From policy to practice: education reform in Mozambique and Marrere Teachers’ Training College

Abstract

The Mozambican government has introduced reforms of basic education, notably the introduction of interdisciplinarity, learner-centredness and new teaching pedagogies. This is a case study of how these curriculum reforms have been implemented at Marrere Teachers’ Training College. We conducted interviews with lecturers, observed their teaching practices, and studied student results to assess teaching outcomes. The study is grounded in the literatures on educational change and globalization. The problems of policy and practice have focused attention on bottom-up and top-down research, and hybrid approaches. The study of globalization has highlighted the relationship between curriculum change and the world economy. There is a paucity of research on how these developments have affected underdeveloped countries. We found that practical issues influence implementation. Lecturers did not understand the meaning of interdisciplinarity. They could, however, articulate the meaning of learnercentredness. Lesson observations showed they did not implement it. Against the backdrop of these inter-related factors, final year students performed poorly in examinations. These analyses show the complexities of the moving from policy to practice, and the global to the local.

Keywords: globalisation; Mozambican education reform; policy and practice; teacher education