Assessing the teachers’ and students’ views on citizenship education curriculum practices in Ethiopia: Evidence from south Gondar zone secondary schools

Abstract

This study assesses the current citizenship education practices in South Gondar Zone, Ethiopia. Questionnaire survey, focus group discussions, key informant interviews and classroom observations were used to gather data from teachers and students. The data collected through qualitative data were organized based on themes whereas; descriptive statistics was employed to analyze the survey data. One-sample T-test was also applied to analyze the difference between hypothetical and observed means. Contrary, the activities which would create fertile condition for citizenship education implementation have not been accomplished. The findings revealed that teacher-centered methods have still perceived as the sole learning-teaching approaches and lecture delivery of teachers had not been supported by teaching materials. The conventional assessment methods are the major performance evaluation methods. The passive participation of the students in the instructional practices suggested that Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed seem to apply. It was noted that creating conducive environment for effective classroom instruction has gained little attention. Besides, development of teachers’ profession through continuous in-service training was overlooked. Our findings generally indicated that the goals of citizenship education could not be attained with existing curriculum practices. Therefore, interventions of education sector stakeholders are needed to practice citizenship education curriculum following learning-teaching principles.