CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
2.5 Professional development in South Africa
2.5.1 Teacher Clusters
Over the past ten years the shift towards school-based clusters has been characterised by a change in location, frequency and the form of professional
development. According to Jita et al. (2009), teacher clusters are a tool to substitute conventional approaches to teacher development and help teachers reshape their teacher knowledge. Mphahlele & Rampa (2014) argue that the Department of Education uses the teacher clusters as the platform for innovative networking for teacher development
In Mpumalanga teachers have been going through different forms of professional development to ensure that they provide quality education. This has been due to different reasons which range from political pressure as a result of government policies meant to keep up with the national and international trends, to pressure from the teacher unions that feel the government is not doing enough to develop the teachers. Policies that are being introduced should seek to introduce progressive approaches to teaching and learning, redress through contributing to the full development of the teacher, socially, economically and otherwise and repair by improving the quality of education and enabling learners to develop their full potential. This results in endless study tours, especially to the Western countries and Asia to learn from their programmes. Various professional development models that were implemented would be changed on a regular basis without evaluating if the intended objective had been achieved or not.
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Figure 3 DEPARTMENTAL STRUCTURE REFLECTING THE POSITION OF THE CLUSTERS
Mpumalanga Department of Education introduced teacher clusters as a professional development model in 2012. A cluster is a grouping of schools, led by a cluster leader, for educational and or administrative purposes that forms a cooperative in order to satisfy specific subject teaching, learning and assessment needs, with the aim of improving the quality of teaching and learning through cooperative strategy (MDoE, 2012). A cluster leader is a teacher who has been democratically elected by the cluster members to lead the cluster. The teacher should have a proven track record of consistently providing quality results. The purpose of the group is to:
• “Provide teacher development opportunities;
• Develop subject purpose for teachers;
MEC
Superintendent General Deputy Director General
Chief Dir District Coordination
& Management
Chief Dir Curriculum Services
District Director
District Director
District Director
District Director
SA LS (x2)
SA LS = Subject Advisor Life Sciences Circuit
Mngr (x14)
SA LS (x2) Circuit
Mngr (x14) SA LS (x2) Circuit
Mngr (x16)
SA LS (x2) Circuit
Mngr (x24)
Dir Maths Science Tech
Dir Teacher Development Dir Curriculum Enrichment
Dir FET Dir GET
Cluster Leader
Subject Head: Life Science
Cluster Leader
Cluster Leader
Cluster Leader
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• Monitor progress of projects/assignments/schools-based activities and assessment tasks;
• Ensure standardisation on the moderation process on a continuous basis;
• Develop the necessary support material for teachers and learners;
• Improve management of education in classrooms;
• Regulate the activities of clusters with the purpose of working towards achieving quality education for all;
• Provide teachers with capacity building opportunities through cooperative support between schools;
• Develop common assessment tasks and share their expertise” (MDoE, 2012, p. 2).
The clusters are responsible for the following duties and outcomes:
• “Implementation of the year programmes/pace setters and other subject policies, guidelines and documents;
• Joint preparation of lesson plans/activities/learning units, teaching approaches and assessment procedures and instruments;
• Sharing of support material and joint development of teaching and support material;
• Joint planning of projects, assignments, assessment tasks and relevant marking rubrics/ marking guidelines;
• Setting and writing of common monthly controlled tests;
• Analysis of monthly tests, exam results and learner responses;
• Planning of remedial teaching and support to less performing schools;
• Planning, organisation and assessment of subject teachers’ portfolios;
• Discussion of examiners’ reports, previous exam papers and marking guidelines;
• Discussion of difficult content sections in the subject/research on the content;
• Sharing lesson preparation and doing lesson simulations””. (MDoE, 2012, pp.
2-3)
These teacher clusters operate under the guidance of cluster leaders, who are selected from among the Life Sciences teachers in the circuit. The responsibilities of the cluster leaders include:
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• “General organisational responsibility for the cluster group and organising meetings;
• Planning or delegating planning of the meetings well in advance;
• Encouraging members of the group to bring all relevant documents to each meeting;
• Setting up a buddy system whereby an absent member is contacted that same day and given an update of what happened at the meeting;
• Checking on a regular basis that pace setters are adhered to;
• Keeping in touch with developments at National/Provincial/District levels and informing group members of relevant issues;
• Identifying and collecting training needs of teachers and reporting findings;
• Meetings must be purposeful and focused. Cluster leaders support teachers with challenging topics or methods of teaching in the classroom”. (MDoE, 2001, pp. 4-5)
Teachers help each other with moderation, assessment and curriculum implementation issues. According to Ndlalane & Jita (2009), teacher clusters enlivened teachers to help one another in discerning their system and break teachers’ segregation by appreciating a form of collective learning. However, the fact that these structures are established by the Department means that the teachers in the clusters are not initiating their own professional development. A clear managerial discourse approach is used, with the objective of ensuring that there is accountability and effective implementation of policies and recommendations for setting examination papers and using pacesetters to ensure that the syllabus is completed.
The agenda for the Life Sciences cluster is set by the MDoE through adherence to pace setters, assessment programmes, diagnostic item analysis tools and implementation plans. Whatever creativity they come up with is within the confines of the set agenda. This may impact the kind of teacher learning that occurs in the clusters.
According to Giordano (2008), teacher clusters or teacher networks or teacher communities were formed with the purpose to pool together a group of schools and teachers in order to share pedagogic information and resources. The locations of the
55 schools determine the frequency of the meetings (Chikoko, 2007). Knowledge sharing and collaboration take place at the same time as reflection (Jita & Ndlalane, 2009). Convening and coordination of these meetings is the responsibility of the cluster leaders. They do this on behalf of the curriculum implementers, who will be part of these meetings if they are available. The curriculum implementers are usually given the responsibility to provide support to teachers. All sorts of resources are provided for the smooth implementation of the Department of Education’s programmes (Leu, 2004). Muijs and Harris (2006) suggest a different approach to teacher collaboration, which they refer to as teacher leadership, whereby teachers identify with a community of teachers and influence them towards improved professional practice. This is achieved through working collaboratively. Muijs and Harris (2006, p. 40) argue that there are three activities that characterise teachers’
leadership, namely: the leadership of other teachers through coaching, mentoring, leading working groups; the leadership of developmental tasks that are central to improved learning and teaching; and the leadership of pedagogy, the development and modelling of effective forms of teaching.
In all these activities there are traits that I was interested to see in the Life Sciences cluster, where teachers mentor each other at the content enrichment workshops and intervention workshops. Teaching strategies, especially on difficult topics, are shared. All this is done to ensure that there is effective teaching and learning.
Strong professional communities are built through these teacher led structures. The collaborative learning that takes place is as a result of the exchange of ideas, as a result of various expertise when the teachers interact among each other. Collegiality is strengthened, relationships are established and strategic partnerships are forged among the schools and teachers. Research has highlighted that teachers from schools in mutual clusters experience fewer difficulties in implementing new curriculum (Mujis, 2008). Mujis (2008) further argues that particularly schools in disadvantaged communities benefit, because such collaboration aids school improvement when teachers are exchanged, resources combined and leadership shared.
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