The Role of Teachers’ Resource Centres in Teachers’ Professional Development and Enhancing Primary Education in Zanzibar

Abstract

This paper reports the contribution of Teachers’ Resource Centres (TRCs) in enhancing teachers’ professional development. Variables investigated were designed programme for the primary school teachers, teachers who were attending in-service training at the TRCs, as well as those who had completed the training and teaching, and head teachers at the selected primary schools. The study applied both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Interview schedules, questionnaires, observations, focus group discussion, and documentary reviews were used to collect data. The findings indicated that TRCs played a useful role in teachers’ professional development but encountered with shortage of resources to run teachers’ professional development programme effectively and efficiently. In addition to that, TRCs used one model of training (traditional) that did not consider teachers’ educational background which to some extent affected the quality of training and hence teachers’ performance. The workshops and seminars provided to few teachers limited their possibility to improve professionally as expected. Moreover, teachers trained at the TRCs were not competent in the subject matter as expected. Furthermore, shortage of teaching facilities, poor classroom, and school environment affected the teaching efficiency of the TRC-trained teachers. There is a need for the TRCs to evaluate and review teachers’ programme for effective teacher training.

Keywords: instruction, innovative, recruitment, under qualified, nonconventional, clustering.