Physical Education and Sports Curriculum at Teachers Colleges in Tanzania: An Appraisal of Its Implementation (Sports and Development in Tanzania)

Abstract

The paper focuses on implementation of physical education and sports curriculum at teachers colleges. Specifically it assessed the present status of physical education and sports, challenges faces the implementation of the curriculum as well as strategies of improving the implementation of physical education and sports at teachers colleges. A descriptive case study design was employed in this study and used a mixed method approach to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. Face to face interviews, checklist, direct observation, questionnaire, and focus group discussion were employed to collect the information related to this study. Purposive and stratified sampling techniques were used to obtain two teachers college and fifty respondents. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data while qualitative data were subjected to content analysis to determine the common themes. The results revealed that, physical education in colleges is implemented as a compulsory curriculum in few colleges, but the status affected by time reduction in teaching physical education whereby time allocated for physical education and sports were not enough due to the nature of the discipline. Also there were gender inequalities in the enrolment in physical education and sports course as well as shortage of professional experts who implement the physical education and sports. However, the other findings revealed that, the topics related to swimming, hockey, table tennis were affected due to lack of respective facilities and equipment. Furthermore, this study found that there was a negative attitude to administrators and managers towards physical education and sports discipline in teachers colleges. To improve the implementation of physical education and sports it was suggested for improvement of facilities and equipment, increasing the enrolment rate of teachers and teacher-trainees, using local facilities and improvisation of surrounding environment, reviewing the implemented physical education and sports syllabus. Finally it was suggested to the education administration and management to conduct the workshop and seminar to teachers as well as in-service training. The study concludes that, though physical education and sports have been implemented in only twelve teachers colleges out of thirty four public teachers colleges. The educational management should implement the course in the remaining public teachers colleges as well as the private owned teachers colleges.

Keywords: physical education and sports, Appraisal of curriculum implementation, Tanzania