Bottom-up and Needs based Professional Development

IDevice Icon 1998 Baseline Survey

In 1998, a survey was conducted to establish the status of secondary mathematics and science education in Kenya. the study was a pre-cursor to the institutionalized and regularized INSET training for mathematics and Science teachers in Kenya. The findings were categorized into what a capacity development programme could immediately handle and other factors that required stakeholder involvement/ consultation.


Factors that SMASSE can handle
 Factors that SMASSE cannot handle
Attitude: Teachers, principals, students and parents negative/unfavourable attitude towards mathematics and sciences lack of staff houses and other facilities/ equipments: textbooks, electricity, water
Pedagogy: Inappropriate teaching methodology, invariably teacher centred Poor communication and funding of school
activities and programmes
Content/ Subject Mastery: Inadequate mastery of content by mathematics and science teachers
 Parents and communities’ attitude
Formative Evaluation: Inadequate/ inappropriate assignments to students, which were rarely marked
 Interrupted school programmes: fees
collection and arrears
Teacher Collaboration: Few or non-existent interactive fora for mathematics and science teachers
 Food, child labor, and other family problems
Infrequent inspection from subject inspectors

 Teachers’ poor working conditions and
terms of services: incentives;
unfair transfers; stagnation in one job
group
Missing link between primary and secondary school (syllabuses)
content levels		 Overloaded syllabi and timetables, work
load;

SMASSE INSET programmes and stakeholder workshops were developed to address the factors above


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JCA Presentation: Using GeoGebra in Secondary School Mathematics teaching