teachers to take control by making their own choices regarding their teaching practice (SACE, 2005).
Like Mrs Maharaj, De Clercq (2013) espouses that teachers' professional attitude determines their delivery in the classroom and whether or not they desire to contribute to enhancing the COLT in their school as a learning organisation. As such, Wing (2013) suggests that the relationship between the principal as instructional leader and the learners’ achievement, especially in South African primary schools, may be enhanced when the principal assumes responsibility for the key management aspects that build a productive school culture. As the instructional leader of the school, Wing (2013) proposes that principals inform teachers about new educational strategies, technologies, and other tools that promote effective teachers’
instruction, leading to learners’ learning.
With this in mind, these SMT members of GPS were invited to offer their perception of the current CPTD management system that has come into operation since 2014, which is aimed at measuring and monitoring teachers’ professional development. Furthermore, in being a tool for recognising superior and premium PD quality and programmes, this system awards and records points for individual teacher’s engagement with such high quality activities. In reiterating its purpose, it is claimed that this management system compels teachers’
participation, so as to improve schools’ COLTs, and to emphasise and reinforce the professional status of teaching (NPLCDP, 2012). Bearing the above in mind, all SMT members from Glow Primary School were invited to present their opinion of the CPTD management system. Their voices revealed a common foresight in that the inherent processes of this system may not be feasible and practical to complete. The opinions of Mrs Maharaj, Mrs Alark and Mr Pillay will now be considered.
System issues as they participate in their three-year cycle (The CPTD System Handbook, 2013).
In deepening this postulation, when presented with the above invitation, being to offer their judgement of the CPTD management system, the SMT members from Glow Primary School illuminated their anticipated challenges in its implementation. All four managers believed that it was going to be difficult to access the SACE accredited workshops and to monitor their teachers’
on-line participation. Offering her position on the current CPTD management system, Mrs Maharaj advised:
Okay, if this is to be successful, then certain steps need to be put in place. The authorities that are managing this process need to ensure that teachers at grassroots level know what is expected of them. I suggest they offer workshops… provide opportunities to ensure that staff know what it’s about, only then will it be successful and authentic. Other than that it’s going to be very difficult to ensure that CPTD is taking place. In my opinion, the technical aspects of monitoring teachers’ electronic entries to check that they are true and valid, will be a difficult and tedious task…both for us as SMT members, as well as SACE…
In addition, Mrs Maharaj volunteered that she considered herself to be a progressive principal, always giving of her best to her teachers, learners and their parents. She further acknowledged that most times, when teachers at her school were presented with opportunities to engage in professional development, these teachers mostly participated voluntarily. Nevertheless, she recommended that:
…teachers should be looking at taking the initiative and improving themselves on their own, not necessarily only taking those provided by us, or the department, or the unions…. I feel that if they attend those courses and seminars with the hope of growing in that field, it would most definitely lead to student success, because once teachers acquire this knowledge, they will be able to adapt it and implement it in such a way that their learners benefit….
Similarly, Mrs Alark argued that she did not think it feasible because teachers were compelled to participate in PD projects to accumulate the minimum PD points, postulating:
Not all teachers are able to attend these SACE accredited workshops since numbers are restricted. Then there is a cost factor involved. It costs money to attend workshops that allow for points to be added for the CPTD system. Also, most of these workshops are held by NAPTOSA, and if you are a SADTU member, like most of us in this school are, we have to pay double the amount to attend.
Mr Pillay’s reasoning appeared to be similar to Mrs Maharaj and Mrs Alark, as he too predicted that the inhibiting factors for CPD participation by teachers to be “time and cost factors.” This is reflected in Mr Pillay’s response:
In my opinion, it is not an effective system of measuring or monitoring teachers’
professional development because it’s not always practical to attend workshops…
Most workshops are held late in the afternoon, and teachers have other commitments.
It is not a good way of monitoring teachers’ professional development. At other times when teachers do attend these workshops, they come back to school and file away the hand-outs- without really implementing things, because most times they come back and say it is too far-fetched...it is beyond the level of their learners…
Taking these SMT members’ postulations into consideration, it is claimed that the CPTD management system has been put in place to acknowledge teachers’ professional development participation. According to the National Policy and Legislative Council’s Development Plan (NPLCDP, 2012), the aim of the current CPTD management system includes motivating teachers to become more efficient and better at delivering in the classroom, and for schools to function as effective sites of teaching, learning and development. Thus, it is argued that this system recognises those relevant teacher development activities by sanctioning authentic and credible professional development suppliers. Expounding the notion that CPTD had the potential to inspire teachers to perform even better in the classroom, Mrs Maharaj saw it necessary; to explain how the CPTD management system operated, positing that there were three different types or aspects for teachers to earn their points for CPTD. She outlined the first one as being the teacher’s own initiative, reading and so on. Highlighting the second one as involving workshops that one had to attend, either inside or outside their school, Mrs Maharaj espoused:
But the one you attend outside has the most points, but then those are the ones that are most costly. Some of these workshops that span over 3 days cost about R3000…And if you look at it, how many of them are accredited. It has to be SACE accredited or else you do not get the points. We’d like to get involved, not for the sake of gaining the points, but for personal growth, but sometimes it is a big challenge….
Serving as an extension of the above, Mrs Maharaj observed that teachers attended valuable workshops which she desired them to share with the rest of the staff, time permitting.
Nevertheless, she contended that even if there was no time for these teachers to facilitate a workshop, she always asked for feedback, be it verbally or through the medium of a hand-out.
In relation to this, Mrs Maharaj purported that because she wanted the rest of the staff to be empowered and to know the latest that was going on, she asked those teachers that attended the workshop to make copies and circularise the hand-outs received, to the whole staff. The claim made by Mrs Maharaj that she made attempts to enable teachers’ professional development enterprises, is consistent with what is espoused in the literature. For instance, Davidoff and Lazarus (2010) suggest that as instructional leaders, SMT members ought to advance teachers’ participation in such subject committees, to promote productive pedagogy, and offer appropriate teacher learner resources so that teachers may perform at their optimum.
Acknowledging that in executing their roles and responsibilities in the professional development of teachers under their care, these members of the SMT were confronted with challenges, these members of the SMT were offered an opportunity to recount those areas in which they experienced stumbling blocks in their quest to develop their teachers. Now that some of the challenges experienced by these instructional leaders have been expounded, SMT members’ postulations that professional learning community (PLC) or networking, is a forum for teachers to share expertise, lend support and acquire knowledge and skills, will be adduced.
These SMT members of GPS were offered an opportunity to explain whether or not they believed that teachers under their care might benefit from belonging to a local network of teachers. Thus, the inherent value in setting up PLCs, will concurrently be examined from the postulations offered by Mrs Maharaj, Mr Pillay, Mr Ken and Mrs Alark.