Input from SADTU

The following input draws heavily on the paper presented by the joint teacher unions to the Minister of Education in September 2008 at Birchwood, whilst trying to place the issues raised in a wider context and to cover subsequent developments.

I. The background

Teacher unions have been calling for a national strategy and plan for teacher development since 1994. The main reasons for this are:

• The fact that a substantial minority of teachers were unqualified or under-qualified.

• Even amongst qualified teachers there were question marks about the quality of pre service training, often delivered by poorly resourced Bantu-style education or embodied in a very conservative pedagogy.

• Research findings that many educators lacked essential content knowledge.

• Massive curriculum and policy change post-1994, much of it necessary to dislodge apartheid education, nonetheless resulted in so-called policy overload for teachers. New curricula, new methodologies and assessment systems all required new skills and re-training for the educators. There is a large degree of consensus that training and support to implement the new curriculum was inadequate.

• A commitment to the notion of life-long learning needed both to address the continually shifting education terrain, but also to underpin the quest to deepen professionalism.

II. Teacher Development: A contested terrain

Teacher development, from the late 1990s, was increasingly embroiled in other conflicts related to the prevailing conservative macro-economic policy, World Bank neo-liberal policies of decentralisation, managerialism and contested notions of accountability, discipline and evaluation. In the process teacher development was consigned to the back burner of education policy.

Developmental versus summative evaluation

The Developmental Appraisal System (DAS), agreed by all parties to the ELRC some ten years ago, was premised on the acceptance that educators must be accountable for the quality of their work and should present themselves for regular appraisal. This was conceived as a developmental process: educators’ weaknesses would be identified and addressed through mentoring and training. This made sense given the unequal and often inadequate nature of teacher training in the previous era.

The Department was unable to deliver on DAS, citing lack of resources. Teacher appraisal, accountability and development all fell victim to budget cuts in the era of GEAR.

The demise of DAS was also hastened by the import of new managerial notions of monitoring and evaluation, increasingly punitive in intent and with minimal developmental content for teachers. Whole School Evaluation and later quality management were met with suspicion at best, and often outright resistance.

Enter Treasury, promising financial incentives as the route to educational excellence. The promise of money, in the form of pay progression, brought the unions back to the table to jointly fashion the IQMS (Integrated Quality Management System). As the name implied, IQMS sought to integrate the developmental aspects of DAS with the incentives-based model of the new managerialism.

Whilst the unions secured buy-in from the majority of members, many of the provincial departments were unable to deliver in terms of training and implementation of the new IQMS. The members received pay progression by default, whilst teacher development again fell by the wayside.

OSD is similarly premised on the notion that financial incentives and evaluation will lead to educational improvement. The problem, again, is that in linking evaluation to salary, agreement will be hard-fought by the parties, and indeed the conflicts will continue even after formal agreement is reached. In the meantime, teacher evaluation/appraisal becomes highly contested, is applied as a mere formality or is effectively abandoned in some cases. And again teacher development falls by the wayside.

From the side of SADTU, we say with regret, that with the abandonment of DAS, effective (developmental) teacher evaluation and teacher development has been placed on ice for the last ten years. We are hopping that the teacher development summit will help kick-start developmental processes again.

III. Polokwane

The education resolutions taken at the Polokwane ANC National Conference in 2007 are directly relevant to the present discussion on teacher development. Let us remind ourselves what these resolutions actually said:

 Resolution 32 called for:
32. The establishment of a national education evaluation and development unit for purposes of monitoring, evaluation and support.
In their meeting with the Minister of Education in September 2008, the teacher unions declared their support the resolution. Evaluation is central to ensuring accountability and quality, but needs to go hand in hand with training and support.

In relation to the proposed NEEDU, it is important that the conceptualization of this unit be carefully mapped out in the light of previous duplication of structures and poor co-ordination.  In this respect the following are important:

• What measures must be taken to ensure that the professional identity of the teacher is protected in the process?

• How would this unit engage with schools and teachers?

• What capacity (knowledge and understanding) will this unit carry that is different from the other units in the DoE or the schools for that matter?

• How would this unit connect with other DoE structures?

• How do we balance issues of quality with issues of professionalism?

Resolution 33 called for:
33. The ANC to focus rigorously on the quality of education.
But evaluation on its own will not produce quality. As educators we have always said that monitoring and evaluation of teachers has to go hand in hand with a commitment to development and training of teachers. And this is where the Department of Education falls down, in failing to devote resources to teacher development.

Quality revolves around teachers creating opportunities for learners in the classroom to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes.  These opportunities are constructed by the teacher in the learning environment.  Quality is located in the classrooms and schools.  The focus must be on what is happening in the classroom and the school rather than at the policy level. 

Resolution 34:
34. New curriculum must be accompanied with skills development of teachers.
This has not happened. In the years since 1994, we still do not have a concrete national plan for teacher development. As educator unions we believe strongly that a well-trained and motivated cadre of educators is the key to delivery of quality education.

Moving forward, as SADTU, we believe that the prioritization of education at Polokwane and in the subsequent pronouncements of the ruling party laid the basis for reviving fundamental debates about quality learning and teaching and the role of teacher development and support. Subsequent interactions between the teacher unions and the Minister of Education have led directly to the establishment of the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign and the planned Teacher Development Summit. These initiatives call for commitments and inputs from all stakeholders to be successful.

IV. Birchwood: Continuing Professional Training and Development

In our input to the Birchwood meeting with the Minister, the unions quoted from the recently available OECD Review of national policies for education: South Africa (12.06.08) which we said provides a useful overview and insights into the South African education system, not least in relation to teacher training and development. We started with the overarching conclusion reached by the OECD team: that there has been a major mismatch between policy and implementation on the ground:

“The policy statements were impressive to read in the abstract but they did not sufficiently relate to the traditions and circumstances which existed in South Africa. For many schools it was ‘mission impossible’ in relation to the training and capacities of their staff, to the conditions of work which prevailed, and to the lack of equipment and teaching resources…

“More reflection on the South African context than fascination with some international models of curriculum and teacher competences might have better served the situation. The achievement of ‘deep change’ in educators’ practice takes time and many supportive elements…

“In the event the top-down approach, in a compressed time-scale, with inadequate preparation or resourcing, posed daunting challenges for the teaching force…” (p 114)

Specific concerns in relation to training and development expressed by the OECD team included the following:

• Policy and administrative overload (p 115)
• Weakness of professional support from districts (p119)
• Weakness of the cascade model used by provinces to train teachers (p 120)
• Tension between provincial departments and teacher education institutions (p 120)
• Complete lack of formal induction process for newly qualified teachers (p 123)
• CPTD is ad hoc, fragmented and lacks professional credibility (p 123)

More positively, the OECD team highlights the recent National Policy Framework for Teacher Education and Development in South Africa issued by the Department of Education in 2006; work by SACE in developing a professional development framework (pp 124-5); and the proposed NEEDU as part of the OSD.

However, in relation to the OSD/NEEDU, the OECD team sounds the following caution: “The operation of such a scheme will involve a great deal of time, documentation, reportage and administration.” (p 126) The unions pointed to the draft CPTD document being circulated in Gauteng as evidence that there is the real danger that energies will be diverted from the primary tasks of teaching and learning.

Broadly, the OECD report concludes that whilst there are valuable initiatives in place they tend to be compartmentalized and would benefit from a ‘more joined-up, integrated policy approach..’ and ‘that it is high time that a comprehensive, multi-faceted policy be devised..’(p 123) The main recommendation therefore, is that ‘the Department of Education should produce a policy position paper which would set out a coherent and cohesive action plan highlighting policy initiatives which are being introduced, or in gestation regarding the teaching career.’ (p 131)

Proposed way forward

As educator unions we said we concurred with this proposal in the OECD report that the Department should compile a document detailing all the initiatives relating to training and development – and showing how this fits into a broader vision for the teaching career. However, we said that this should form part of a process not only to inform stakeholders but to obtain their inputs in order to secure their buy-in. We proposed summit/workshop be held involving all stakeholders in the teacher training and development field. The summit’s tasks to include the following:

o to debate the overview document and make inputs. In particular we need to start to identify gaps, eg in relation to management, delivery and content of CPTD

o to develop a common vision for training and development which is sustainable and moves beyond the present ad hoc approach. As the OECD report highlighted, presently the various initiatives exist in separate silos

o to begin to debate the actual content of CPTD. [So far the Department and SACE have largely been concerned with the framework for development – evaluation, points system etc. We need to debate what kind of CPTD we need to improve teachers’ practice in the classroom and how this will be delivered on the ground.]

o to reflect on the planning of the pilot process. There must be thorough monitoring, evaluation and follow-up. Previous policy initiatives have been compromised, according to the OECD report, due to poor planning and over-hasty implementation.

o propose priorities for concrete programmes for CPTD as part of a national strategy and plan for teacher development.

o Most importantly, to begin the process of securing buy-in from the profession. It is not a matter of union leaders simply signing an agreement. Unless the profession – and every educator – takes ownership of the CPTD processes, the initiative will be still-born

o Need to establish clear timeframes

The over-riding objective here is to move from policy towards concrete and sustainable implementation. Knowing that we have some of the most ambitious policies in the world, the task remains to move our teachers through a series of steps to realize those outcomes as stated in the policy documents.  There seems to be a sense that the problems are well known (poor learner performance, teacher lack of conceptual knowledge, and dysfunctional schools); however, the conceptualization of the solution especially within existing structures (IQMS, WSE, SETA, SACE, HEd,  CPTD and NEEDU – still to come) must be reviewed.  

V. Teacher Development and the hidden abode of the classroom

When teacher unions requested a teacher development summit back in 2008, one of the reasons was a growing sense of confusion and the need to impose some kind of order on the multiple agencies and policies facing teachers. Neither is this simply a technical exercise: to list the various legislation, policies and institutions and show their inter-connectedness – although this would be a welcome exercise. It is rather a conceptual task where we ask what we mean by teacher development, why it is important and how we go about it. Any proposed system of teacher development therefore needs to be interrogated and the question asked: How will it influence the practice of the teacher in the classroom to improve teaching and learning?

We have said that we want teacher development to take place in order to improve teaching and learning in the classroom. But before we proceed any further we need to know what is going on in the classroom, which is not producing the desired learning outcomes. There may be problems associated with the individual educator; there may be generic challenges common to a cohort of teachers that went through a particular training regime. But before we go further and start prescribing solutions, we need to carefully analyse what is happening in the classroom and the teacher’s role in this.

We are suggesting that at the heart of a successful teacher development enterprise, two different steps/ interventions are critical:

• We need an audit of what teachers know and don’t know, what they do and don’t do, their beliefs and values – all of which underpin their classroom practice.

• We can then identify a teacher’s strengths and weaknesses and begin to identify strategies for addressing these – eg mentoring, training by suitable providers.

[Although simply – even simplistically – stated, these interventions are clearly very complex, requiring much further research and discussion.]

We need to be asking: how do the current teacher evaluation and teacher development policies and institutions achieve these tasks – or not? Are we appraising the teachers in order to understand the challenges they face in the classroom, and in order to move them forward to address these challenges and improve learning and teaching. Or are we measuring the teachers in a one size fits all approach to implement a performance-related pay scheme?

Equally important: do the agencies and inspectors tasked with carrying out evaluation and development have the capacity to penetrate this hidden abode of the classroom and to understand what is going on their, let alone to deliver effective and targeted teacher development?

VI. Towards the Summit: Objectives

In the event, an initial overview paper was prepared jointly by the Department and labour. As the parties came together in early 2009 to plan for a summit, SADTU listed the following objectives for the summit:

• Through development and support to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom

• To clarify where we are now, and debate the current TD landscape in terms of policy, proposals, and actual provision

• An evaluation of current evaluation systems/proposals – CPTD, IQMS, NEEDU, performance-related pay

• An audit of shortages – both in terms of absolute numbers and quality shortfalls - and to identify needs and shortages in terms of skills and knowledge

• To explore alternative models of TD, including possible delivery models (including proposals to reopen colleges, or set up provincial institutes)

• To begin to define and coordinate the responsibilities/contributions of the different stakeholders and providers

• A needs analysis – what is it that teachers themselves are asking for in terms of TD

• To begin to outline a national strategic plan for teacher development.

VII. Some notes on the Round Table

As SADTU we believe that the Round Table is very important in setting the scene and groundwork for the summit, and in particular to bring on board increasing layers/tiers of leaders, officials, professionals and teachers from the various stakeholder organizations.

It would be good if the Round Table could begin to address the following:

• Provide a brief/schematic overview of the TD terrain – policy, proposals and what is being implemented

• Provide a summary of the thinking/proposals of the Teacher Development Summit preparation process, in particular the six main themes identified.

• Allow space/encourage contributions from teachers, officials, practitioners etc eliciting their needs, challenges and hopes for this process

• Begin to list the elements crucial to developing a national strategy and plan for teacher development, and particularly to open up debate about content and delivery of teacher development – as part of a conceptual framework for ongoing research and discussion.

• Kick of a wider public engagement on teacher development, in particular with the teachers, officials responsible for development and support, and the providers.

We need to minimize the volume of factual and abstract input and shift gear towards a meaningful engagement about:

• the challenges teachers face in the classroom

• what they need in terms of teacher development and support

• what is necessary in terms of policy, systems and resources to deliver this

• and, how teacher development can be embedded in the education system and teachers’ practice both to respond to daily challenges and to deepen their professionalism.

31.03.2009