Mathematical Knowledge For Teaching (Mkt) Among Primary School Teachers Of Fiji

Source abstract

Primary School Teachers in Fiji are employed and supervised by the Ministry of Education and are expected to teach all subjects prescribed by the Ministry with necessary teacher qualification. The objectives of the study is to examine the current status of MKT for Primary School Mathematics Teachers in Fiji schools in terms of its components; Knowledge of Content and Students (KCS); Knowledge of Content and Teaching (KCT); Common Content Knowledge (CCK); and Specialized Content Knowledge (SCK), and to compare status of MKT (Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching) for primary schools teachers, with gender. The study engages descriptive survey with engagement of Stratified Random Sampling technique with sample size of 363 Primary School Teachers, from each stratus covering the four major Divisions; Northern, Central, Western, and Eastern and uses a test on MKT to gauge the levels of teachers' MKT and t-test analysis is used to analyse the data quantitatively. The relevance of the study is to give a sense of direction to the Ministry of Education in Fiji, on how to support primary school teachers with teaching and other related assistance, to bring about higher achievement in mathematics assessments, and more importantly, meaningful learning for students. Finally, the study allows dialogue of different college teachers on the notions of MKT and incorporate in mathematics education courses. The findings of the study are discussed in detail in the paper.