Abstract
Teacher professional learning is an integral component to support the increasingly complex skills learners need in order to succeed in the 21st century. The purpose of this chapter is to compare teacher professional development in Singapore, South Africa, and Zimbabwe and identify gaps and share good practices between the countries to help teachers learn and refine instructional strategies. Continuous professional teacher development, which is managed by the South African Council of Educators, is a system that encourages educators to grow professionally. Zimbabwe has mainly relied on cascaded professional development workshops. However, critics of this model of professional development argue that this model often has no meaningful impact on classroom practice. In Singapore, most professional development is subject specific and provides teachers with opportunities for networked learning, collegial sharing, and collaboration. From the findings, the recommendation is that there is need for cooperation between countries to strengthen teacher professional development systems.
TopIntroduction
Teacher professional development is an integral part of teacher education because only continued learning and training assures high level of expertise and ensures teachers keep up-to-date with new research on how to teach special needs children, emerging technologies for the classroom and new curriculum resources (Mullis, Martin, Goh & Cotter, 2016). Several educational comparative studies may have been done between different nations and Singapore, but a few, if any, of these studies have been on comparisons regarding teacher professional development (TPD) (Lam, 2015). This chapter reports on a comparative study of TPD systems in Singapore, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The reason for comparison is that the three countries had similar challenges in TPD at the point of independence from colonial rule and yet, they responded differently to those challenges (Milne & Mhlolo, 2021). For instance, Singapore upon realising that it had a few adequately qualified teachers and other resources, its policymakers decided early to invest in their teaching human resources and developed a comprehensive system for selecting, compensating, and developing teachers and principals (Mullis, et al., 2016). Currently, Singapore’s TPD system is dominated by professional learning communities in schools which include collaborative approaches to teaching (OECD, 2019).
In South Africa, initial TPD takes place in universities. Zimbabwean universities are also involved in TPD but initial TPD starts in teachers’ training colleges which are affiliated to the University of Zimbabwe. Although TPD is being proposed in current South African and Zimbabwean human resource development pronouncements, there is no evidence of coherence in terms of implementation (Gomba, 2019; Johns & Sosibo, 2019; Mukeredzi, 2016). Meanwhile, Singapore has a coherent system that ensures their policies move from theory into practice (Mullis, et al., 2016). This study situates TPD as one vital response to the attainment of the three countries’ developmental programmes. TPD in South Africa is managed through the implementation of Continuous Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) system which is coordinated by the South African Council of Educators [SACE] (SACE, 2013). In Zimbabwe TPD is a cornerstone intended to drive the New Developmental strategy 1 (NDS1) anchored by the heritage based Education 5.0, National Vision 2030 and in keeping education delivery strategies in pace with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) (Gomba, 2019).
The practices in TPD in the three countries will be tracked to expose similarities and differences in the systems. It is worth noting that Singapore is believed to have one of the best TPD systems (Tan & Dimmock, 2014) while South Africa has a commendable TPD system in Southern Africa (Johns & Sosibo, 2019; OECD, 2019). Zimbabwe has mainly relied on particular cascaded national professional development workshops and individual teachers’ professional development initiatives, in general (Chikoko, 2007; Mhumure, 2017). All the three countries have transformed their curricula of learning areas at both primary and secondary school level several times and as such, there is always need to have TDP programmes to keep abreast with demands of the new curriculum changes and innovations. Hence, this chapter examines TPD in the three countries in a bid to address the following research questions.
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What teacher professional development models are adopted in Singapore, South Africa and Zimbabwe?
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What are the similarities and differences in the way teachers engage in TPD activities in the three countries?
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What challenges do these countries face in implementing TPD?
Key Terms in this Chapter
Policymakers: A member of a government department, legislature, or other organization for making new laws or rules.
In-Service Teacher Training: The process by which teachers engage in further education or training to refresh or upgrade their professional knowledge, skills, and practices in the course of their employment.
Teacher Self-Efficacy: Refers to teacher’s belief in his/her ability to successfully cope with tasks, obligations and challenges related to his/her professional role like didactical tasks or managing discipline in the classroom.
Subject Cluster: Involves bringing together teachers of the same subject from different schools to facilitate pedagogical activities to improve quality of teaching and learning by addressing the diverse needs of all learners.
Cascade Model: One of the teacher professional development model used to train a large number of in-service teachers in a short span of time. In this model, a number of teachers are often trained in a particular content, and they in turn go ahead and train their colleagues on the same.
National Institute of Education (NIE): Is an autonomous institute of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The institute is the sole education institute for teachers in Singapore.
Lesson Study: Is a Japanese model of teacher-led research in which a group of teachers work together to target an identified area for development in their students’ learning. Using existing evidence, participants collaboratively research, plan, teach and observe a series of lessons, using ongoing discussion, reflection, and expert input to track and refine their interventions.
Collaboration: Means working together with one or more people to complete a project or task or develop ideas or processes. In the workplace collaboration occurs when two or more people work together towards a common goal that benefits the team or organisation like a school.