The 70-30 Dilemma and Physics Teachers’ Preparedness

Abstract

The new direction of education chosen for Ethiopia promises the country’s development and poverty eradication to be ascertained by the development of large army of trained citizens in science and technology fields. Some three years have passed since the implementation of the 70:30 policy comes into effect. This paper tries to assess how realistically this direction is being pursued in general and what the preparedness of physics teachers for the best attainment of the goal looks like. Using government documents, a general overview of the reality of Ethiopian schools in relation to science education has been presented and the existing dilemma has been established. The dilemma is larger proportions of students are directed towards the natural science direction while their achievement in science is very low. Therefore, the majority of the students, as high as 90% of them, are below the policy minimum in one of the central subjects in science and technology. Then, by way of resolving the dilemma and assuring progress in the 70:30 direction; well qualified physics teachers have been suggested. These qualified teachers needed are those which are more than ordinary to work in the grim conditions of students’ achievement and reverse the declining trend. However, the existing professional readiness of physics teachers as demonstrated with selected case study5 researches is alarming in both their subject matter as well as professional knowledge. Finally, the paper concludes with suggestion of revisiting, diversifying and deepening physics teachers’ training which focuses on both the basic physics subject matter knowledge (SMK) and the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK).