CHALLENGES IN THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS THROUGH OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING: IMPLICATIONS FOR QUALITY

This study aimed at establishing the challenges that may have affected the training of teachers through ODL at the Zimbabwe Open University. The study was carried out in order to put in place a model that may be implemented to improve the quality teacher training programme. The study adopted the case study design for the gathering the in-depth perceptions held by the given population. Questionnaires, telephone interviews and documentary analysis were adopted for data collection. The population of the study consisted of the National Programme Leader, Regional Programme Coordinators and graduate diploma students and their former school heads. Thirty-three members of the population constituted the sample for this study. Among other findings, results of the study show that while the training of teachers was a very viable undertaking at ZOU, existing collaboration between the schools and the training institution was very informal. Teaching practice faced numerous problems such as inadequate funding and unavailability of teaching practice vehicles. The study recommended that there be collaboration among all the stakeholders. There is also need for the setting up of a Teaching Practice Department which should be fully equipped with to enable the smooth flow of teaching practice supervisory activities.