Assessing the pre-service secondary school science teacher education programme at the University of Asmara, Eritrea

Abstract

The central concern of this study is to evaluate the Science Education Unit (SEU) of the faculty of Education at Asmara University. The main aim of the SEU is not only to produce enough teachers for the nation, but also to produce science teachers who are competent in classroom instruction. This study compares the intended objectives with the attained objectives of the SEU with the stakeholders' perceptions of the programme. The reason for assessing the SEU programme was to determine quality of the programme in terms of its effort, effectiveness, impact and relevance in training science teachers. The pre-service teachers' training is expected to equip the secondary school science teachers with adequate content-knowledge and pedagogical skills for their future career, i.e. problem solving, decision-making and value judgment. The government has described the educational system of the country for the last ten years as a waste of meager resources because it does not produce employable youngsters. This study was therefore undertaken to provide an empirical basis for decision-making regarding the authenticity of such claims. The study is situated within the systemic organizational evaluation models proposed by Ogunniyi (1978), Scriven (1995), and Veney and Kaluzney (1991) in which the intended objectives of the program are compared to the outcomes. The stakeholders who participated in this study include " insiders" and "outsiders". This includes academic staff, university lecturers, and student teachers, as " insiders" and practicing science teachers, supervisors in the Ministry of Education, and secondary school directors as "outsiders". This study used questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis to collect relevant data for the SEU teacher education programme. The interviews were audio recorded and then transcribed verbatim. The transcribed data and the data from the questionnaire were analyzed in terms of specific outcomes or indicators namely, effort, effectiveness, impact, and relevance (Veney and Kaluzny, 1991 ). As an evaluation study, the triangulation method was exploited to provide a holistic and reasonable view of the participants in the study. The collected data set was then analyzed using qualitative and quantitative procedures.