The Trial of an Innovative Science Programme for Preservice Primary Teachers in Fiji

Science teaching in Fiji is often very formalistic and didactic. This is in part due to an extremely competitive examination system, but work by Muralidhar (1989, An exploratory study of a science curriculum in action: basic science in Fiji, Unpublished Ph.D thesis, Monash University) has also indicated that at the primary and lower secondary levels teachers' content knowledge of physical science was often lacking. This in turn impacted on the teachers' confidence, and often resulted in a teacher-centred approach in which there was little deviation from the set text. This article outlines an innovative science programme which was developed and trialled with Fijian preservice primary teachers in an attempt to improve their content knowledge of physical science. It also reports some of the student teachers' views on the various teaching strategies employed during the programme.