EVALUATION
2.4.4 TEACHER PROFESSIONALISM
clear about the extent to which such a scheme would be evaluative and the extent to which it would developmental. Francis Fukuyane (2004) reminds us of the key
differences between the private and the public sector with regard to monitoring employee performance:
Monitoring agent behaviour and holding agents accountable is particularly difficult in the public sector. Public sector organizations produce
primarily services, and service sector productivity is inherently hard to measure. The problem of monitoring and accountability is bad enough in private sector organizations, where there are at least profitability
benchmarks for measuring outputs, but it becomes virtually impossible to solve for many types of public sector outputs. If the latter cannot be measured accurately, there can ultimately be no formal mechanism for delivering transparency and accountability (75).
professionals who are able to make autonomous professional decisions about what to teach and how to teach, bureaucratic accountability treats teachers as mere state
employees who follow the policies and procedures even when such policies impinge on the right of the teachers to make professional decisions. Bureaucracies tend to view teacher autonomy as opposed to accountability (Eraut 1994: 302).
These are some of the emerging trends in teacher professionalism:
• The teaching profession seems to be increasingly deprofessionalised internationally as the demand for bureaucratic accountability increases and teacher autonomy is undermined. The accountability regimes have been shown to focus on preparing learners for tests and focus on activities that are rewarded in terms of accountability regimes. This undermines the educative authority of teachers as well as the value of education itself. The professional needs of teachers are ignored.
• There is an increased intensification of teacher’s work associated with increased paperwork linked to accountability regimes which are managerial in nature.
Intensification of work is also linked to cost-cutting which is in line with the new global political economy. Intensification of work results in teachers not having enough time to engage in continuous professional development.
• A major cause of deprofessionalism is deskilling by separating the conception of teachers’ work from its implementation. This is manifested in curriculum
formation been done by bureaucracies rather than by teachers or with teachers.
It is also manifested by the techologising of teaching by curriculum packages.
Some authors have termed this reduction of teacher’s control of their work
‘proleteriatisation’ (Ogza 1995).
These deprofessionalising factors are also manifested in the South African context (Kaabwe 2003: 97-99). This study examines the perception of teachers on
professionalism based on the premise that the IQMS may have the potential to undermine professionalism in education if it is used as a ‘tool to control teachers and their work’.
Gilmour (2001: 4) argues that recent educational reforms in South Africa have great intention but are also in tension with the contextual realities.
On the positive side, South Africa has seen the establishment of bodies like the South African Council of Educators (SACE) and the Education and Labour Relations Council which were established to create a platform for teachers to participate in policy-making.
Teacher organizations are represented in these two structures. SACE has three main responsibilities, namely: professional development of teachers, registration of teachers and the regulation of teachers through the enforcement of a Code of Conduct.
SACE seems to have focused on the latter two activities as opposed to it professional development role which should be its main priority (Motala 1998).7 SACE has limited capacity to provide teacher professional development both in terms of human and monetary resources. SACE has come to be viewed by most as merely serving a rhetoric purpose rather than its intended regulatory and development purpose. However, on the international arena, the power of teacher councils to contribute to professional
development of teachers and policy matters has increased greatly and this augurs well for teacher autonomy and hence professionalism. At present policy makers are reviewing the role of SACE.
The Norms and Standards for Educators (NSE) which defines the roles and duties of educators and the Integrated quality Management System (IQMS) which integrates Developmental Appraisal (DA), Performance Measurement(PM) and Whole-school evaluation (WSE) are two policies that resulted from negotiations between teacher organizations and the government. The input of teachers into these policies are questionable, however, because various studies have shown that not only are South African teachers poorly trained, but they also do not see themselves as policy
formulators.8 But more to the point of this study, these policies are in tension with the reality on the ground where teachers are inadequately prepared and do not conceptualize themselves in the sophisticated terms reflected in these policies (Khoza and Motala 1999).
The IQMS policy with its impressive framework has not been backed by a comprehensive plan on how it is to be implemented, especially with regard to its
7 The South African Council for Educators Act (31 of 2000) Section 5B provides a legal mandate for SACE to manage professional development activities.
8 Manganyi 2001.
professional development initiatives. Secondly, the political and socio-economic context in which it is formulated and implemented is also influenced by the dominant discourse of cost-cutting and managerialism. In such an environment this means that the amount of resources available to teachers for professional development is limited.
Development initiatives fall on the wayside as bureaucratic accountability tends to be emphasized as opposed to professional accountability. Bureaucratic accountability has been shown to be in contradiction with teacher autonomy.