Improving Relevance Through Contextualized
Learning Resources
Policy Brief
December 2010
Why Contextualized Learning Materials?
• Enrich learning experience for students
• Forge partnerships between lecturers
• Seize emerging opportunities and tackle challenges in learning
• Ensure the graduates produced are relevant to the
socio-economic dispensation
• Reduce cost of material
development to the institution in the long-run.
Deliberation of Agricultural issues in Africa during the contextualized
material development workshop with participants from 17 African
countries.
A
griculture in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continues to underperform. Contextualized learning materials, which bring
into perspective the experience, culture and environment of
learners need to be developed to enrich the learning experience. This is the first step in ensuring that graduates produced
are relevant to the present socio-economic dispensation. It will
further allow for growth and development of university faculties and students, with a long-term benefit of minimizing the
cost of acquisition of learning materials.
Most teaching materials in Tertiary Agricultural Educational Institutions (TAEI) in SSA have originated from outside Africa. These
are used without adaptation to the socio-cultural conditions of
African countries. It is therefore not surprising that graduates are
not performing as expected in the field (Temu et al., 2007).
Policy Messages
There is need to increase availability of contextualized learning
material and to re-tool lecturers on the process of developing
them for their own use. This will in addition confer the following benefits:-
1
Main Findings
From the material development workshop, the following
are the key lessons:• Contextualization is
mostly limited to subject
matter and less to the
learning environment.
• More time should be
given to developing new
learning materials.
• Collaboration achieved
in developing
contextualized learning
materials is essential
in improving quality of
teaching and learning in
TAEI in Africa.
• There is goodwill by
lecturers to develop
contextualized material
but a platform is lacking
hence ANAFE efforts need
to be up-scaled.
Increase Incentives
Context
People respond to motivation. Production of
contextualized learning material should be
used as a ‘carrot’ for staff motivation. Areas for
incentives could include: specific payment for
developed publications; sharing of income
from sold materials; award of prizes for learning
materials development; support for sabbatical
leave to facilitate development of learning
materials and recognition of developed
materials for promotion.
From our studies in Mali, Benin, Sudan,
Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania
and Malawi, (Chakeredza et al., 2009)
we established that lecturers were not
developing any contextualized learning
materials and teaching was based on
textbooks developed elsewhere outside
Africa. The major reasons for the lack of
development of contextualized learning
materials were: lack of policy support, lack of
funds, lack of incentives for the production
of the materials; lack of experience in the
production of contextualized learning
materials and limited partnerships to support
the process.
Partnerships
Partnerships and networking are imperative
in the promotion of contextualized learning
materials production. Faculties will be able to
learn from each other and adopt best-practices
in the development of contextualized learning
materials. Such partnerships need to be
nurtured and promoted. Guest lecturers can
be linked to teaching modules through Skype
and video conferencing to enhance material
delivery.
Policy Recommendations
Enriching the learning experience
Educationalists are in agreement to the fact
that the way students learn is related to
their environment. Personal experiences,
emotions, interpretative frameworks serve
to create a complex system of processes that
affect the nature of the learners’ personal
knowledge and how it is constructed—the
so-called “constructivist” approach to the
learning process. It is prudent therefore
to build on what students already know
in the construction of new knowledge.
Contextualized learning is among suitable
avenues through which these perspectives
can be integrated.
Training
Staff cannot produce good contextualized
learning materials without training. In most
tertiary agricultural training institutions,
teaching is done without staff undergoing
specific training in pedagogy or andragogy. It
is important that staff receive formal training
on the production of contextualized learning
materials. Training activities can be mounted on
a regional basis throughout SSA.
Relevance of graduates to the socio-economic
dispensation
Tertiary agricultural institution graduates need
to “hit the ground running” upon graduation.
They can only manage that if they have been
adequately grounded on the dynamics of rural
development during training. In addition to
working closely with the communities during
the training period, local examples need to
be brought into the learning materials “to
contextualize” the learning experience. This
helps to ensure that graduating students will be
relevant in the broader context of smallholder
agricultural development in SSA.
Jan Beneist, a facilitator during the workshop on
contextualization in Nairobi.
2
Growth and development of faculties and
students
As a contribution to job satisfaction, faculties
will be enthused to see the materials they
have developed being used in the training
programme. Students will also look up to
their lecturers if they are using materials
they have developed by incorporating local
context. They will find it easier to draw a link
between what they are learning and practice.
These benefits will enhance the development
of both universities’ faculties and students.
Cost to the institution in the long run
Participants post cards on contextualized material development during a training workshop in
Nairobi.
If learning material production by the
lecturers is institutionalized, long-term
benefits to the institutions will be lowered
costs to the acquisition of learning materials
by students. Materials produced by lecturers
will also be easily available to the students
and will be widely used in the learning
process.
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Contextualized Learning
Materials Developed
Agro-forestry
Soil Fertility
Milk Production
Animal Nutrition
Crop Protection
Natural Resource Management, and
Climate Change
More local knowledge is available in applied
areas of agriculture and natural resources
management than in basic education.
This knowledge needs to be tapped and
packaged in contextualized learning
materials hence the need to up-scale and
out-scale the project.
Taylor and Mulhall (1997) define
contextualization as “the content, methods
and materials used in teaching being related to
the experience, culture and environment of the
learners”.
About the Project
In all the countries (Mali, Benin, Sudan,
Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and
Malawi), policy makers, managers, researchers,
extension officers, investors, private sector,
farmers, students, lecturers / tutors and
university / college heads were well aware of
challenges to current tertiary level training.
They appreciate the need for developing
contextualized learning materials.
This project initiated and developed by The
African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and
Natural Resource Education (ANAFE), is funded by
the Department for International development
(DFID) under the mobilizing Regional capacity
Initiative (MRCI) of the Association of African
Universities.
The overall objective of the project was
considered to be very relevant since national
learning institutions in Africa have identified a
priority need to develop contextualized learning
resources to teach agriculture, agroforestry and
natural resource management.
If development of contextualized learning
materials is mainstreamed in TAEI (Tertiary
Agricultural Educational Institutions), the
quality of teaching and learning will greatly
improve. Materials developed in the pilot
phase were lecture notes in the following
thematic areas:-
The training workshop on learning material
development was attended by twenty eight
3
Continued on page 4
About the Project
Acknowledgement
Continued from page 3
We are grateful for the financial support
from the Association of African Universities
and the World Agroforestry Centre through
the AGROLOR project funded by the
Flemish Government in developing the
materials. Special thanks to Jan Beniest of
ICRAF, Thomas Zschocke of United Nations
University for coordinating the workshop.
We also wish to acknowledge the resource
persons, facilitators of different sessions and
participants for their valuable input in the
material development process.
participants comprising Deans of faculties,
Heads of Department, and Lecturers from
seventeen countries in Eastern, Central, Western
and Southern Africa. The pool of lecturers was
competitively selected to undergo a five day
training course in Nairobi, Kenya.
The objective of the course was to strengthen
the capacity of potential authors to produce
contextualized materials that are relevant and
appropriate to their learners and to develop a
common strategy for implementing the process.
The training took a participatory learning
approach involving plenary sessions by resource
persons, interspersed with sharing of experiences
among learners, exercises and discussions on
topics selected and agreed on by the group.
Participants were equipped with skills to use
library catalogues and conduct advanced
or specialized searches. They further had a
practical session to synthesize and gain more
understanding of library catalogues.
In addition, participants were introduced to
online learning resources and accessing learning
repositories and referatories like the ANAFE Moodle
site. The site enables participants to access material
used in the workshop as part of their practice.
References
Chakeredza, S., Drame-Yaye, A., Temu, A.B.,
Mattee, A. Z., Alemayehu, G., Laswai, G., Mwase,
W., Assogbadjo, A., Dembele, S. G., Kenya, E.,
Rukazambuga, D. and Abdalla, A. M. 2009.
Production of contextualized learning materials
in Sub-Saharan African Tertiary Agricultural
Institutions: Challenges and Perspectives.
Taylor, P. and Mulhall, A. 1997. Contextualizing
teaching and learning in primary schools: Using
agricultural experience. Volume 1. Department
of International Development, 94 Victoria Street,
London, 219 pp.
Temu, A., Mwanje, I., Mogotsi, K. 2007. Improving
Agriculture and Natural Resources Education
in Africa: A stitch in time. Nairobi, Kenya: World
Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)
Participants during a contextualized material development workshop in Nairobi.
The Association of African
Universities (AAU) is the apex
organization and forum for
consultation, exchange of
information and co-operation
among institutions of higher
education in Africa.
The African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resource Education (ANAFE)
is a is a 18-year old African
network presently comprising
of 136 African universities and
colleges in 35 African countries.
The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) is
part of the alliance of Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
centres dedicated to generating and applying
the best available knowledge to stimulate
agricultural growth, raise farmers’ incomes,
and protect the environment.
ANAFE Secretariat | PO Box 30677-00 100 Nairobi Kenya | Tel: +254 20 7224135, 7224000 (operator) | Fax: +254 20 7224001 | Email: [email protected] | http: / / www.anafeafrica.org