National concerns are emerging challenges that cut across the curriculum in order to ensure a holistic development of a learner. Cross-cutting Issues are cardinal and therefore, integrated across the curriculum at all levels of the education system. Those that cannot be integrated will be structured as special modules that can be offered within the framework of an appropriate learning area/subject. The following are some of the prominent Cross-Cutting Themes to be included in the curriculum:
SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS
Learners have different learning abilities. The category of learners with Special Educational Needs include; the hearing, visually, physically, intellectually impaired as well as the gifted/talented ones. Teachers and teacher-educators should be equipped with knowledge and skills to enable them identify, screen and assess them. They should also provide appropriate interventions to learners with Special Educational Needs in learning institutions.
Therefore, learning institutions should ensure that learners with Special Educational Needs are provided with appropriate resources for quality learning.
Children with special educational needs will require adapted curriculum and adapted technology relevant to their disabilities. However, learners with Intellectual Impairments as well as others with severe disabilities who cannot benefit from the inclusive curriculum will have an alternative curriculum that suits their needs and abilities. Such learners will be sent to special education units and schools. Teacher Education institutions should also include special education in their programmes in order to equip teachers with necessary knowledge, skills, positive attitudes and values in this area.
While striving for Inclusive Education provision, the Intellectually Impaired learners have an Alternative Education Curriculum that responds to their needs. The curriculum is divided into 3 levels. Level 1 is the initial while Level 3 the highest. It is planned that under Expressive Arts and Technology Studies, teachers will be encouraged to teach pre-vocational skills to equip learners that may not advance to skills training colleges. Computer Studies will also be taught under Technology Studies.
Activities for Daily Living (ADL) are of particular importance to such kind of learners as they help them enhance the mastery of what is to be done on daily basis.
The transcription of print materials into Braille will be an important ingredient for effective learning for the visually impaired learners, just like Sign Language for the hearing impaired learners.
CAREERS GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING
Education is an important tool for preparing an individual for a better life in adulthood. It is also an important tool for national development. To achieve this, Careers Guidance and Counselling are important to produce a well-balanced individual who will fit in society and contribute positively for his or her own good and society at large. The four areas of Careers Guidance and Counselling are: Personal, Social, Vocational and Educational. These should be provided to the learner in a well-balanced manner in order to develop a holistic individual. The four components revolve around the following three main areas: learning to live; learning to learn; and learning to work.
The basic concepts in Careers Guidance and Counselling should be offered to all teachers. This will enable them offer basic guidance and counselling to their learners. Therefore, teacher education institutions should include Careers Guidance and Counselling into their programmes. In addition, they should design learning activities that will equip student teachers with the knowledge and skills of Careers Guidance and Counselling.
LIFE SKILLS
Life Skills are abilities that promote positive behaviour that enables individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life.
These include:
j. Vocational skills;
i. Practical health related skills;
ii. Expressive skills (e.g. sports, music and art);
iii. Literacy skills;
iv. Numeracy and Mathematical skills; and
v. Psychosocial life skills (Skills related to behaviour and interaction with other people and the environment).
HUMAN RIGHTS
Zambia is a signatory to the United Nations (UN) conventions on Human Rights. In view of this, learning institutions should integrate Human Rights across the curriculum by way of involving learners in activities and practices that expose them to Human Rights awareness.
HIV AND AIDS
Learning institutions should incorporate HIV and AIDS education into their programmes to allow learners acquire knowledge, values and skills that they should use in their day to day lives. They should also ensure steady and cordial relationship with cooperating partners
GENDER
Gender refers to the socially constructed relations between men and women. Learning institutions should address gender issues of equity and equality in the curriculum. This has been strengthened by adopting gender sensitive teaching methodologies in the provision of education.
Gender refers to the behaviours, attitudes associated with being male or female. According to this definition, gender can be viewed from a social, cultural, psychological point of view rather than biological.
Sex roles are functions which can be performed by male or female because of their basic biological or anatomical differences between the two sexes. These functions cannot be changed because they are biologically determined and are universally accepted. Examples of such functions are as follow; Females are to bear children and lactate while males are to fertilise the ovum and to produce sperm which determine the child’s sex.
GENDER refers to culturally based expectations regarding the roles and behaviours of males and females. The term distinguishes the socially constructed from the biologically determined aspects of being male and female. Unlike sex roles that are biologically constructed, gender roles and behaviours are in most cases culturally prescribed.
Gender Development.
Every human being passes through stages of development in various aspects of life. Gender development is just one of them. One has to first identify the gender. This is the ability by children to know whether they are male or female and mainly happens at the age of two. Secondly, the child has to attend gender preference of being male or female. At this stage however, some children may prefer the gender which is not theirs.
For example, a boy may prefer to be a girl or vice versa and this may come out in the way they speak or dress. The final stage is gender constancy, where children understand the fact that no matter what gender one will prefer one’s gender cannot be altered. With this understanding, comes acceptance of one’s gender under normal circumstances.
Factors influencing gender development which bring about gender differences
Generally, there are three categories or factors that influence gender development and these are biological, social and cognitive influences.
1. Biological influences
From this view gender development emphasises the role played by male and female hormones in determining how an individual develops and what characteristics he or she bears. Santrock, (2001) discusses how the two sex hormones; oestrogen being responsible for oestradiol, which influences female physical characteristics and androgens which is responsible for male’s characteristics, have the bearing on gender development and difference.
Other scholars outside the field of biology such as Sigmund Freud and Erick Erickson have argued that human behaviour and development is influenced by individual genitals. The genital structure predisposes males to having intrusive and aggressive character while the female genitals tend to give females the more inclusive and passive character.
2. Social influences
The significant others play a pivotal role in influencing children’s gender beliefs and hence, contributing to gender differences. For instance, parents treat their children in ways which conform to describe social stereotype. This can be seen in the things they do for their children such as the toys they buy for them, the kind of roles they assign them, remarks the pass and other various expectations.
Peer influence as well has a bearing on both gender development and gender differences. Mostly, from middle childhood to adolescent, children tend to value their friends’ views about them more than their parents’ views. Most of this socialisation is done according to gender. Boys will be influenced more by fellow boys while girls will be influenced more by fellow girls. Hoffnung (1997:326) postulates that “girls tend to withdraw from a boy partner more often than from a girl partner, and boys heed prohibitions made by another boy more often than they do those that come from a girl.” This means that the two different genders tend to behave differently towards each other.
The school and the teacher also have an influence on gender development and gender differences. Teachers treat male and female pupils differently. The way they are treated has a bearing on gender development and consequently, on how different they will perceive themselves. In a study conducted in the early 1990s, Eccles (1993) discovered that teachers tended to affirm boys more than they did girls through praise and attention. In this way, girls might have started getting disconnected from the teaching- learning process and ultimately, cause them to develop low self-esteem. Furthermore, teachers communicate gender expectations unconsciously through body language and tone of voice.
The media also has an influence on gender development and gender differences. Children spend significant time on internets, especially social media such as Facebook where they are exposed to some celebrities and tend to behave the way they do. Televisions also contribute to help children to behave in a particular way and as such tend to be biased according to their gender.
3. Cognitive influence
This has also an influence on gender development and gender influence. In fact, cognitive influences on gender development are closely linked to the cognitive development theory and it is sometimes called the cognitive developmental theory. Santrock (2001:402) states that, “In the cognitive developmental theory of gender, children’s gender typing occurs after they have developed a concept of gender. Once they consistently conceive themselves as male or female, children often organise their world on the basis of gender.” Therefore, cognition creates gender beliefs and differences as much as it is created by them.
The schemas will be formed and strengthened by the repeated beliefs associated with a particular gender. Internal language therefore plays an important role in gender development as one will be greatly influenced by the internal dialogues that everyone has with and about us, (Vygotsky, 1978). To be able to change some one’s perception, one need to first change that person’s internal conversation which deals with cognition.
Impact of gender differences on academic performance
As earlier discussed, gender development and gender differences have an impact on the academic performance of learners. As Munsaka and Matafwali (2013) rightly put it that the genital structure predisposes males to having intrusive and aggressive character while the female genitals tend to give females the more inclusive and passive character, this will have a bearing on academic performance of learners. Boys will tend to be aggressive and enjoy challenging subjects while girls will remain passive and contribute less. Passive learners will not compete favourably with active learners and in most cases active learners will benefit more.
Since boys are given challenging tasks by parents and buy them toys and others playing devices, their minds will be stimulated and will develop analytical skills faster than their female counterparts. This will put them at an advantage to do well in practical and technology subjects such as science, mathematics, T.D, metal work and other related subjects. However, girls will be disadvantaged as they might not have as much experience as the boys.
Since girls will not be free to participate when around boys, they will be affected negatively in terms of academic performance.
As Hoffnung (1997:326) postulates that “girls tend to withdraw from a boy partner more often than from a girl partner, and boys heed prohibitions made by another boy more often than they do those that come from a girl.” This means that girls will be passive learners and even if they don’t get a point clearly from the teacher, they will decline to ask while the boys will ask. Similarly, boys will manipulate the girls and bully them since they know that they can’t do anything. This will have an impact on academic performance.
As in the study conducted in the early 1990s, Eccles (1993) discovered that teachers tended to affirm boys more than they did girls through praise and attention. In this way, girls might start getting disconnected from the teaching-learning process and ultimately, cause them to develop low self-esteem. What this means to the academic performance of girls is that they will have no spirit of fighting and aiming higher. To them such are issues for boys. This will not encourage them to work hard and beat the boys in terms of academic performance. Just a mere pass will make them comfortable since their goals will be just to pass.
Even when it comes to optional subjects, boys are favoured to take science and technology subjects while the girls are limited lo arts subjects. Generally, arts subjects are considered to be easier than science courses. This already places girls on the weaker side where the spirit of hard work in order to succeed will be killed. This is because most of the time boys will be motivated to work extra hard due to the kind of subjects they take while girls will be expected not to put in more.
The media will normally show bias in terms of reporting where influential positions in government and companies will be shown to be occupied by man and middle class kind of jobs being done by females. This will create a belief that will strengthen somebody’s schema and convince girls that even if she works hard, good and high paying jobs belong to boys. Therefore the issue of having role models who are from one particular gender will motivate learners in that particular gender group to work extra hard academically and leave the other one less motivated, hence, not putting much.
Application of the Cross-Cutting Issues in The Curriculum to a Classroom Situation
Bridging the gap that has existed for a long time, between males and females in terms of gender differences. The following are some of the ways that the teacher can help bridge the gap so that there will be no gender differences in a classroom:
To motivate learners who cannot perform because of their gender through guidance and counselling services and also role models.
A teacher needs to create an enabling environment that will give an equal opportunity for both boys and girls to perform favourably without any biasness towards any particular gender.
During PTA and Open days, parents should be sensitised on how important it is to motivate girl children to perform as much work as their boy children so that even at home they shouldn’t think that the girls place is the kitchen and she should not clear the surrounding, for example. Such tasks as slashing, cutting of trees and other related tasks should be assigned to both girls and boys.
The teacher should therefore strive to desist from “presenting marks on gender basis such as the highest among the girls or the boys but should just give the overall marks in the classroom. Furthermore, cut off points for selection to a higher grade (grades 8 and 10), though it came about as an issue of positive discrimination to offer places to girls, should be discouraged so that the playing field is levelled and will foster hard work among girls.
There should be enhancement of making all sporting activities available for both girls and girls just to try and eliminate the notion of girls being weaker than boys. For example the introduction of netball for boys and soccer for girls should be commended as a way of bridging the gap between genders.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, gender is a poor predictor of one’s performance and ability. We have seen women who are supported, doing better in what was previously considered a men’s domain. This is because things are changing as they are being facilitated by globalization.
Cognitive gender differences are slowly changing because the world is coming to an understanding that what a man can do, a woman can equally do it even better as long as it is not a sex role. It is therefore important that teachers and parents including the other child’s significant others support both genders equally without being bias towards one particular gender. With the enabling environment, women can compete favourably with their men counterparts.
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