ASSESSING CHALLENGES IN THE TRAINING OF SECONDARY SCHOOL TECHNICAL SUBJECT TEACHERS THROUGH OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING

This study sought to unearth challenges that are besetting the implementation of the secondary technical subject teacher training programme at the Zimbabwe Open University. The descriptive survey design was adopted for this study to capture people`s perceptions on this issue. Questionnaires and interviews were used to solicit data from the respondents. The sample for the study consisted one National Programme Leader stationed at ZOU National Centre, seventy secondary school heads in Mashonaland west Region and two heads of training centres also in the same province. Results of the study go to show that the training of technical subject teachers is a very viable initiative bearing in mind the available resources in the schools and other training institutions. The majority of the schools and training centres were willing to provide their facilities to the Zimbabwe Open University to train technical subject teachers through Open and Distance Education. The evolvement of ZOU from the University of Zimbabwe placed it at an advantage due to the transfer of faculty and other resources such as modules. Basing on these findings it was recommended that ZOU should proceed expeditiously to introduce the secondary school technical teacher training programme. The university should forge Memoranda of Association with the schools and training centres in which ZOU should undertake to train the teachers and lecturers in the schools and colleges at concessionary rates. ZOU should however, upgrade and then make use of available infrastructure in the schools and other training institutions available in the region.