TEACHERS have been traditionally regarded as providers of professional knowledge and students as receivers of such knowledge.

This traditional teacher-centred pedagogy makes students passive learners because “information providers or assessors who check students' work to make sure they are coming up with the right answers, while students are just seen as passive recipients of the information,” according to Dr Sadaf Zamir Ahmed1, Dr Sohaib Sultan, Mamoona Kousar, Hafiz Abdul Basit, Dr Raham Zaid, and Sidra Bano. 

The scholars said this in their article “Effectiveness of Teacher’s Centred Approach on Student’s Learning at University Level”.

They argue that when teachers dominate teaching and learning processes, “students are more likely to lose sight of their goals than when they develop their knowledge.” 

In this way, learners are deprived of opportunities for developing their critical thinking and enhancing their problem-solving skills. “In the teacher-centred approach, the teacher uses the method of direct instruction to deliver knowledge to students. Direct teaching is a common teaching approach that relies on a commanding teaching style in which trainers educate through lectures or self-conducted demonstrations.”

Yet, when students are unable to develop and use their critical and problem-solving skills they can hardly compete in this rapidly evolving world which creates new problems that need new solutions. So, how can passive learners develop skills which will help them solve new problems? It is from this background that a new paradigm shift in education has evolved. It focuses on learner-centred learning. 

With this pedagogy, which is also referred to as “best practice pedagogy”, the role of teachers has changed from being providers of professional knowledge to being facilitators of learning. It has been adopted in many parts of the world.  

A scholar, Prof Nikolaos Tzenios, advocates learner-centred learning. In his article he published International Research Journal of Modernisation in Engineering Technology and Science in 2022 says: “The learner-centred teaching (LCT) approach, also known as student-centred or child-centred teaching, is characterised by student participation and a focus on tailoring teaching methodologies to individual student needs, learning styles, skills, and goals. It involves clear skill instruction, reflection on learning and how it is achieved, student control over learning, and collaboration within the classroom community.”

According to another scholar, Dr Rajendra Shah (2020), Paulo Frere is widely regarded as the founder of LCT. He says Freire established the groundwork for a system of education that empowered impoverished and illiterate individuals. 

“He regarded traditional TCT as a means of perpetuating oppression and correspondingly advocated for a system of education that allowed students to express their voice through the creation of dialogue with the teacher and situated educational activity within the lived experience of participants,” he says. 

Citing Frere, Dr Shah suggests that LCT challenges students “to actively create their own knowledge” through real-world experience and provides activities and assessments of their choices. In this way, teachers help students acquire skills and competencies to discover their own knowledge.

“These abilities generally correspond to the real-world soft skills required by today’s knowledge-based or creative economy, including problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, innovation, and creativity.” These skills, says Dr Shah, resulting from students’ meaningful participation in their learning process, can provide freedom from poverty and oppression, which contains relevance in postcolonial societies and developing nations.

Tanzania adopts a learner-centred pedagogy starting from pre-primary education to higher education. However, in practice there is leaning towards teacher-centred learning. But Curriculum and Syllabus for Pre-primary Education (2023) says it recommends “the use of teaching and learning techniques that treat the child as the centre of learning and the teacher as the facilitator. The teacher will use techniques that engage the child into the teaching and learning process while considering their age, various needs and levels of understanding.”

The curriculum says techniques to be employed in the learner-centred pedagogy include play and arts, information communication technology (ICT), discussions, gallery walk, and other interactive techniques that stimulate learning. 

It stresses that teachers need to be creative and innovative in using real objects available in their environment and must create an environment for schoolchildren to use them effectively during learning. It also recommends the teacher-student ratio of 1:25, which is ideal for learner-centred pedagogy because pre-schoolchildren need attention so that they may make the best out of their learning process.

It suffices to say that learner-centred pedagogy will improve the quality of education in Tanzania because it makes learners acquire skills and competencies that will make them participate in and contribute to the rapidly changing world of the 21st century. 

The new problems created by emerging technologies need new solutions and the new solutions will be found by learners who have critical and problem-solving skills. Although learner-centred pedagogy is widely adopted worldwide and in the country there is a need to embrace it from pre-primary education.