LEARNING TOGETHER: Collaborative Action Research to Improve Practice at the Asmara Community College of Education

LEARNING TOGETHER: Collaborative action research to improve practice at the Asmara Community College of Education Alem Ghebrecal, Berhane Demoz, Hanna Posti-Ahokas & Ikali Karvinen (Eds). Learning together: Collaborative action research to improve practice at the Asmara Community College of Education 1 Content Background The Asmara Community College Education in the only teachers’ education college producing primary school teachers in the country. Teacher Education in Eritrea began during the time of the British Military Administration in 1943. In the last seven decades, thousands of teachers Background ......................................................................................................................... 3 were trained in the college and played an active role spreading education far and wide. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 4 The teaching profession enjoyed a high social status till the 1970’s. However, with the intensification of the independence struggle due to the repressive and brutal retaliation Learners’ interest to the teaching profession at ACCE ............................................................. 7 by the Ethiopian army, things went from bad to worse as far as education and especially Absenteeism and tardiness among grade 11 and grade 12 learners .......................................... 17 teaching as a profession was concerned. Teachers began to work against all odds. Educa- tion suffered a lot and teaching as a profession was dealt a great blow. At one point the Recruitment criteria for senior secondary school education program at ACCE ..........................22 teachers’ college was closed and became a military hospital. Promoting active learning among grade 12-1 learners ............................................................27 In 1991 Eritrea was liberated. One of the first attempts of the Eritrean government was to revive the growth of education. To this end of the college began to function at first by Promoting active learning in grade 12-9 ............................................................................... 40 offering short-term courses. This was made because the need for teachers in the country A debt to repay: Recounts of the 2014/15 intakes ..................................................................47 was acute. From 1994 the college started regular one year programs and began to produce as many teachers as possible at a certificate level. Up to 2012 more than 11,000 teachers Significance of IT based examination at ACCE ..................................................................... 60 were trained. Learners’ inadequate skills in spoken English at ACCE............................................................ 65 Our school system consists of two years of kindergarten, five years of primary, three Practical work in natural science education ........................................................................76 years of junior secondary and four years of secondary education. At the elementary level the medium of instruction is the mother tongue. English becomes the medium of instruction Learners’ attitude towards natural science courses ............................................................. 82 from grade six onwards. All students leave for Sawa at grade twelve for their academic and Low performance of learners in mathematics ...................................................................... 88 military training. This gives them a good chance to know each other and learn from each others’ experiences. Supply of water and electricity: Acute shortages, possible solutions ..................................... 96 In 2012, after making the necessary preparation, the college was upgraded to a diploma Using Quick Response codes to improve the quality of learning and teaching ........................106 level. It was recognized by the National Commission for Higher Education. A two-year program was started and five batches have already graduated. In 2015 the college wanted to Learners’ use of college library ...........................................................................................113 attract more qualified candidates. A new recruitment criteria was designed where students The role of the pedagogical resource center in enriching multiple learning experiences ...........121 from the six administrative regions and from all ethnic groups were given the chance to participate. The gender issue has been taken seriously. We are recruiting students after Shortfalls of recruitment process of prospective teachers for mother tongue education ...... 135 they finish grade ten. In so doing the contact hours have been increased. The attempt was “Since we are humans collaboration is inside us” made to attract better students with good marks. Examinations and interviews are part of the entry requirements. We have started this program in the 2015-2016 academic year; the - improving research skills through collaborative action research ....................................... 142 prospects are high and encouraging signs have been seen. It should be remembered that Promoting career paths in education through support to the teacher students get their education free of change, including food and lodging. training programme at the Asmara Community College of Education ..................................... 152 In 2016-2017 academic year the college accepted a total of 1150 students, the major- ity of these were grades 11 and 12. There are about 250 student in the diploma section in three different departments: social science, natural science and educational administration. Indeed, tireless efforts are being conducted to manage the training programs. The college functions the entire year because summer school classes are offered for existing teachers. The summer-in-service program takes place during the months of July and August and thousands have been upgraded so far. We believe that the college will be able to accommo- date more people with a little more expansion and renovations. The futurity of the college is indeed bright. Learning together: Collaborative action research to improve practice at the Asmara Community College of Education 3 Introduction as a source for improving intentions and creating professional knowledge was also mini- mal. Furthermore, reflective habits and systematic inquiry was not regarded and practiced Critical self-study by almost all staff as an inherent duty of being effective educators. Hence, most staff Focused discussions about the feasibility of our institutional self-study started early in had compound limitations to go through the process and hence the need for continuous October 2016. The intention was to engage most staff in a strategy of communal, prac- support was essential. A team for closely serving as critical colleague (as opposed to the tice-based, and evidence-constructed learning and teaching duties. Hence, the collabora- traditional advisor-editor agency) from among the senior staff was all the year ready to tive action research project (CARP) had three-fold objectives: Construct cooperative profes- serve the needs of the study teams and members from Monday to Friday, in mornings and sional behaviors, focus on college-specific practices and performances, cultivate systematic afternoons. It will thus take some time for our staff to enter into a more effective collabora- inquiries for maturing our educational duties. tive action research! Joint construct, common concerns Pedagogy to relate and engage Successive meetings and workshops involving all staff greatly facilitated in discussing and Through CARP, we were asking ourselves to critically look at and systematically reflect upon filtering out critical challenges that evolved into highly relevant research questions from our inadequacies in becoming a learning college. Most of all, we have envisaged to avoid the contextual experiences of the college. They helped in laying out the foundations for pointing our fingers at our leaners for failing to become successful achievers because we are categorizing the CARP into six cross-departmental and thirteen departmental themes. The part and parcel of their failure. The process has helped to seriously note that trying to blame cross-departmental themes were conducted by inter-departmental collaboration while others about the causes of our inadequacies won’t really help us improve our education- most of the departmental themes were conducted by department staff. The project’s undi- al practices. We have learned that the role of formal and informal circle discussions and vided character was the involvement of administrative and general service staff. The role of dialogues should be typical scenes in our college. We have realized that our main shortfall the coordinating committee was instrumental in the initial stages of the project for making is in our pedagogy, a pedagogy to relate and pedagogy to engage. That was why most of sure that all the departments were represented in all the study teams. the studies were about our pedagogy! The principles of critical colleagues should greatly contribute to the qualities of how we facilitate, guide, lead, and research the engagement of Multi-dimensional intention our learners by closely modeling our educational intentions. CARP was a multi-dimensional intention of staff development initiative. It was meant to profoundly help us understand our context and our role in

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