Implementing school-based teacher development in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper reports on the findings of a pilot school-based professional development programme for Tanzanian primary school teachers launched in February 2011 and evaluated in December 2012 by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training with the support of UNICEF. The study set out to investigate the effectiveness and efficiency of the pilot programme in changing pedagogical practices before it was scaled up nationally. It was found that teachers who had participated in the school-based training showed significant differences in their pedagogical practices and demonstrated a positive attitude towards their training and their pupils, and saw teaching and learning as an interactive, communicative process. Drawing on the findings, the paper explores the challenges and the lessons learned for scaling up school-based teacher development at the national level in Tanzania and other countries in the east and southern African region.

Effectiveness Degree on Orientation for Beginning/Newly Transferred Teachers in Ondo State Nigeria

“…This result supports evidence from literature ( [1]; [2]; [3]; [10]; [8]; [7]; [6]) on the importance of orientation as a component of professional development. It may thus be stated that the supervisors of education who represented principals and teachers in Ondo State Nigeria were current on the issue of orientation for beginning/newly transferred teachers, as a component of professional development; they were well informed.…”

“…One of the two weakest findings suggest that beginning teachers were assigned to courses that were rejected by experienced teachers (item 8): that is unfair/undemocratic. [20] noted that equality should be stressed because situations of advantaged and disadvantaged people merely portray class distinctions which tend to divide people and disunite society; several more recent writers including [2], [3], [4], [6], and [7] agree. The other weakest finding indicates that assistance sought by new teachers was not readily provided by the school (item 12).…”

“…It contains eighteen items which covered three units, namely: degree of importance attached to orientation (items 1&2), degree of effectiveness on major features of orientation (items [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17], and magnitude of involvement of new teachers by Principals in all programmes of their schools (item 18) (Please see Table 1a below). The items were informed by authors including [1], [2], [13], [14], and [7].…”

“…Several other authors directly or indirectly agree including [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], and [8]. [2] concisely noted a number of points on the need for orientation for new educators:…”

“…Certain issues on professional development generally, may be highlighted. One of them is that professional development had been presented by experts as a major avenue for improving curriculum and renewing secondary schools [9]; [1]; [2]; [10]; [6]; and [8]). Moreover, the focus of professional development is improved student learning/performance through enhanced teacher learning/performance.…”