The State of Teacher Development in South Africa Post 1994 - Research Proposal Example

The of teacher development in South Africa post 1994 Chapter division Introduction…………………………………………………………………….3 Research method and design……………………………………………………4 Problem Statement………………………………………………………………6 Aim of research………………………………………………………………….6 Motivation for research…………………………………………………………..6 Literature review…………………………………………………………………6 Teacher professionalism in South Africa…………………………………………10 Teacher professionalism under apartheid……………………………………10 Teacher professionalism in the post-apartheid South Africa……………….11 What is important for teachers’ professional development now………………….13 Conclusion and recommendations…………………………………………………14 The state of teacher development in South Africa post 1994 Introduction The role of a teacher in the education system is very important. In the modern world a teacher is usually defined as a member of profession. Such definition is used in many developed countries and is adopted by the developing states. Many of them recognize a significant role of a teacher and this recognition is very important for their economic development. However, the developing countries also face a lot of problems connected with teaching. These problems are connected with unsatisfactory working conditions of teachers, who work hard for little money. The increasing governmental control of teacher’s work also represents problem and generates the negative attitude towards teaching profession. Moreover, mass media contributes to negative opinion emphasising teachers’ drawbacks, the desire of many representatives of the given profession to change it. According to the results of interrogation held in South Africa, more than 50% of teachers would change their profession, if they had a chance, because other jobs allow to earn more money with less workload and stress than the job of a teacher. The research also revealed that the percent of attrition among teachers increased in comparison with 1990s. These problems draw a lot of attention to teaching profession and first of all to the key aspect – teacher’s professionalism. This given paper is designed to consider the evolution of teacher professionalism in South Africa after 1994. The main goal is to define if the teaching profession is developing in the country and if there is any progress or achievements. There are many factors that will be taken into account in the research and this makes the task more difficult, because these factors sometimes conflict with each other and they can influence teaching profession both positively and negatively. It means that some aspects could be improved in teaching profession and other could get worse at the same time. These influential factors may come from different spheres - economic, political or educational and each of them may be treated differently by different people: what one may consider to be positive, another one may consider as negative. Research method and design This work is founded on the literature on the topic as well as different interrogations held with teachers and different experts. The purpose is not to make statements but to consider the situation from different points of view, because the paper represents mainly the review of available literature. The interrogations were held with the people working in South Africa teacher organizations. It must be taken into account that their view can’t be considered as impartial, because they are the representatives of educators, however they know too much about teachers’ activity in South Africa, that is why their opinion is still very important. The activity of all the interrogated people is connected with teacher professionalism. Politicians were interrogated in order to find out the opinion of the government. Teachers were interviewed to reveal their attitude towards their work and their opinion about the professional development. The interviews were used in order to work not only with the theory but support it with people’s opinion about teacher’s professionalism. It should be emphasized that the current paper will not make any definite conclusion about teacher’s professionalism in South Africa, it will rather consider the different sides of the controversy. The main questions of the interrogation include: Discuss the problem of the teacher professionalism in South Africa and define its current state; Identify the main factors that influence the development; Discuss the role of the government. First, it is essential to define the teacher’s professionalism and investigate the controversy around it. Secondly, it is necessary to discuss the modern world tendencies in educators’ professionalism. The final chapter will discuss the state of educators’ professionalism in South Africa after 1994. Problem Statement The main question of the given paper is if the South African teachers have been developing professionally during the last decades. Aim of research The main purpose of the given study is to trace the development of the teachers’ professionalism in South Africa during last decades, reveal main problems and give the recommendations. Motivation of the research  The teaching in South Africa draw attention of a lot of researches because of the problems such as racial and gender discrimination the country faced in the past. It is important to research if these problems still influence South African system of education. Literature review This chapter will focus on the review of the current literature on the given topic. It will also define the teacher professionalism, discuss its accountability and autonomy. Actually, the definition of teacher professionalism always represented a controversial issue. According to Adler (2002), the main task is not to define the professionalism itself but to define its meaning, importance and the right ways for its development. The author argues that it is essential to determine if the professionalism is founded on awareness, judgement, moral principles and self-sufficiency or it merely represents a tool applied in order to create the lack of individuals, who possess corresponding qualities and thus to create financial privileges for those who have them (Adler, 2002). The opinions on this issue are also too different and this is explained in the work of Anderson (2003). The author states that some scientists highlight the ethical function of professionalism and other consider it to be self-serving. The controversy around the issue was active in the 1960s and 1970s, then it fell down and now the professionalism is not considered to be only self-serving. Asmal, and Wilmot (2001) discuss the interesting issue: a distinction between the term “professionalism” and “professionalisation”. They state that teacher professionalisation represents a subject of sociology. Professionalism in its turn is related to education and emphasises the quality of teachers’ work. The first is focused on what teacher’s work means for the society, while the main issue of the second is the quality of educator’s practice. The authors point out that it is essential to understand the difference between these two notions. Asmal and Wilmot (2001) state that one of the main goals of the current controversy is to decide if the teacher professionalism should empower educators or control them. Thus, scientists defined democratic and managerial professionalism. The first highlights teacher’s autonomy, free choice and perspectives, while the second implies control of the teacher’s work by employers. The notion of democratic professionalism is perfectly explained in the work by Witty and Wisby (2006): A democratic professionalism seeks to demystify professional work and build alliances between teachers and excluded constituencies of students, parents and members of the community on whose behalf decisions have traditionally been made either by professions or the state. In the case of teachers, they would need to work actively with others committed to teaching for a just society. Adler (2002) in his work explains the notion of accountability and connects it to the concepts of managerial and democratic professionalism. The author states that knowledge is the foundation for independent decision making. The decisions should be made in accordance with the customers, clients or students in our case. Accountability makes the teachers correspond to the establish standards. Apple (1989) talks about bureaucratic accountability as about the negative form of accountability that does not act for teachers’ and students’ benefit but for the benefit of bureaucracy itself. Such form simply reduces the feeling of personal responsibility and demands the resigned following the established standards at the same time as democratic accountability is considered by the author to be positive and necessary for professionalism because it implies autonomy and the feeling of responsibility. Barringer (1998) in his writing talks about the necessity of autonomy in teacher’s profession. The author states that it is useless to discuss teacher’s professionalism without discussing the importance of autonomy. This point of view is supported by Morrow (1989) who states: …an autonomous teacher is not anomic, not ungoverned. To claim to be autonomous is to claim to be governed in a special kind of way. An autonomous teacher does not ignore the wishes and interests of others – parents, pupils, governments, employers – but such a teacher does reserve the right to consider such wishes and interests in the light of appropriate criteria. The wants and wishes cannot be simply taken as given starting points. Morrow states that the autonomy must be considered only together with accountability and every teacher should look for the golden mean between the accountability and autonomy in order to be professional. Too much control kills teachers’ creativity and their work brings bad results, because they can’t make student interested in their subject. At the same time too much autonomy makes teachers less responsible for their actions. Smith (2001) also discusses teacher’s autonomy and considers teachers as learners. He states: Rather, as I have indicated, considering teachers’ autonomy as learners may allow us to focus on one aspect of their lives – namely their professional development – more explicitly, at the same time enabling us to adopt useful perspectives from recent discussions of language learner autonomy. In this connection, the importance of interdependence and issues of cross-cultural appropriateness have been alluded to in this paper, while more could be said about the relative merits of different approaches to the development of teacher(-learner) autonomy on the basis of approaches adopted in the field of learner autonomy (Smith 2001). A great number of works such as Carrim (2003) , Harber (1996) Hofmeyr et al (1994) emphasize the importance of teacher’s’ autonomy for job satisfaction. This satisfaction is not related to compensation and here we can see the significance of teachers’ profession: while other employees are satisfied seeing the result of the work estimated in monetary units, teachers are satisfied only when they know that their students are developing and see the success students achieve due to their efforts. All the authors of the literature used for this paper come to the common conclusion that all the three elements: autonomy, accountability and knowledge are crucial for professional development: …constraints on independent action are necessary to prevent abuse, and one legitimate constraint could involve the argument that self-directed ‘professional’ action needs to benefit students’ learning (a more positive way of putting this, with less emphasis on constraints, might be that teacher autonomy necessarily involves interdependence, or ‘relatedness’, not just individualism (Smith 2001). Teacher professionalism in South Africa Speaking about teacher development in South Africa it is necessary to divide this process into three periods. They are: pre-apartheid, under apartheid and the post-apartheid periods. In the given study we will overview only the last two periods. Teacher professionalism under apartheid In many countries 1950s-1970s are characterized by the peak of teacher development, because they got more autonomy. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about South Africa, where in the given period the activity of teachers were severely controlled and even repressed. Racism represented the main problem of the given period, many black teachers faced problems with job. The education was not the same for black and white people, bureaucracy dictated its strict rules in the country. Teachers did not have any right to express their ideas and creativity. Certainly, this situation aroused a protest, but unfortunately the repressions made teachers disbelieve their own forces. Black teachers could not participate in making important decisions; however white teachers also had little power. In 1950s-1970s South Africa saw not only racial but also gender discrimination. Female teachers were paid less money than male and had less power and worse working conditions. Teacher professionalism in the post-apartheid South Africa After the introduction of democratic system in 1994, the attitude to teachers and their work changed radically. The post-apartheid political conditions offered new opportunities for educators and allowed them to take part in politics. The Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) was formed to deal with political issues connected with teachers’ professional development. The South African Council for Educators (SACE) was also formed in that period to improve teacher’s working conditions and present new opportunities. In 2000 The Norms and Standards for Educators were issued. They stated that teachers are not only people who teach knowledge but also those who create this knowledge. Such rights made teacher profession demanding more professionalism and autonomy. However, the researchers state that the demands stated in the abovementioned norms are too high and are not realized with the teachers in South Africa. Many teachers remain not well-qualified and the main reason of that is that educators still do not have an appropriate support from the authorities. Many teachers were interviewed and many of them proved that the goals set by the norms are not achievable. According to Carrim (2003) “…South African teachers do not see themselves as ‘owning’ the transformation of education in South Africa but as subjects of it. They also do not perceive themselves as formulators of policies but implementers of them, which are handed down to them from the top” (Carrim, 2003). In 1997 the Curriculum 2005 was issued. This document was founded on the idea of results-based teaching and introduced a lot of changes in curriculum. It was severely criticized because the teachers were not ready for such radical changes, however finally it was decided that teachers will have to develop their professionalism to implement these alterations. These led to the active discussions of the problem of educator’s autonomy. It was stated that teachers should not play the role of bureaucratic principles implementers. They should teach their own ideas and take an active part in curriculum preparation (Barringer, 1998). The main problem of such autonomy was the work of teachers in areas they are not competent to work in. That means that teachers received a right to teach subjects they were not trained to teach and this fact was accepted and approved. This testifies that post-apartheid period brought doubtfully positive changes: on the one hand teachers received autonomy and on the other hand professionalism became questionable (Ukpokodu, 1996). The reforms concerning teachers’ compensation also were implemented in South Africa, but according to Paula Armstrong (2009) this area still needs attention: The wage structure of teachers in the South African labour market is therefore not conducive to attracting workers who may considered to be endowed with above average productive characteristics. The 2008 amendments the teacher remuneration system may prove useful in remedying this situation to a certain extent. However, it remains an area requiring attention in the underperforming South African schooling system (Armstrong, 2009). What is important for teachers’ professional development now It is very essential to find out how teachers view their professional development, because if to take the policies as the foundation, it will be impossible to make a definite conclusion. Some laws state that educators are independent professionals, while other represent teachers as strictly-supervised workers. Some specialists are sure that in order to develop professionally teachers need to change their own opinion about their profession. Investigations testify that teachers do not think about their job positively and do not advise young people to choose this profession. The representatives of other professions express negative opinion concerning teacher’s job. The political conditions were successfully created but the past repressions and discrimination influence modern teachers and their activity. More definite structure should be build for teachers’ activity. This structure should have definite rules and norms for teachers and at the same time it should be flexible and create enough space for teachers’ development and creativity. Conclusion and recommendations The given study attempted to demonstrate that notwithstanding that the opinions concerning the question what educators’ professionalism should be, are contradictory, independence, responsibility are recognized as crucial for educators’ profession.. The autonomy is significant because teachers should have enough space to act and create their own curriculum as well as the knowledge they will teach (Asmal, 2001). At the same time the autonomy must be considered only together with accountability and every teacher should look for the golden mean between the accountability and autonomy in order to be professional. Too much control kills teachers’ creativity and their work brings bad results, because they can’t make students interested in their subject. At the same time too much autonomy makes teachers less responsible for their actions. All the authors of the literature used for this paper come to the common conclusion that all the three elements: autonomy, accountability and knowledge are very important for professional development of educators. Research shows that teachers do not express positive attitude towards their job and do not advise young people to choose it. The representatives of other professions express negative opinion concerning teacher’s profession. The political conditions were successfully created but the past repressions and discrimination influences modern teachers and their activity. More definite structure should be build for teachers’ activity. This structure should have definite rules and norms for teachers and at the same time it should be flexible and create enough space for teachers’ development and creativity. WORKS CITED 1. Abdi, Ali A. 2003. 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