The partners of VVOB operate at different levels in the South African education system, but they all play an important role in the implementation of the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development (ISPFTED). From 4 to 6 May 2016 VVOB and its partner the Free State Department of Education, visited the Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute to learn more about the implementation of the ISPFTED in the Western Cape.
ISPFTED
Teachers play a key role in improving learner performance. Quality professional development for teachers is paramount to improve learner performance and quality education. However, the coordination and alignment as well as monitoring of those teacher development opportunities is crucial. The ISPFTED foresees the establishment of Provincial Teacher Development Institutes (PTDI) in each province. The role of the PTDI is to guide, coordinate, lead and monitor all teacher development in the province. At district level, the District Teacher Development Centres (DTDCs) are responsible for the roll-out of all programmes and its reporting.
The Free State PTDI has not yet been established. However, plans are being made. Leadership wants to inform the plans with real experiences and good practices from other Provincial Departments of Education. Besides this, it is important to build capacity with all officials involved to improve the quality of their service delivery in line with the ISPFTED.
Programme writing
The implementation of the SACE CPTD Management System, as also described in the ISPFTED, expects Provincial Departments of Education to submit its teacher development training programmes to SACE for endorsement. To this date SACE reports limited endorsed FSDoE programmes which will impact on the easy accumulation of PD points by teachers.
To turn around this state of affairs, SACE, in collaboration with VVOB, have organised two training events which focused on the process of submission of programmes to SACE and on the criteria used by SACE evaluators (evaluation rubric). The training also allowed participants to prepare their programmes for submission to obtain endorsement. These workshops took place in October 2015 and February 2016.
Study visit Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute
In the light of the developments listed above, a study visit to the Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute took place from 4 to 6 May 2016. The intention of the study visit was to expose thirteen participants to good practices pertaining to teacher development and programme endorsement (the CTLI has 22 endorsed programmes). Participants were officials from Curriculum and IDMG directorates, DTDC Managers and representatives of teacher unions.
The study visit intended to provide all participants with insights on the following operations and functions of the PTDI:
- Assessment and prioritisation of needs (collaboration with other sections)
- Designing training programmes (based on the needs)
- Endorsement of programmes by SACE
- Facilitation of training programmes
- Responsibility of the PTDI in national and provincial priorities (e.g. induction, PLCs, CPTD Management System, …)
- Monitoring & Evaluation; Reporting on programmes
- Teacher Development Database
- Relation between the PTDI and Districts
- Networking and liaising with other sections, unions and the community
- Project Management
- Financial Management (reference to line and skills levy budgets)
- Resource Management (HR, assets)
- Shaping the direction and development of the PTDI
Participants engaged actively with the staff of the CTLI as well as with officials from the WCED Curriculum GET directorate, the Curriculum FET directorate, the provincial District Management directorate and officials from district offices.
Lessons learnt
Although the CTLI doesn’t function entirely as a PTDI as described in the ISPFTED, many good practices could be picked up from the WCED. Some are listed below:
- The CTLI offers intense training courses (two weeks) at the centre. Teachers are replaced by substitute teachers. Hostel accommodation and fuel refund is arranged.
- Successful implementation of teacher development (whether run by CTLI or Curriculum) depends on intense interactions with districts and other stakeholders. A formal teacher development calendar/plan is drawn-up and implemented. All is timely communicated with schools.
- Teacher Development is highly centralised. Budget and reporting are coordinated by the CTLI. Budget and plans are timeously designed and shared.
- Besides the training offered by the CTLI, both provincial (Curriculum, Inclusive, …) and district offices organise teacher development activities.
- Provincial Curriculum office takes the lead in developing materials for curriculum related training as rolled out for the province. This entails:
- Select needs and maintain focus (limited, well focused interventions which are run until the expected results are achieved)
- Designing training content
- Designing methodology
- Designing training materials (manuals for participants and trainers)
- Materials are edited, translated and branded (by the Communication Unit)
- Quality assurance of materials
- Training the trainers, including dry-runs, (even lead teachers) and providing support to trainers.
- Districts support the roll out: identify target groups, arrange logistics, follow up support, ….
- National directives and materials are adjusted and adopted into provincial system, approach, needs.
- A long term system-led strategy which is locally managed is required to combat under-achievement (short term, uncoordinated initiatives to raise standards do not work).
- Cascading system only works when enough time is invested in preparing trainers for high quality delivery and continuous support by province and district.
- School visits by district officials need to be justified based on analysis of test results. Officials need to give evidence afterwards of the support they provided and the intended outcome (why, what, how).
More pictures can be found here.
