Teachers’ perspectives of factors affecting lesson planning practices in Vanuatu mathematics classrooms

Sustainable education is becoming a hot topic in debates and discussions worldwide. There are concerns that current education systems are not providing for the needs of all people in a sustainable way. Many countries are taking steps to ensure a type of education that will sustain their citizens and meet the challenges of tomorrow. In Vanuatu, such attempts are made through official documents such as the National Curriculum Statement (NCS), a policy statement to improve teaching, learning and teacher education. The NCS states that good teaching requires carefully planned strategies. This study investigated Vanuatu’s secondary school teachers’ perspectives on the factors that affect their lesson-planning strategies for achieving student-centred learning. Twenty secondary school mathematics teachers in Port Vila participated in this 2022 study. First, mathematics lesson plans were collected and analysed to evaluate whether the teachers could plan student-centred learning. Second, the teachers were interviewed individually to gauge their views on factors hindering their attempts to design student-centred learning. Data collected was analysed using a thematic analytical tool. The findings revealed the need to support teachers in lesson planning, particularly designing and using student-centred learning strategies.