5.2 Case Study in Operation 81
5.2.2 Objectives of the Role-players 83
The pilot project was introduced to ensure that the Danish experts and the South African managers train the teachers to be known as ‘trainers’, who, in time were to continue to train teachers and managers. The trained Language teachers later decided to be called ‘consultants’.
This could have been as a result of ‘competition’ between themselves as Post Level One teachers, versus their counterparts who were school managers - School Principals. This structure created a gap which made some school principals feel a bit uneasy as their normal management power base had to be diminished, and often ignored. At Ikhwezi, the role-players were to be the same, if not equal, sharing the same platform as school-based facilitators.
It was expected that by this training method continual consultation, dialogue and co-operation would exist between Danish and South African educationists. These relations were indeed nurtured and maintained through the Teacher Exchange Programme known as “Job Swap”. This process sees interested candidates fill in forms indicating an interest in the programme. These are faxed to Denmark with the response from a suitable Danish partner who shares the same professional and social interests. Selected participants are then financially supported by the Department through Ikhwezi’s budget to go to Denmark for a period of two weeks, shadowing the partner and vice versa. This was one way of extending the Continuing Professional Development with teachers getting an international perspective in countries which have used a learner-centred approach similar to Curriculum 2005.
One of the intended outcomes of the pilot project, was the expectation that the trained teachers would, through the INSET programme at Ikhwezi, help in the development of their own institutions as a whole. They were expected to mentor their peers, act as a resource and assist inexperienced or under qualified teachers in INSET programmes in their own or neighbouring schools. This approach to INSET gave rise to the idea of ‘train the trainer’ which utilises the cascade model.
The challenge for Ikhwezi in the early stages was to employ an effective model of teacher INSET, and to keep abreast of all the educational changes sweeping through the country and to adapt accordingly. It was also important that INSET programmes break new ground, and search for an alternative model that would counteract the notorious three-to-five-day OBE workshops that teachers were exposed to via the Department’s training program. The peer-driven model used at Ikhwezi allowed teachers the space to learn and grow together with their peers. They were challenged to plan jointly in their teams and present their prepared sessions jointly, in what is commonly known as co-facilitation. This challenged most of the teachers as they were not using a co-facilitation technique in their schools. It was an approach that militated against the ‘one teacher one chalk-board’ teaching behind closed doors method. This was the common culture that they had to unlearn, and Ikhwezi allowed them to break the mould by being exposed to sharing as they co-facilitated.
Ikhwezi opened opportunities for its school-based facilitators to be exposed to other opportunities for further development. The DoE, through the services of UNICEF and Professor John Weldon from Oxford Brooks University of the United Kingdom, conducted a two-week Education Management workshop where DOE officials and Ikhwezi staff and trainers were invited to be trained to train adults. Ikhwezi staff and trainers gained further invaluable skills in ‘train the trainer’ approaches strengthening their already acquired skills. Participants who attended this training combined their facilitation skills training with their newly acquired ‘train-the-trainer’
capacity to enhance the Ikhwezi model of ‘train the trainer’.
With the Ikhwezi model, participants are trained over a three-to-five-day training session in any given or specific area of development or programme. After this training session, teams of two to four team members plan, and then conduct a three-day test course where they train other teachers on the chosen topic of study. This idea of learning is based on the notion that one learns 95% of something new when one teaches others what one has learned (Glasser, 1998). Although this concept of learning worked well it was not the only ingredient for success. The trainees acquired other qualities such as enthusiasm and a love for teaching. They polished effective communication skills, and became motivated and willing catalysts for change in their schools. School-based trainees had a platform at Ikhwezi where, during planning sessions, members from different schools, different educational and racial backgrounds could meet and pool their resources and share ideas and strategies on some of the challenges each faced in his/her own school situation.
This structure was adopted and absorbed into the current structure of Ikhwezi. Over the years it became increasingly difficult for school-based Ikhwezi trainers to get time off to conduct training sessions for other teachers in the province of KZN. At this time of education transformation in the country, Teacher training Colleges were being closed down making staff (lecturers) redundant.
Lecturers from these Colleges were recruited and transferred to Ikhwezi to co-ordinate and conduct INSET in the different programmes run by Ikhwezi. The assistance of the school-based trainers was solicited on a request and release basis.
The following diagram presents the stages of facilitator training and development at Ikhwezi Participants are invited or invite themselves to
workshops. In the process we identify and invite those who are interested to be trained as
facilitators.
They go back to their schools for a month
ICCE MODEL
During this process the trainers are guiding and supporting the trainees without dictating to them. The aim is to let the trainees own the process under the guidance of the trainers.
Agents of Change
The trainees have seen the theoretical and practical side of the workshop, identifying their own
participants as well. They now run a three-day workshop with their trainers, supervising and supporting. Each day ends with a reflection/feed- back session. Each presenter talks about her/his slot and how he or she felt as they were on the floor.
They are even free to criticize the trainers if they were not helpful enough. Once successful, the trainers are continually requested to run workshops.
For the next 14 days, they come for 2-3 hrs after school and during weekends for mentoring and coaching. They prepare material to run a workshop in their teams.
They return for intensive facilitation skills training.
Now they are ready to prepare for workshops.
Those who have been identified as not yet competent are given an opportunity to redo the process. A new set of participants is identified, and trainees come in again to perfect their slot. With everybody satisfied, these trainees can now run a final workshop and graduate.
This initial training session is followed in four to eight week’s time by a test course in which a team of trainees of four to five members, conduct a two or three day training session with a group of teachers identified to participate in the test course. The trainees plan for such a test course, which is the assessment session for the trainees by the facilitators “master trainers” who trained them right from the first workshop they attended, followed by weeks of follow up and preparation done with the support of the “master trainer s”. Trainees have to recruit their own participants as well as see to all other logistics to run a professional workshop, and arrange for the participants.
At other times the participants are arranged by Ikhwezi as part of its on-going or usual INSET programmes. The trainee team is then observed, during the test course, by their trainers who are commonly referred to as Ikhwezi school-based facilitators who could be seen to be equivalent to master trainers.