(teacher-centred) transmission pedagogies. The notion of student-centred
learning appears to have been translated as ‘lots of student activities’,
which equates to keeping the class occupied and busy while completing
the content requirements. Many teachers do not seem to understand that
student-centred learning is self-directed and participatory, and therefore do
not understand that the predominant practices of passive pen-paper activities
and question-answer techniques are not necessarily student-centred.
A recommendation for the Ministry of Education and for the School of
Education at USP would be to unpack the meaning of constructivist teaching
in context, taking into account the ‘culture-gap’ (Little, 1995): the difference
in expectations between the home culture and the culture of the school.
Richardson (2003) explains:
The difference [in teaching styles] may ... be attributed to differences
in cultural beliefs about the nature of teaching and learning. I believe
it is much more than that: that psychological constructivism’s roots are
western, liberal, and individualistic (Eurocentric), and much of the current
approach to constructivist pedagogy, at least in the United States, was
developed within privileged classes. It is not clear to me that the less
privileged and minority cultures are interested in the strong individualistic
approach suggested in current constructivist pedagogical approaches to
teaching given the perceived importance of community maintenance and
development (Richardson 2003, p. 1633).The researchers found that while all teachers spoke of the desire to facilitate
more student-centred lessons, they all said that they felt pressured by time
and heavy teaching loads, and time and again the discussion returned to
the reality of time-bound coverage of a content-full and assessment-driven
system. Teachers perceived that it was necessary to conform to this system,
as it is the primary means of school-based and ministry-level evaluation
of teacher effectiveness. Teachers were mindful that their performance
was assessed based on student scores and percentage pass rates. The
teachers said that the only teaching or classroom assessment that had been
conducted was during their teacher training. These findings indicate that
pedagogical practice in Fiji may be driven by compliance, where teachers are
focused on the coverage of all content within the given time-frame, aiming to
improve students’ assessment and examination results, and to get a positive
performance review of their teaching. This suggests that little has changed in
the classroom in the 14 years since the 2000 Education Commission.