School Based and Cluster Teacher Development

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School Based and Cluster Teacher Development

• The Namibian Approach

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Background

• The Basic Education Support Project, (BES II) is
  a five year USAID funded Education project
  targeting teachers of Lower Primary classes in
  the four previously disadvantaged Northern
  Education regions.
• These four regions comprise more than 60 of the
  total learner enrolment in the Namibian Education
  sector, but received less than 30 of Educational
  budget allocation prior to independence.
• The project works to improve teacher skills in
  the use of Learner Centred Education and
  Continuous Assessment Strategies

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Approaches to Program Implementation

• Teacher training needs are identified from
  classroom observations and teacher self
  assessment data that are collected and analysed
  regionally and disaggregated according to
  clusters
• Planning sessions are held just before the end of
  the first school term by circuit support team
  members (CST) who are composed of the circuit
  inspector, the resource teacher and an advisory
  teacher (for each circuit. In some cases parents
  have also been invited to be part of these
  sessions
• The CSTs for each circuit then analyse their
  circuit data to identify training topics
• Planning sessions are then held to design
  training content that caters for the identified
  needs
• Teacher, principal and parents conferences are
  held at circuit level to address identified needs
  usually during the first school term holiday in
  May
• When schools resume in late May, CSTs then visit
  schools to monitor implementation of conference
  ideas and strategies
• Data from these visits then provide the CSTs
  with information that they then use to tackle
  cluster and or school level workshops that
  address more specific issues

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Content of Program 1
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Content of Program 2
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Evaluation Approaches

• Programme success evaluated in two ways
• Classroom observations of teachers conducted by
  support providers (Advisory and Resource
  teachers) and school managers
• Teacher self assessment forms completed annually
  by teachers
• Both instruments measure the same indicators of
  effective use of LCE and CA strategies and use
  the same ratings
• (Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor)

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Effect on Teachers Classroom Practice

• In the first year of programme implementation,
  there was a large disparity between data from the
  classroom observation and the self assessment,
  with teachers ranking themselves as mostly
  excellent and good, while the observers
  ranked them as good and fair mainly
• As teachers began to understand the meanings of
  these indicators, as a result of cluster and
  school based workshops by support providers, as
  well as post observation discussions, the
  disparity in rankings between the two instruments
  began to narrow down.
• (see table 1)
• Results of first quarter of 2003 (last year of
  project life) indicates that over 60 of the
  teachers observed have demonstrated mastery of at
  least two LCE strategies. Similarly, in the case
  of CA, over 52 demonstrate mastery of at least
  two CA techniques. Target is 65 for the year in
  both cases!

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Comparing MEAN RatingsObserver vs. Teacher Self
Assessment Learner Centred Education
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Comparing MEAN RatingsObserver vs. Teacher Self
Assessment Continuous Assessment
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Teacher Compensation for Participation

• No systematized teacher compensation plan exist
  to compensate teachers for attending and
  participating in workshops/conferences at the
  moment.
• Teachers have not been known to expect rewards or
  compensation for attendance, but rather they seem
  to appreciate and use the skills gained to
  improve their practice

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Costs and Benefits Vis-à-vis Other more
centralized approaches

• This bottoms up approach to training builds
  capacity within the system at the regional and
  circuit level so that CSTs are now able to plan,
  implement and monitor teacher professional
  development activities at circuit level, rather
  than the nationally organized workshops which are
  more expensive (transport, accommodation and
  feeding).
• The major costs involved in this approach is that
  of feeding the participants once a year during
  the annual conferences. There is no transport and
  accommodation costs incurred for the cluster and
  site based workshops that occur for the rest of
  the year.

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Successes

• Improved implementation of Learner Centered
  Education strategies by Lower Primary teachers
• Improved use of continuous assessment strategies
  to assess learner performance based on stipulated
  basic competencies
• Increased community and parental involvement in
  school activities
• Improved leadership skills of school managers as
  a result of using Continuous Professional
  Development modules

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Challenges

• Lack of team work and commitment among some CST
  members in certain circuits
• Few CST members assigned to many circuits with
  high number of schools
• Keeping Parents motivated to continue sacrificing
  their time to attend to school activities without
  compensation
• Lack of transport among CST members

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Recommendations

• Increase number of CST members in some regions by
  adding more resource teachers from a suitable
  cadre of Heads of Departments or teachers
• Frequent and reliable means of transport to be
  readily available for use by CSTs
• Introduce a compensatory system to
  motivate/entice parents to continuously partake
  in school activities