Re-thinking teachers education curricula from indigenous curriculum construction principle: a case study of College of Teachers’ Education in SNNPRS and Sidama Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Integrating primary teachers’ education curricula with the school curriculum through indigenous knowledge is a means of decolonizing the western curriculum and contextualizing it by assisting learners to understand and synthesize their own environments. The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which indigenous knowledge is reflected in the college of teachers’ education Science and Mathematics curricula in light of indigenous knowledge. Mixed research design with exploratory sequential method was employed. Data were gathered from 58 science and mathematics teacher educators, 91 Primary school Science and Mathematics teachers, 7 colleges of teacher’ education deans and vice deans, 4 regional education bureau officials, and 4 regional education bureau senior curriculum experts. Among four colleges of teacher’ education in SNNPR, Bonga and Hosaena colleges were selected by simple random sampling technique and the Hawassa College of teacher education was selected from Sidama Region regional state. The instruments used to collect data were: questionnaires, interview, FGDs and document analysis. The data obtained through questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively by using frequency, percentage and mean. Whereas the information gathered by interview guide, FGD, and documents analysis were transcribed qualitatively analyzed, interpreted and expressed thematically. The study finding revealed that the extent to which indigenous knowledge are reflected in the existing colleges of teachers’ education Science and Mathematics courses is very minimal, the colleges of teachers’ education curricula are dominated by the Western curricula knowledge. Furthermore, there are teacher educators who perceive IKs as old, traditional and contributing nothing. Teacher educators’ commitment and motivation in applying IKs in the classroom instruction, lack of organized indigenous resources was also identified as hindering the inclusion and implementation of indigenous knowledge, besides, the effort to include indigenous knowledge in the curricula has remained unpractical. To this end, education stakeholders such as policy makers, educators, curriculum developers, and parents shall work together to overcome the challenges in the inclusion and implementation of indigenous knowledge in both the college of teachers’ education and primary education Science and Mathematics curricula. It is recommended that both Western and Indigenous knowledge must coexist in the college/school Science and Mathematics curricula in order to serve the current needs of society.