Teachers’ coping teaching strategies in over enrolled classes: an analysis of selected secondary schools in Kafue district.

The Purpose of this study was to establish the copying teaching strategies that teachers use to teach over enrolled classes in Kafue district.
Four Head teachers were interviewed to find out the copying strategies that their teachers used to teach over enrolled classes. The interviews also included sixteen (16) Heads of department, four from each school visited and twenty four (24) teachers, six (6) from each school. Twenty four ( 24) learners, six (6) from each school also had focus group discussion to respond to the strategies used in over enrolled classes. The research questions required the respondents to explain the class management strategies, instructional strategies, assessment strategies used in teaching over enrolled classes and also successes recorded regardless of over enrolment were required. The class registers, lesson plans, pupils’ exercise book and result analysis sheets provided materials for document analysis.
The results showed that seventy five (75) percent of the schools in Kafue district were over enrolled. All the schools visited showed that they had adopted certain teaching strategies when teaching over enrolled classes for the benefit of the learners. The class management strategies that have been adopted in these schools are; calling of pupils by name, counselling learners and reprimanding learners when necessary. The instructional strategies adopted are; teacher expository, question and answer, whole class discussion, homework, note writing and demonstration, while the assessment strategies are short class exercises, mid-term and end of term tests. In view of these findings it was evident that from the final results of grades nine (9) and twelve (12) that these strategies were good for the over enrolled classes. The researcher made three (3) recommendations which were based on the findings. The first recommendation was for the government to consider building more schools and expanding the existing ones in order to decongest over enrolled classes, the second one was for the government to consider employing assistant teachers in over enrolled classes to help in class control and marking pupils’ exercise books and the last one was that school projects should not determine the enrolment figures in schools.