Curriculum Development in Zambia is highly centralized, with the Curriculum Development Center (CDC) being charged with developing the curriculum through consultative and participatory approaches through the course and subject panels where teachers are engaged. Nevertheless, there has been no empirical evidence to show how teachers are actively…

Teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has the potential to influence lesson planning, teaching and students' academic performance in science. Since PCK is embodied in lesson planning (as planned PCK), this study employed the multiple-case design to describe in-depth the biology teachers' profiles of planned topic-specific PCK (plTSPCK) for…

Since pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) influences the teaching learning process, it has dominated research on teacher effectiveness. This case study explored teachers' enacted topic-specific PCK (TSPCK) during the biology lesson study stages: planning, teaching, and reflecting. The enacted TSPCK in two video-recorded research lessons was…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the classroom assessment practices of secondary school teachers in Shiwang'andu District, Muchinga Province, Zambia. The objectives were to: describe the assessments that were being used by teachers in sampled schools; determine teachers' use of classroom assessment results; as well as establish…

The mole concept is one of the fundamental concepts in chemistry. However, a number of studies carried out in various countries have shown that teachers and learners face many difficulties in teaching and learning the concept. One of the underlying sources of teaching and learning difficulties of the mole concept identified in literature is the…

This report reviews the collection, availability and quality of system-level data and metadata on education from countries participating in the PISA for Development project: Cambodia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Senegal and Zambia. PISA for Development aims to increase low income countries' use of PISA assessments for monitoring progress towards…

"What is important for citizens to know and be able to do?" The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) seeks to answer that question through the most comprehensive and rigorous international assessment of student knowledge and skills. As more countries join its ranks, PISA is evolving to successfully cater for a…

In the drive to achieve universal primary education as one of the Millennium Development Goals, there is an increasing recognition of the urgency of focusing on teacher education to both meet the demand for more than one million qualified teachers required to achieve this goal within sub-Saharan Africa, as well as to combat the sometimes poor…

This study investigates inter-school variations in several dimensions of opportunity to learn as well as examines the extent to which these measures significantly affect students' performance on grade 7 literacy and numeracy exams. After situating the study within the global discourse emphasizing the importance of providing access to quality…

This article explores intergenerational perspectives on the link between secondary schooling and employment held by students, parents, and teachers in Ndola, Zambia. The author argues that the differentiated meanings of schooling must be understood in light of the economic effects of the shift away from a state-controlled economy during the…