On 23 February 2017 representatives of the South African Council for Educators (SACE) and the Free State Department of Education sat together to check the state of affairs of the SACE CPTD Management System in general and in the Free State in particular. VVOB assists SACE in the improvement of the CPTD system and FSDOE in the improvement of the Capacity Development of provincial and district officials.
The CPTD Management System
The SACE CPTD Management System needs to support quality education in South Africa by ensuring that all school based teachers engage in professional development. To this end all educators need to sign up for the CPTD Management System and accumulate professional development (PD) points. PD points are allocated for a variety of professional development activities. These can be initiated by the teacher, the school or a provider (such as Provincial Education Departments). Activities can be workshops, meetings, projects or trainings, but also engaging in Professional Learning Communities yields points.
Reflecting on the first cohort
In 2014, all principals and deputy principals, the first cohort, signed up for the CPTD Management System. By the end of their first 3-year cycle, they should have accumulated a minimum of 150 PD points. This is the minimal requirement by SACE and directly linked to the pledge to professionalise oneself as stipulated in the Code of Ethics signed by all SACE registered teachers.
Upon the completion of the first cycle for the first cohort, it is the right moment to reflect on the progress made so far.
The management system of SACE shows that the majority of teachers are signed up in the system. However, the challenge is the uptake of points. Nationally, only 634 principals and deputies out of 34 000 have recorded 150 PD points and hence will receive a SACE certificate. Principals and deputy principals seem to struggle to engage in or at least report on their professional development activities and providers might not always provide the required information to SACE, possibly hindered by challenges navigating this system.
The implementation of the SACE CPTD Management System expects Provincial Departments of Education to submit their teacher development training programmes to SACE for endorsement, like all providers should do. This enhances quality assurance and allows easy accumulation of PD points by educators. However, the number of submitted programmes by provincial departments is still low.
The low reporting of professional development points as well as the low number of SACE endorsed provincial teacher development programmes is a reason for concern.
Plan for the future
On 23 February 2017 representatives of SACE and the Free State Department of Education, sat together to check the state of affairs in general and in the Free State in particular. Mr Thwala and Mr Toolo from SACE provided participants with updated information. All stakeholders, led by Mr Tladi (Chief Director: Education Development and Support) and Mr Gopane (acting CES: Teacher Development) looked into the challenges. They assessed the functionality of the structures established to accelerate the implementation of the CPTD Management System. They jointly formulated recommendations to embed the SACE CPTD Management System into the provincial teacher development system.
