The Role Of The South African Council Of Educators In The Development Of Early Entrant Educators

Abstract

This research examines the role of the South African Council of Educators in the development of early entrant educators in the teaching profession. Teachers’ professional development is often regarded as the key to successful education reforms. Hence, teachers are expected to experience continuous professional development to keep abreast with the relentless change taking place in the education system. However, problems arise when too much emphasis is placed on making sure that teachers take part in professional development initiatives. To some teachers, professional development is seen as a burden and not as an opportunity to improve their practice as the reforms has intended. This happens as the teachers are made to take part in various standardised professional development programmes that are not tailored to their specific needs. As a result, it has become less effective in helping the teachers improve their own practice. This research takes the form of a qualitative study that employs three research instruments: document analysis, questionnaires that are filled in by all the teachers and semi-structured interview sessions. This research study is guided by three key questions: What are early entrant teachers’ perceptions of the impact of professional development on their teaching practice? Secondly, what factors influence early entrant teachers’ perceptions of the impact of professional development on their teaching practice as executed by the professional body SACE? Finally, what are the challenges or difficulties experienced and how effectively could SACE respond to the needs of early entrant educators? The findings reveal that the participants have issues with sustaining changes to their practice; from the transformation process and the legislative framework utilised to transform and democratise education, the South African education system should have yielded good results by now. However, professionalization of education has been badly neglected as well as regulating unionism to adapt to progressive mechanisms and democracy. The character of South African education has not changed much except for registration with the South African Council for Educators (SACE) which is a legislated prerequisite for entrance into the teaching profession. To improve and to alter the education system, the Department of Basic Education should venture into adopting legal measures like writing board examinations just like the other major professions due to prospective practitioners. Early educators experience external professional development overload while at the same time they are also struggling to create more opportunities for school-based professional development. In addition, the findings from this study also indicate that the participants want to have some say for their own professional learning. In addition, this study also stresses on the need for to the participants to experience one professional development programme at a time and to have enough support and follow-up during that time to ensure that changes in teaching practice are best sustained.