Enabling and Constraining Conditions of Professional Teacher Agency (original) (raw)
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Teacher Accountability in South African Public Schools: A Call for Professionalism from Teachers
Many times teachers hide behind " The Department " , " The Standards " , " The Examinations " , and " The Resources " when taken to task about their poor instruction and lack of adequate care for learners and commitment to duty. A lot of public funds are used to finance education. Such huge funding has to be justified through calls for responsibility and accountability in schools, particularly by teachers. There is a general view that if public schools were managed in exactly the same way private companies were managed and the reward and punishment for teachers was on the basis of how much students learnt, teaching and learning would improve in schools. Teachers often see themselves as teaching learners without critically reflecting on the extent to which they are accountable to parents of the learners and to the learners they teach. Such a lack of a complete understanding of the view that teachers as professionals have high levels of accountability often see teachers exhibiting unprofessional conduct in wanton disrespect and despise of parents and learners. In this paper the researchers explore the concept teacher accountability. They further examine the different types of accountability teachers have and also outline some of the elements of unprofessional conduct teachers exhibit due to lack of accountability. The reasons why teachers should be fully accountable to parents and learners are outlined. In this paper the researchers also outline conditions that should be in place before teachers are made accountable and they recommend the licensing of teachers and the introduction of performance-related incentives as some of the measures that to ensure teacher accountability in public schools in South Africa.
TEACHERS AS ASSESSORS: A CASE STUDY OF THE GAUTENG PROVINCE (REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA)
The aim of the research was to establish how assessment was implemented by teachers in selected schools in Gauteng Province. This study was underpinned by a critical discourse analysis theory in which the researcher expressed his comments or judgements based on written or spoken communications, discussions or conversations with teachers. Qualitative method was used to gather information from the different categories of participants. In-depth formal interviewing was used as the main data collection method. The researcher used focus group interviews and individual interviews to collect data. The researcher then interpreted and drew meaning from the displayed data. The knowledge this research intended to create will be of significance because teachers play a key role in the process of implementing assessment policies. Teachers had different views on the process of assessment. All teachers interviewed conceded that they received training on the National Protocol on Assessment. However, educators had different views in terms of the workshops they attended. There must be a shift from norm-referenced to criterion-referenced type of assessment, that is, shift from assessing learners by comparing one learner from the others. Key words: Teacher, evaluation and assessment, critical discourse analysis, perceptions, forms of assessment, criterion referencing, assessment tasks, progression and promotion.
Repositioning teachers as assessors: Compromised aspirations and contested agency
Apples, 2021
The global trend to emphasise assessment for learning brings up the issue of repositioning teachers in assessment. The contemporary curricular policy reforms encourage teachers to take an agentic role in assessment, but multiple dimensions of the environment affect its realisation. Drawing on an ecological approach to teacher agency, this empirical study investigated how Korean secondary English teachers (KSETs) perceive and enact their own teacher agency in assessment within the ecosystem of Korean education. The dataset for the study comprises semi-structured interviews with 15 KSETs. The interview questions involved the main themes such as personal experiences over the life course regarding assessment and professional practice in assessment. The findings from the thematic analysis in dicate that past environment like the excessive emphasis on high-stakes standardised testing still affected teacher perception and teacher agency in the present assessment practices directed by a curricular reform, and the incongruence the teachers experie nced between past and present environment significantly influenced the enactment of teacher agency. The findings suggest teachers aspire to enact teacher agency regarding assessment through the critical interpretation of their iterative experiences, present affordances, and projective orientation. Aspirations can be compromised, however, through negotiations with the environmental conditions in assessment practice, and teachers struggle to enact teacher agency leading to ecological transformation. This study concludes with practical implications to enhance teacher agency in assessment, theoretical implications regarding the conceptual expansion of the ecological perspective and suggestions for future research.
Journal of Educational Review, 2018
This study examines the factors hampering the professional autonomy of teachers at secondary schools in the Elliotdale Circuit of the Dutywa Education District. Secondary school teachers in the circuit were in constant fear of the loss of their professional autonomy as a result of interference and imposition on their professional duties. A qualitative approach with case study design was employed in the study. Purposive sampling technique was used to select five principals, twelve teachers, two subject advisors and three teacher union representatives. Data collected through face-to-face in-depth individual interviews were analysed thematically. Themes were drawn from the responses of the participants. Findings revealed that strict rules and regulations put in place by the department, the perceptions that teachers would not teach effectively when given professional autonomy, the constant supervision of teachers' work, bureaucracy as a management style, the existence of unqualified teachers, teachers' lack of passion for the profession and the prevalence of politicking and conflicts between the Department of Education and the teacher unions, were some of the factors found to be hampering the professional status of secondary school teachers in the Elliotdale Circuit. Some recommendations were made, these included: the Department of Education should use a democratic and participatory style of management in supervising teachers' work, the departmental officials should have less control over the teachers in relation to the core act of teaching and learning and the Department of Education should forge a working relationship with all the teacher unions in matters relating to teacher professional autonomy.
Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 2018
It is widely acknowledged that there is systemic pressure on teachers to enact assessment practices that raise student achievement. In this article assessment related discourses that influence teacher and student classroom practices are examined in relation to initial teacher education. In Australia, preservice teachers (PSTs) are required to demonstrate assessment capability, promote student agency and monitor their practice impact on student learning whilst working in schooling ecologies that are marked by high stakes accountability measures. Processes that bridge university and inschool PST teacher preparation are an important consideration in developing assessment capability. It is argued that there are tensions in the current policy environment associated with distributed classroom power relations that are emblematic of student agency in practice. The socially constituted nature of ecological agency that underpins generative assessment for learning practices is an important consideration for judgement about initial teacher assessment capability and associated graduate impact on student learning.
2016
This paper reports the initial results from a representative survey of teachers in the Western Cape regarding their views of professionalism and accountability. This is the first survey of its kind in South Africa. Preliminary analysis of the data from 115 public schools suggests that teachers at no-fee schools, who are predominantly black women, report facing the greatest institutional burdens and the greatest need for institutional support, particularly from the state. Related to this, they tend to stress pastoral care-work as central to being a professional, while those at fee-paying schools stress their claims to pedagogical knowledge and job prestige. This indicates that teachers at different schools are subject to different and unequal institutions (or rules), where the kind of school that teachers work at often reflects their race and gender positioning. This implies that the concept of a bifurcated education system, characterised by different production functions and outcome...
“The real and the ideal”: teacher roles and competences in South African policy and practice
International Journal of Educational Development, 2000
Policy-makers have placed great faith in education as a means of transforming and developing South African society. Recent policy documents specify occupational, professional and academic roles and competences for teachers. These documents require a significant shift to "extended" professionalism. Do these roles and competences resonate with current classroom realities and practices? This question was addressed by mapping the practices of "effective" teachers onto research schedules based on the six major roles prescribed by policy. In practice, teachers assumed roles that were more in accord with personal value systems, local cultures, and contexts. Some significant disjunctions at the interface of policy and practice raise serious questions about policy assumptions. "Tissue rejection", a not unlikely possibility, would jeopardise the curriculum edifice upon which transformation and development depend. Worse, historically unequal schools could become more so.
2011 Perspectives in Education 29, 4
In developing the Advanced Diploma in Education (ADE) as a professional qualification for continuing teacher education for early schooling at the University of KwaZulu-Natal we asked, "What are the enabling roles foundation phase teachers need to play in order to reclaim their space as agents who significantly influence their professional practice and alter their identities?" We believe that this question is timely and critical given the current effect of the discourse of standards and accountability on teacher agency. In this article we present a framework of enabling roles which create opportunities for teacherstudents to experience critical reflection, transformatory learning and the development towards stronger agency. A significant implication of the framework is that teachers gain the experience of being part of a community in dialogue instead of a blunt tool for externally imposed curriculum demands. Space is created for both personal direction and the development of practice from within the foundation phase. We are mindful of the fact that once the course has been completed and the qualification has been obtained, the lack of personal commitment and institutional pressure to teach in government-sanctioned ways may create slippage and constrain liberating roles. Nonetheless, we feel that in introducing the roles in the ADE, developmental opportunities for teacher autonomy and transformative professionalism will be created.
Perspectives in Education, 2011
In developing the Advanced Certificate in Teaching (ACT) as a professional qualification for continuing teacher education for early schooling at the University of KwaZulu-Natal we asked the following: “What are the enabling roles foundation phase teachers need to play in order to reclaim their space as agents who significantly influence their professional practice and how can they be assisted to become fully engaged in these roles?” We believe that this focus is timely and critical given the current effect of the discourse of standards and accountability on teacher agency. In this article we present a framework of enabling roles which create opportunities for teacher-students to experience critical reflection, transformatory learning and the development towards stronger agency. A significant implication of the framework is that teachers gain the experience of being part of a community in dialogue instead of a blunt tool for externally imposed curriculum demands. Space is created for...
US-China Education Review Volume 4 (1), January 2007, 2007
"Together with National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs) in England, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand and Australia, the South African NQF is part of a somewhat elite, even notorious, and often criticised group of first generation NQFs that were established between the late 1980s and early 1990s. These NQFs were rooted in the thinking on competency, lifelong learning and outcomes-based education that prevailed in the United Kingdom at the time (Young, 2005). In the subsequent period up to 2005, more than 30 additional countries have embarked on NQF development, while three regional qualification framework initiatives are also currently underway, one in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), another in the European Union (EU), and yet another amongst English-speaking Caribbean countries (Tuck et al., 2005). Backgrounded by this continued drive for NQF development across the world, I use this paper to reflect critically on the extent to which the development and implementation of the South African NQF has impacted on the regulation of teacher education. In particular I discuss the extent to which: • provisioning of teacher education has been quality assured through NQF sub-systems; • teacher qualifications and standards have been developed and realigned to NQF requirements to accommodate, amongst others, un- and under-qualified teachers; and • professional development points for teachers are being introduced to complement the NQF credit system (Department of Education, 2005). The paper is concluded with specific observations that may be of value to other countries that are using, or plan to use, NQFs to regulate and improve teacher education. "