On 21 November 10 staff members from the SACE national office and 2 provinces (Free State and Kwa-Zulu Natal) engaged in a workshop on data management and analysis.
Since its official launch in 2014, SACE has been managing the Continuous Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) system in South Africa to encourage educators to engage in professional development activities. Both school leaders and teachers have to sign up in this system and also report on their participation in professional development programmes. School leaders will now finalise their first 3-year cycle. Perfect timing to analyse the rich CPTD dataset.
The workshop is part of a study which was conducted in Free State and Kwa-Zulu Natal provinces to understand how educators perceive the CPTD system and how their participation in the system could be strengthened. SACE provincial officials have an important role to play to support and monitor the participation of educators in the system. A variety of information can be deducted from the CPTD dataset: which schools have no educator reporting in the CPTD system? How many principals will receive a gold certificate (equalling minimum 300 CPTD points) at the end of their 3-year cycle? How many different activities are being reported on?
SACE officials worked hands-on with the dataset to find answers to these questions. They learned how to use the count and sort function in Excel and how to develop pivot tables. When working with the data, the need for quality data for reliable reports became clear. In this regard SACE can take up a more active role to give feedback on the quality of the data to the trainers of the CPTD system. For example, the entry for school names in the sign-up forms is now made compulsory.
SACE appreciated the workshop as it broadened their understanding that data is not only used for reporting, but also for data interpretation and learning. This was confirmed by Ms Ella Mokgalane, the Head of the Professional Development and Research unit who said that SACE officials should start analysing the data to understand how they can improve their support to become more effective in managing professional development.
This activity has kicked-off a capacity development trajectory for SACE provincial coordinators to strengthen their skills to monitor and evaluate CPTD data. This learning trajectory will be further unfolded in the upcoming 2017-2021 programme.
