Somali teachers’ challenges in implementing 21st – century teaching approaches in Islamic education

Abstract

This study’s primary aim was to investigate the challenges preventing the effective implementation of 21st-century teaching approaches in the Islamic Education subject among secondary school teachers in Somaliland. Its secondary aim was to examine if the perceived challenges would differ significantly by school type (i.e., public versus private) and teaching experience (i.e., extensive, moderate, and minimal). The implementation challenges were categorized into five types, namely school-related, teacher-related, student-related, subject-related, and approach-related obstacles. To achieve the study’s objectives, the researcher employed the cross-sectional, ex post facto survey method and administered a 35-item questionnaire, adapted from Aldossari (2018), to 200 Islamic Education teachers employed at 53 public and private secondary schools in Hargeisa, the capital city of Somaliland. The data obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVAs, and independent samples t-tests. Cohen’s d effect sizes were estimated where significant differences between teacher groups were found. The results indicated that the most prevalent challenges were unsuitable classrooms (91.5%), the lack of educational equipment (77.0%), and large class sizes (66.5%), all of which were school-related difficulties the teachers faced in implementing 21st-century approaches in Islamic Education lessons. Teachers’ lack of experience (69.5%) and knowledge (58.0%) of 21st-century instructional approaches were the two most widely reported teacher-related obstacles, while the most pressing student-related issues were students’ lacking the culture of dialogue and discussion (58.5%) and their lack of learning motivation (57.0 %). The teachers also expressed an urgent need to be extensively trained on how to use innovative 21st-century teaching approaches correctly (79.0%). Overall, school-related difficulties had the highest mean rating (M = 3.70), while subject-related factors were rated as the least category of challenges (M = 3.08). Private- and public-school teachers differed significantly in their perceptions of teacher-related, subject-related, and approach-related challenges. However, the differences were either minimal, or at best, moderate, at Cohen’s d = .33, .51 and .33, respectively. The ANOVA results suggested that teachers with the greatest amount of teaching experience (i.e., 11 years or more) tend to perceive significantly greater challenges in utilizing 21st-century instructional approaches in the classroom than did their less experienced colleagues and counterparts. This could be due to the high level of comfort they had acquired with traditional methods and approaches after years of teaching in the school system. Based on the findings, the study recommends that school authorities and stakeholders conduct periodic professional training workshops and in-service programs for Islamic Education teachers to increase their proficiency in implementing methods and approaches like inquiry, cooperative learning and flipped learning in the 21st-century classroom. Providing them with practical models for the application of these methods in Islamic Education would be a good starting point to help the teachers embrace the paradigm shift toward student-centred teaching.