An Assessment of History Teaching Strategies and Promotion of Professional Diversity in Public High Schools in Mezam, Cameroon

There is a misconception that History as an academic subject centers on the mere recitation of the past which may have nothing to do with socio-professional insertion and diversity. In Cameroon, it is common to see post secondary school leavers with majors in History postulating in over bearing numbers, usually over a thousand for less than fifty places in public competitive examinations organized by the state for the admission and training of pre-service History educators. It is on this backdrop that this paper was designed to examine the relationship between History teaching strategies and professional diversity in some public schools in Mezam Division. The correlation design was used in this study since it was intended to examine the relationship between teaching strategies and professional diversity. The simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used to select a sample size of 260 and 31 second cycle History students and teachers, respectively drawn from some 13 public schools in Mezam Division. Two sets of questionnaire were used to collect the data. The data were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment correlation coefficient. After analysing the data, it was realised that majority of the History teachers frequently used the direct teaching strategy which hindered students aspiration for diverse professions. The findings revealed from the inferences that the indirect and interactive strategies could have a positive relationship with professional diversity if History teachers effectively use them. Therefore History teachers should diversify their teaching strategies giving priority to the indirect and interactive strategies which encourage learners' creativity, positive transfer of learning and development of skills which could enhance learners' aspirations for diverse professions.