selected appropriate teaching method(s)/learning activities ; varied assessment/feedback measures. The study was a survey research and utilized a combination of simple random and purposive sampling techniques to select the participants in the study. The respondents included forty five (45) C.R.E teachers and three hundred (300) C.R.E students of form four, and six (6) DAQSO‟s in the six districts in the county. The instruments utilized in data collection were questionnaires administered to teachers and students, interview schedules administered to teachers before and after teaching and the DQASO‟s of the six districts in the county, class observation schedules, and document analysis. Data analysis was facilitated by the use of SPSS which helped obtain the frequencies of data which guided in description and interpretation of data. The qualitative data was also quantified by coding after classifying the responses in the various issues or topics studied. The study revealed that; there were no objectives stated prior to teaching ,content was never structured, poor coverage of syllabus at form 1 and 2, few instructional resources were utilized, teaching was dominated by teacher centered methods, inadequate assessment methods were used and inadequate supervision by DQASO‟s. Therefore, teachers need to strengthen their pedagogical skills to achieve quality teaching. It is a hope that the results obtained will assist curriculum developers come up with guidelines to assist teachers improve on classroom instructional processes and help policy makers consider the ultimate needs of the learners and MOEST to show greater responsibility to ensure teachers become responsible in teaching, provide material for teaching and to strengthen supervisory roles of DQASO‟s. Successful curriculum delivery rests on the teachers‟ conducive environment and provision of the necessary support to make teaching realistic, this calls for all stakeholders to uphold quality education standards based on good service delivery by teachers.