Development of Social Studies Learners’ Textbooks for Secondary Schools in Zambia

Learner’s text books are one of the most important teaching and learning resources in most schools in developing countries, Zambia inclusive. This study was triggered as a result of concerns by various stakeholders and scholars regarding the quality of Social Studies learners’ textbooks for the junior secondary school which were developed following the 2013 revised Zambian school curriculum. The embedded research design of the mixed methods research approach was employed for this study. Using interview guides and questionnaires for data collection, information was collected from book publishers and 91 teachers of social studies. The findings of this study revealed that privatization of textbook development resulted in the development of poor quality textbooks. Furthermore, failure to adhere to a specific national textbook policy to guide the development of learners’ textbooks also contributed to the development of poor textbooks. It was further revealed that there was lack of coordination between the Curriculum Development Center and textbook publishing companies. Additionally, findings pointed to the fact that secondary school teachers of Social Studies were not fully involved in developing learners’ textbooks and political interference in textbook development was found to have also contributed to poor quality textbook development. Researchers in this study recommended that the Ministry of General Education (MoGE) through the Curriculum Development Centre should thoroughly revise the textbooks in question, broaden the scope of teacher involvement and stop the privatization of textbook development in


Introduction
Despite a school having different curriculum materials that can be used in order to facilitate the teaching and learning process, UNESCO (2010) asserted that textbooks are considered as one of the most reliable resources for active and effective learning. Textbooks play an important role in education because of their close relation to the classroom teaching and learning process. If well written textbooks guide how classroom lessons can be structured with suitable learning activities such as classroom exercises. Therefore, learners' textbooks are cardinal in curriculum development and are considered as one of the most important tools and resource for effective implementation of a curriculum (Valverde et al, 2002). The revision of the Zambian school curriculum in 2013 brought about the integration of three learning areas namely; Civics, Geography and History at Junior Secondary School level resulting in one subject, Social Studies. Thus, in this context, Social Studies is an inter-disciplinary programme with a contemporary orientation incorporating some aspects of Civics, Geography and History that were previously taught as separate subjects before the curriculum was revised in 2013 (CDC, 2013a). The Ministry of General Education claimed that the integration was done because some content in the three subjects were interrelated and that some competences were similar too (CDC, 2013b). UNESCO (2010) further contended that quality education cannot be isolated from the quality of learner's textbooks that are developed as a core input in education. The revision of the curriculum in 2013 in Zambia necessitated the need for new teaching and learning materials in order to facilitate effective implementation. Social Studies being a new subject, urgently required the development of learners' textbooks. However, the integration of these three subject areas was a major change in the Zambian curriculum and MoE (1992:28) rightly noted that 'major curriculum changes must generally be accompanied by changes in learning materials such as textbooks'. It is a well-known fact that the use of textbooks and other learning resources by learners in schools have a positive effect on learning and on the overall quality of education. Thus, the quality of an education system can be noted by the provision of quality textbooks and other educational teaching and learning resources. Ekwueme the former Vice President of Nigeria in his opening speech at the first Nigerian National Congress held in Lagos from 21 st to 25th of March in 1983 observed that Education is the backbone of national development and the textbook is the principal element in the education process. Despite textbooks being acknowledged as the backbone of the teaching and learning process, UNESCO (2010) observed that the development of textbooks has since time in memorial posed a challenge to most education systems. But if we are to talk about the provision of quality education as envisaged in the fourth sustainable development goal, then quality learners' text books is inevitable just as Richard et al (2014) also added that a quality textbook supports learning and the educational goals of a country that aims to develop a literate society. Scholars like Tyson (1997) further emphasized the need for having quality textbooks in order to mediate desirable knowledge, skills, values and attitudes in learners. Failure to provide learners with quality textbooks is a recipe for the providing poor education to learners. Besides, UNESCO (2010) cautioned that education of poor quality is equivalent to no education at all. A study that was done by Mulenga and Mwanza (2019) on Teacher involvement in Curriculum Development in Zambia revealed that textbooks that were developed following the 2013 revision of the curriculum were of poor quality. Moreover, the Zambian Ministry of General Education Joint Annual Review Meeting report (MoGE, 2016) also indicated that subject associations, teachers and other education stakeholders such as NGOs complained that the quality of curriculum materials such as textbooks that were developed following the 2013 revised curriculum were of poor quality. Additionally, at a monitoring visit on 25 th September 2018 at Kalabo Secondary School in Western province of Zambia the then Minister of General Education also lamented about the poor quality of textbooks that were developed for the 2013 revised curriculum. The poor quality of textbooks is a clear indication that there were problems that needed to be addressed in the development of text books such as those for Social Studies. Nevertheless, it appears the development of Social Studies learners' textbooks for junior secondary school in Zambia had hardly been analyzed. In spite of all this literature and evidence attached to the importance of textbooks, many developing countries including Zambia have not yet succeeded in providing their school systems with quality textbooks as expected. Researchers in this paper wondered why and thus tasked themselves to investigate this phenomena. The overall research problem that was addressed in this study was that despite learners' textbooks being so important for effective curriculum implementation and education stakeholders complaints about the poor quality of social studies learners' textbooks in Zambia little or no studies seemed to have been done to analyze the development of Social Studies learners' textbooks for junior secondary school.

2.
Theoretical Framework of the Study This study was guided by the social constructivism theory that was propounded by Kenneth Gergen. The social constructivism theory is one of the three main schools of thought in the constructivist theory of education. The theory focuses on the role that social interaction plays in creating knowledge. According to this model, knowledge is constructed based on social interactions and social consensus. It is from this perspective that the development of Social Studies learners' textbooks for junior secondary school was addressed. Social constructivism theory requires one primary element, two or more participants. These participants must be actively involved in some form of interaction for knowledge to be well and authentically constructed (Gergen, 1995). Richard et al (2014) observed that the development of curriculum materials such as textbooks requires the collaboration of authors who are specialized in the subject area, editors, curriculum specialists, subject specialists, textbook designers and textbook publishers among others. Therefore, the need for interaction of various stakeholders especially experts in the development of curriculum materials such as textbooks is necessary if quality textbooks are to be developed. However, from the literature that was gathered there seem to be a strong indication that teachers, from whom authors of textbooks are supposed to come from, were not actively involved in most curriculum development processes in Zambia (Mulenga & Mwanza, 2019).

3.
Research Methodology This study employed a mixed methods research approach that allowed the researchers to collect, analyze and interpret both quantitative and qualitative data sets in a single study as scholars such as Creswell (2012) have advised. Reams and Twale (2008) argued that mixed methods are necessary to uncover information and perspectives, increase corroboration of data and render less biased and more accurate conclusions. Because of the mixed methods pragmatist nature researchers in this study were able to reveal data about real-issues that were behind the development of social studies learner's textbooks in Zambia. Thus, it was possible to have both numerical and qualitative perspectives of the topic at hand and this helped to make the study more exploratory. In particular, the mixed method research design that was employed was an embedded design which helped researchers to get more of the qualitative data than quantitative data. The collection of the second form of data in this case namely quantitative was to support the primary form of data and thus gave additional information. selected secondary schools in Lusaka district. Three (3) text book publishers where also sampled using the simple random sampling method. The Chief Curriculum Specialist and Curriculum Specialists for social studies were purposively sampled. Thematic analysis was used in analyzing qualitative data while descriptive statistics, mainly frequencies and percentages, were employed for analyzing quantitative data.

5.
Findings and Discussion The information that was obtained from participants through interviews and questionnaires were combined and discussed concurrently according to themes that emerged from them. The sections that follow have the results and their discussions.

5.1.
Quality of Social Studies Learners' Textbooks One of the research questions sought to assess the quality of the Social Studies learners' textbooks. Although the reviewed literature had already indicated that the quality of text books was not good enough this question was vital to ask participants because none of the reviewed research literature had particularly given an in-depth study of the quality of social studies learners' textbooks. The information that was there was about textbooks in general.
In order to answer this question, the researchers had to establish whether; the content in the social studies textbook was in accordance with the 2013 revised syllabus; covered the designed aims, goals and objectives of the subject adequately, had accurate content, had a balanced integration of the three learning areas (Civics, History and Geography) and also analyzed the quality of the textbook in general. In that regard, teachers of Social Studies were asked to indicate on a five points likert scale ranging from bad to very good (1=Very Bad, 2= Bad, 3= Undecided, 4 = Good, 5 = Very Good) about the quality of the Social Studies learners' textbook for junior secondary school. In order to have a better understanding on the extent of quality from the teachers' views, the researchers covered various aspects of a textbook which helped to assess the extent of its quality. The responses from the teachers' are summarized in the table 1. Examining the results in table 1 about teachers' views on the quality of Social Studies learners' textbooks, it can be seen that teachers mostly expressed that the textbooks were of poor quality as they rated most of its components below average. Most of the aspects that would make a textbook to be of good quality were rated either bad or very bad. The researchers then inquired from the other participants too about their views regarding the quality of the same textbooks. The researchers asked the Chief Curriculum Specialist's views on the correctness of content in the textbooks. He explained that; To a very large extent the content in the textbook is inaccurate. For instance illustrations in a textbook must help to make the content very vivid but to everyone's dismay wrong information was put in the social studies textbooks. For example the picture of the royal barge of the Kuomboka traditional ceremony of the Lozi people is given as an illustration of the Umutomboko ceremony of the Luda in Luapula province. As if that was not enough how on earth could someone mention a town like Kalomo which is in southern province to say it was in Western Province. There are many such wrong things in these books. But when learners read that they will take it as correct However, in another interview with the Curriculum Specialist for Social Studies, when asked the same question, he explained that; If you hear most of the things stakeholders are complaining about, are spelling mistakes which are editorial really….there were only I think two to three issues I saw in the Social Studies that were incorrect. They wrote something like the capital city of Southern Province instead of the Provincial Headquarters, so that is wrong. There were very few things that affected the actual content. A few were there but very few and were minor issues. In book development my brother, if we gave other people to go through your book three-fourth times some people will still find mistakes in your book. But there is a certain percentage of mistakes that is allowed in book evaluation but the society will not understand that. All the findings regarding the quality of the textbooks indicated that the textbooks were of poor quality. In table 1 teachers indicated that the textbooks did not reflect the syllabus, contained inaccurate content, did not adequately reflect the subjects aims, goals and objectives and lastly the textbooks were generally of poor quality. In a study that was conducted by Mulenga and Mwanza (2019)  were willing to participate in the development of the curriculum had their reasons connected to the effective implementation of the curriculum' especially the development of curriculum materials. This coincided with the findings in this study on the quality of the Social Studies learners' textbooks in that teachers had actually been aware that their participation in the development is cardinal if quality textbooks were to be produced. Rume (2012) contended that content in a textbook should be accurate, without any errors. The view by Rume should be taken seriously because learners take what is in the textbooks as gospel truth, some errors do not exist as errors to the learners but as the truth. A situation where a curriculum specialist takes spelling mistakes as a minor issue should never be tolerated when it comes to textbook development. This finding is an impediment to the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal four which emphasizes the provision of quality education.

5.2.
Procedure that was followed when developing the textbook In the context of this theme, the procedure for developing the textbook, teachers generally pointed out that they did not know how the textbooks were developed. Opinions of Curriculum Specialists and textbook publishers indicated that the process of textbook development was based on privatization of textbook development and the process was not guided by a national textbook policy while the other critical issue pointed out by the Curriculum Specialist and Chief Curriculum Specialist was that they were not given the full authority of developing the textbooks instead they were influenced by politicians. Aspects such as privatization of the textbook development process, national textbook policy and influence from authorities were the main themes that emerged regarding the procedure as explained in the sections that follow.

5.2.1.
Privatization of textbook development The researcher asked the Curriculum Specialist on the procedure that was used in developing textbooks. He explained that; Textbook

That way we produced quality materials. And it is cheaper for government because when we work with teachers to do the textbook we only required reasonable allowances to pay them.
After the book had been published, we did not really promise such teachers royalties to be given money for the textbooks that they had done because they were just contributing to what a curriculum developer has done and they were not coming there as private consultants but as government teachers. According to the participants, textbooks were developed by a named private textbook publishing company with CDC only taking up the evaluation process. The Chief Curriculum Specialist explained that due to privatization of textbook development, the procedure of developing learners' textbooks was that CDC developed the syllabus which was given to different private publishers who later developed the textbooks. Since textbooks play a vital role in ensuring quality education, there was a need to ensure that the development was detached from profit oriented institutions this is because private companies might have prioritized money making over quality. The research findings are in agreement with several research findings by different scholars who argued that privatization of textbook development should not be tolerated (Brunswic & Hajjar, 1991). This view has been supported by Michael (2007: 6) who indicated that 'financial benefits rather than the passion to engage in textbook development should be recognized as the main reason why authors write textbooks'. In the case of Zambia, it was hoped that active private sector involvement in textbook development would ensure competition which would later result in the development of quality textbooks. Unfortunately, many private publishing companies had come on board and the quality of textbooks was instead compromised.

National textbook policy
In an interview, the researcher asked the Chief Curriculum Specialist if the textbooks were developed using a specific textbook policy guideline. The Specialist explained that;

No, we did not follow any national textbook policy. Instead, we have the 2013 Zambia Education Curriculum Framework which is now the revised curriculum which introduced Social Studies at junior secondary level (grades eight and nine). As you know before 2013 there was no Social Studies, instead we had civics, history and geography as stand-alone subjects but when we did mapping we found out that there were a lot of repetitions across the three subjects.
So it was the framework and syllabus we used to develop the books. This was also confirmed by the Curriculum Specialist who was asked in a separate interview. The responses from the participants concerning the procedure that was followed when developing the textbooks revealed that there was no specific national textbook policy to guide the development of the textbooks. It was discovered that the process of textbook development was not guided by a specific textbook policy, which was supposed to directly guide the process and state the standards required in order to have quality textbooks. These findings agree with those of Michael (2007) who suggested the need for a satisfactory textbook policy to ensure a high quality textbook production for all primary schools in Ghana. In addition, UNESCO (1996) stressed that the process of developing a sustainable textbook provision system should start with adhering to a textbook policy. Therefore, the need to adhere to a specific national textbook policy in order to ensure quality is key if the process was to yield good results.

Influence from authorities
In an interview conducted with one of the curriculum specialists at CDC on the procedure that was used when developing the Social Studies textbooks. He explained that; The politicians hijacked the implementation of the 2013 Zambian school revised curriculum by giving us (Curriculum Specialists) directives to implement the curriculum despite not having the curriculum support materials such as textbooks among others. We gave technical advice but it fell on deaf ears. They instructed us that there was no need to question their decisions but to just follow. The implementation of the curriculum later resulted in a rush despite the need for textbooks in schools. Hence, we were directed to have textbooks developed hurriedly. For instance, Curriculum Specialists continued to revise the syllabus which was given to textbook publishers who had even commenced the process of textbook development. This resulted in the failure to follow the correct procedure of developing textbooks and the end result is known in terms of the quality of textbooks. Influence from authorities was also expressed by the participants as having characterized the process of developing the textbooks. The findings revealed that Curriculum Specialists were not given the full authority to decide on the development of the textbooks but instead were given directives from higher authorities despite them not being curriculum experts. This finding is in accordance with the finding in a report of an IIEP seminar held in Mozambique, Brunswic and Hajjar (1991) stressed that Ministry of Education's intervention was necessary because curriculum centers could not work on their own in developing effective policies but this did not mean the Ministry of General Education should have taken over from CDC and start deciding on curriculum matters. Curriculum technical issues should be left to technocrats to decide on strategies when implementing the syllabus or revising it. This actually confirms what Mulenga (2018) stated that in ministries of education in Africa it is common to find officials who had very scant knowledge and skills about curriculum development taking over the process of developing it.

5.3.
Criteria followed to choose stakeholders in developing Social Studies learners' textbooks It was also important to find out how the developers of the textbooks were selected. With regard to the criteria that was used in choosing stakeholders, teachers stated that they did not know the criteria that was followed when choosing who should participate in the textbook development process. Participants shared different opinions about it. For instance, one teacher stated that; There seem to be no criteria per say which is followed, the decisions are in the hands of the people in higher offices that is the Curriculum Development Center to choose who they want to involve. If there is a criteria then it's just on paper otherwise I have never heard of it. Another teacher stated that; The criteria might be there but as usually like we see with other educational processes you will only see people taking part without actually knowing how they found themselves there. Because even in the wider ministry you will find wrong people attending curriculum related workshops and yet they are not even teaching in school. When the Curriculum Specialist was asked on the criteria the textbook publishers used when choosing who was to take part in developing the textbooks, he explained that; Different textbook publishers were free to set their own criteria depending on their preferences when it comes to choosing stakeholders who would help in textbook development. Private publishers do it on their own. So they got whoever they found to be cheaper. The Chief Curriculum Specialist also confirmed that the decision to choose who should be involved in textbook development was in the hands of textbook publishers and that CDC officials did not know whether the stakeholders who took part in developing the textbooks were qualified or not. But when the Curriculum Specialist was asked about the criteria used to choose who took part in the evaluating of the textbooks. He explained that; They used qualified teachers who taught any of the three learning areas and had a teacher's qualification. This view from the curriculum specialist seemed unique because most literature has it that teachers were not mostly involved in the curriculum development process.

Lack of Coordination
The findings revealed that there was also lack of coordination in the process of textbook development. For example, when the Curriculum Specialist was asked about who actually sat down to write the textbooks, he explained that; I do not know the authors who were selected to write the textbooks. That is known by the textbook publishers we (CDC) only took part in evaluation. The researcher also asked the textbook publisher if there was a criteria that CDC outlined for them as to who should write the textbooks. The textbook publishers explained that they were not given any guide lines but could choose who they wanted to write the books. The finding regarding the criteria that was used when selecting stakeholders who were involved in developing the textbooks revealed that there was no coordination between the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) and the private textbook publishers. The participants expressed that textbook publishers were left to work on their own with whoever they were comfortable with and CDC did not make an effort to find out from the textbook publishers the qualifications and experiences of people who were involved in developing the textbooks. There seemed to be no coordination between the two institutions but each one worked independently. These findings are in line with the findings by Seguin (1986) who observed that without rigorous coordination between and among stakeholders, the project to develop and produce a quality textbook can present serious defects. Additionally, Brunswic and Hajjar (1991) also explained that a better coordination of responsibilities among different partners involved in textbook development notably between the private sector and public authorities yielded positive results. Textbook development process requires coordination of all the activities pertaining to the education system and the publishing industry and the government institution responsible for this task should guide all other stakeholders.

Lack of teacher involvement
From the findings presented in this study, it was revealed that teachers were not fully involvement in the development of textbooks. The participants expressed their views differently. For example, one teacher wrote that; I have never heard of an invitation for teachers to participate in developing textbooks at whichever stage, all am familiar with is teachers being invited to set examinations and mark that is all. I personally did not take part in developing the textbooks.
Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) DOI: 10.7176/JEP Vol.10, No.6, 2019 Another teacher stated that; Textbook development is only done by top officials, people from the grassroots like us teachers are not considered. I think there is not much representation from the grassroots if at all its even there. All we see are already published textbooks being delivered in schools but we do not know who was involved. When the researcher asked the Curriculum Specialist if teachers were involved in textbook development he explained that; As a result of privatization, the full authority of textbook development is vested in different textbook publishers. Hence, the textbook publisher that developed the textbook should know better. Furthermore, when asked in a separate interview if teachers were involved, the textbook publisher explained that; We used different people in textbook development such as retired teachers, primary school teachers and to a larger extent people who were willing to author because at times interest supersedes qualifications. The study findings revealed that the majority of teachers who took part in the study were not involved in the development of textbooks. Teachers expressed that they were not involved at any level in the process of developing the textbooks. In support of this finding, Tomlinson (2008) proposed that in the whole process of textbook development and evaluation, teachers should take up a key role as they were the best stakeholders to be aware of learners' needs and interests. This could be the reason why Bantwini (2010) pointed out that there was need for the stakeholders responsible for textbook development to acknowledge that teacher involvement was significant in textbook development. The publishers view that interest in writing textbooks superseded qualifications was worrisome. The fact that one was interested in writing textbooks does not given such a person knowledge and skills of the subject area leave alone the competencies to write textbooks for learners. Mulenga and Mwanza (2019) were therefore on target when they mentioned that; Teachers were not given such chances and thus their voices were only heard as cries in the school wilderness. Teachers know what to teach and how they can contribute to the improvement of the curriculum development processes in Zambia but the system seems to ignore them and only thinks of them at implementation stage. Thus, teachers feel that their school and classroom experiences, skills and knowledge are underutilized.

Evaluation Social Studies learners' textbooks
Another theme that was strongly coming out was that of evaluation of the textbooks. A Curriculum Specialist explained that they did not evaluate the textbooks before approval. He actually said that; When the textbook at its draft form was submitted here (CDC) we made four copies then the evaluation team commenced evaluation meetings. The team members got a copy each and individually went through. Next, the team members were required to write reports independently thereafter came together as a team and wrote one report known as an evaluation report. The report contained suggestions made by the evaluation team which needed to be considered and then the book resubmitted for verification before approval for printing after the publisher had reworked the manuscripts. However, as a result of pressure mounted on us (Curriculum Specialists) from higher authorities and schools to have the textbooks quickly given to them, we decided to communicate to the publishers through a phone call allowing them to go ahead with printing the textbooks without us verifying if the suggestions we made were effected or not. Those were the steps that were followed when evaluating the textbooks. Effective development and evaluation of textbooks requires commitment to follow all the necessary steps in the process of developing and evaluating textbooks. The findings about the evaluation of textbooks in this study are confirming why the social studies text books in the Zambian case were in such a poor state. Not doing an evaluation of any curriculum material is as good as not having provided the learning resource to learners. One wonders if these books were even pilot tested with all the revelations regarding influence from authorities who seem to have had different agendas regarding these books. There was need for CDC to have the textbooks effectively evaluated to ensure that they were free from errors and generally were of good quality. This finding is consistent with Crismore (1989) who suggested that teachers should engage in evaluation or field-testing of textbooks to ensure only quality textbooks were made available to the learners. These and other related results illustrate that when textbooks are approved without evaluating or field-testing them, there are great implications on the education system of the country since the textbooks may be of poor quality. In line with this, Crismore (1989: 150) further observed that 'field testing of textbooks would give an opportunity not only to explore the quality of the textbooks but also to have the teacher's needs, ideas and experiences included'. A textbook of good quality requires careful evaluation and field-testing before approval for use in schools.

6.
Conclusion and Recommendations Textbook development has not yet received much attention and professional seriousness in Zambia. According to the results of this study it can be confidently concluded and confirmed that indeed, the Social Studies learners' textbooks were of poor quality. Interference from the so called authorities in professional and sensitive matters such as the development of learners' textbooks should not be tolerated because the compromise on the quality of textbooks can be very detrimental to the learners' academic achievement and eventually to the quality of education of a nation. People in authority especially politicians should have respect for specialists and give them space so that they can provide good services to learners. Education is not a field for politics but intellectualization and clear thinking that are based on workable theory and practice. Teacher involvement is fundamental in the development of quality textbooks. Teachers are qualified and interact with the curriculum and learners' day in and day out and thus they are in a better position to write good textbooks for learners. Teachers know what can work and not work well for learners. However, in the Zambian situation, teachers seem to be marginalized to the classrooms while they are provided with poorly written textbooks such as the social studies one which they are expected to use for curriculum implementation. Besides, a clear national textbook policy is necessary for the development of quality textbooks because it will act as a blue print for the development of quality textbooks. Additionally, this study has it so clear that the privatization of textbook development is not good for the Zambian education system since textbook quality is compromised by publishers who seem to crucify quality of textbooks for the cross of profit making. Furthermore, the Ministry of General Education through the Curriculum Development Center must coordinator all stakeholders involved in textbook development and give clear guide lines for each stage. Applying the Social constructivism theoretical approach to textbook development provides the need to form knowledge based on social interaction and social consensus. This provides various stakeholders with the appropriate guidance of developing the textbooks that would enhance quality education. When well applied in developing the Social Studies learners' textbooks, the theory would help to avoid challenges that were encountered and this would facilitate the provision of quality textbooks. Having used this theory in the context of the current investigation, the researchers are of the view that this could work towards addressing the issue of coordination and involvement of critical stakeholders such as teachers.