LEGAL AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE IQMS
3.9 Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
During the process of appraisal, data is gathered by systematic observations, not to only measure current performance, but also to reinforce strengths, identify deficiencies, give feedback and the necessary information for required and desired changes in future performance. For appraisal to be effective, it should be treated as an ongoing, cooperative intervention between supervisor and supervisee which is a shared responsibility, not a once- a-year traumatic confrontation. Habangaan (1998) correctly asserts that if it is treated as an event, it becomes judgmental, which is then detrimental to individual growth and development.
Mullins (1996) declares that performance appraisal has its roots in three well-substantiated psychological principles, and he asserts that people work/learn/achieve more when they are given:
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- adequate feedback as to how they are performing, in other words, knowledge of results;
- clear attainable goals; and
- more opportunity to be involved in the setting of tasks and goals.
3.9.1 Increasing Interest in Professional Development
There has been an increasing interest in Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and recognition that it needs to relate closely to classroom practice and performance. There is also widespread distrust amongst teachers resulting from bad experiences of courses they have attended that have little connection with the day-to-day job of improving teaching and achieving learning gains.
When learning is at the centre of the teaching process it would be assumed that the continuing professional development of teachers would be a priority of both education systems and teachers alike.
Teachers like other professionals need to update their skill and knowledge base – in the case of teachers their pedagogical skills and particularly their content knowledge.
Clearly the continuing professional development of teachers is important as a means to maintain and sustain a competent teaching profession achieving the desired learning outcomes.
3.9.2 Definition of Continuing Professional Teacher Development (CPTD)
Continuing Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) is an evolving set of activities responding to the specific contextual needs of teachers at particular stages in their lifelong development as professionals. As the education system changes, new demands and responsibilities are expected of the professional teacher. A variety of providers can be identified, each with their own contribution to influence the professional growth of teachers. Professional development may be defined as:
“Professional development consists of all natural learning experiences and those conscious and planned activities which are intended to be of direct or indirect benefit to the individual, group or school, which contribute, through these, to the quality of education in the classroom. It is the process by which, alone and with others, teachers review, renew and extend their commitment as change agents to the moral purposes of teaching; and by which they acquire and develop critically the knowledge, skills and emotional intelligence essential
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to good professional thinking, planning and practice with children, young people and colleagues throughout each phase of their teaching lives.” (Day, 1999).
Day provides the ideal scenario for the teaching profession to keep abreast of developments, but the reality is that the majority of teachers do not have the inclination or time to involve themselves in these well meant activities. Teaching is a demanding and tiring profession and after a long day at school few have the energy to pursue self-development activities.
3.9.3 Continuing Renewal
The European Union’s Commission on Teacher Training and Development found that teaching is a dynamic field which requires that classroom practioners remain at the forefront of developments and this requires them to continuously update themselves. A variety of kinds of activities can contribute to the professional development of a teacher. The providers of these activities usually imagine that their interaction with teachers has the potential to significantly influence the quality of teachers’ practice within their classrooms, schools and the community.
Involvement in professional development should be a lifelong activity in which teachers take responsibility for keeping abreast with new technologies for education, new methodologies for teaching, learning and assessment, new curricula policies and innovations within the subject/learning area or within the field of education. The initial teacher education programmes should aim to introduce the beginner teacher to the world of teaching and learning.
3.9.4 Professional Growth
Professional growth, is only the beginning of a journey which continues as teachers take on more influential roles as mentors of other teachers, and as education managers. At different stages of teachers’ career development, different needs arise. Teachers should be required to individually develop a personal growth plan indicating how they would initiate their own professional growth.
Rather than emphasising the duties expected of teachers as employees such as those contained in the prescripts discussed in chapter two, it is argued that as members of a profession, teachers are entitled to a systematic process of continuing renewal.
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3.9.5 Current system of teacher development
In the present South African system of teacher appraisal and development in each academic year there are two developmental cycles that the teachers go through. They are required to develop themselves professionally in areas that they have identified as areas of improvement. Such development can come from a number of sources including those listed below. These are:
i) Support and mentoring by peer groups within the school;
ii) The Department of Education providing support for policy implementation;
iii) Higher Education Providers providing qualifications for initial training and also Inservice Training (INSET);
iv) Teacher Unions providing specific teacher needs-driven initiatives;
v) Other providers such as non governmental organizations (NGOs), Community Based organizations, commercial profit making providers of educational programmes that provide specific targeted courses or programmes.
3.9.6 Challenges facing the Present System
The current appraisal system presents various challenges that need to be dealt with so that professional development can be introduced in a consistent, efficient and effective way. One such problem identified is that all the varied sources of CPTD are not equally validated as having influence and status over the professional development of teachers. Only qualifications, which are offered by higher education institutions, are given a form of recognition by being awarded credit points on the National Qualifications Framework. This has promoted the view that a CPTD activity is only worthwhile if it is credit bearing and leading to a qualification. Once-off rewards for completion of a qualification provide the incentive for teachers to engage with this form of CPTD. No system of rewarding teachers for engaging in other forms of CPTD is currently available.
According to the Employment of Educators Act (EEA) 76 of 1998, the employer is entitled to require teachers to engage with professional development activity up to a maximum of 80 hours per annum.
The employer is obliged to present or prescribe programmes that need to be attended by teachers.
These activities are to be conducted outside the formal school day or during the school vacations and the employer is expected to give at least one term’s notice of programmes to be conducted during school vacations.
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The employer (KZN Education Department) and as far as can be ascertained, other provinces in South Africa, however has not presented or prescribed any such programmes since the introduction of the appraisal system and therefore there have been no officially recognized development programmes undertaken by educators in the province.
3.9.7 Professional Development in the International Context
This situation of not providing development programmes for in service educators is not peculiar to South Africa. As in South Africa, it was found that in many member states of the European Union there is little systematic coordination between different elements of teacher education, leading to a lack of coherence and continuity, especially between a teacher’s initial professional education and subsequent induction, in-service training and professional development; nor are these processes often linked to school development and improvement, or to educational research. Incentives for teachers to carry on updating their skills throughout their professional lives are weak. Examples from Europe and Tanzania will be used to compare the South African teacher development programmes with other countries. The purpose of this exercise is establish how the system is working in comparison to developed and developing countries.
European Union Report 2008 (OECD)
Investment in the continuous training and development of the teaching workforce is low across the European Union and the amount of in-service training available to practising teachers is limited. In- service training for teachers is compulsory in only eleven Member States; teachers are not explicitly obliged to undertake it in all of these states. Where it exists, training generally amounts to less than 20 hours per year.
There is no member state in which the minimum compulsory training exceeds five days per year, and in most countries only three days of training per year is compulsory. Furthermore, the fact that in- service training may be compulsory says little about actual participation rates. As regards new teachers, only half of the countries in Europe offer new teachers any systematic kind of support (e.g. induction, training, mentoring) in their first years of teaching. Explicit frameworks assisting teachers who experience difficulties in performing their duties adequately exist in only one third of these countries.
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The report notes that investment in continuous training and development in the region are low. For example, in-service training is compulsory in only 11 Member States and where it does exist, training generally amounts to less than twenty hours per year, and is never more than five days per year. A selected example of continuous training and development schedules for these European countries is provided in Table 14:
Table 14: Periods for Professional Development
Country Periods of Professional Development Belgium Three days a year
Estonia 160 hours over a five year period Lithuania 90 hours over a five year period Hungary 60-120 hours over a seven year period
Romania 95 hours over a five year period unless teachers take professional degrees during this period
Finland 3 days a year of six hours each
Scotland 5 days per year and 50 hours per year on planned activities
Malta 3 days a year at the beginning of the school year. 3 two hour sessions after school sessions (Source : OECD 2008)
As a comparison, a brief account of professional needs of teachers and how they are met in a Sub- Saharan country, namely Tanzania will be discussed in the next section.
Professional Development in Tanzania
As was found in the EU, Bennel and Akyeampong (2005) report that teachers in Tanzania need to update their skills on a continuous basis and are required to receive an average of ten days of in-service training a year. However, for most teachers, in-service training remains very patchy, poor quality and ad-hoc. The accelerated pre-service training programme, instituted in 2002, where teacher trainees spend only one year in college (instead of two), is also increasingly crowding out in-service training activities at the teacher training colleges. Although there are 400 teacher resource centres spread throughout the country, they remain ineffective mainly because they lack operational budgets. (World Bank EFA 2005).
It has been suggested that teachers in Tanzania have the misconception that they are performing competently and that their managers appear to agree with them. However, far more effort needs to be
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devoted to improving management performance at all levels. The lack of awareness among school managers and teachers themselves of the need to significantly improve teaching practice in schools is an important reason why more attention has not been given to this issue. A comprehensive strategy is needed that effectively institutionalises continuous professional development for all teachers. Properly resourced, peer-based in-service training based on innovative approaches has proved to be very effective in many countries.
3.9.8 Professional Development in South Africa
There is a clear indication that teachers need to be developed professionally if they are to be capable of improving the quality of their classroom practice.
Emphasis is being placed on focussing on the quality of teacher development to ensure that there is provision of quality educational outcomes. This has led to the development of a framework for teacher development, which includes the requirement of serving teachers to become accredited (licensed) after undergoing a quality assured teacher development programme offered by competent selected quality providers. The intention is not to exclude or punish any teacher, but to provide teachers the opportunity, once they are in service to have accreditation or licensing that indicates their competence has been improved through their participation in development opportunities.
The framework being proposed aims to improve public confidence in the competence of the teaching profession, and also for the confidence of the teachers themselves, for their pride in teaching. This should go a long way towards improving the status of teaching as a profession.
3.9.9 The New Curriculum
Since the introduction of a new curriculum many role-players pointed out at the Public Hearing that teachers have not been sufficiently taught how to implement the new curriculum and struggle to do so.
Teaching resources are often not available or some teachers do not know how to utilise the teaching resources. Parents cannot understand why teachers say that Outcomes Based Education (OBE) is difficult whilst they are constantly on OBE training workshops.
This indicates that teachers have attended courses to develop them professionally to cope with the new curriculum, however, the courses have had little or no positive impact on classroom practice. Whilst
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the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU), the teacher union which represents 220 000 teachers says there is not clear departmental strategy for teacher development and ongoing support, commentators say:
“The quality, depth and sophistication of subject matter knowledge among South African teachers is, perhaps the single most important inhibitor of change in education quality measured in student achievement terms.” (SAHRC: 2006)
Despite the introduction of OBE, many teachers have not changed or have been unable to change their teaching methods to suit the needs of the curriculum.
Although reports reflect average class sizes, there were a number of accounts of teachers having large classes, particularly in rural and township schools. Learner / teacher ratios impact on the quality of teaching and learning that takes place within a classroom. Under these circumstances it is difficult to consider professional development if teachers are not getting the basics right.