You are here

12/11/2014

On October 28th, the South African Council for Educators (SACE) organised its first seminar on professional development. The central theme was how to organise professional development for school principals and teachers so it addresses the system’s needs. The speakers of this seminar included Dr Tony Khatle (on behalf of SACE), Josie Singaram (ETDP-SETA), Mr Habib Karimulla (Department of Basic Education) and Mr Marc Van den Brande (Secretary General of the umbrella organisation for Catholic primary schools in Flanders and the president of the Flemish Education Council for Primary Education). The keynote presentation of Mr Marc Van den Brande resulted in a reflection on the South African system of professional development.

Key characteristics of professional development in Flanders

During his presentation, Mr Van den Brande outlined some of the key characteristics of professional development in Flanders:

  • A decentralised system in which schools bear most responsibility for professional development, including managing budgets and defining priorities.
  • Professional development as a voluntary activity with an important role of the school principal to act as an instructional leader.
  • A shift from a focus on external providers to internal professional development. It corresponds with the development of schools as learning organisations. This means that the school is the engine for learning, that professional development is integrated in the vision of the school and that leadership is shared with - rather than concentrated solely within - the principal. This shift doesn’t mean external support becomes redundant. External support remains important to bring in expertise and can help to evolve the school organisation.
  • A shift from external providers offering generic courses based on system needs to external providers offering tailor-made support based on the school’s priorities. Indeed, a successful model cannot be ‘planted’ into a school, but should be developed from within the school.

In-service training for school principals

Finally, Mr Van den Brande outlined some of the characteristics of the ProfS training course in Flanders. ProfS is a 3-year in-service training for starting school principals in primary education. During ten schooling days per year, principals are coached in various elements of the job. They work in small groups, coached by a pedagogical advisor. An important advantage of the format is that principals can bring their questions and emotions to the course, reducing the isolation many principals find themselves in. Networks of principals are formed and continue to flourish beyond the lifetime of the course.

These inter-school networks complement intra-school professional learning communities for teachers. In Flanders, there are no centralised guidelines or points to earn for participating in professional learning communities. However, many teachers engage in them as they stimulate cooperation, reflection and self-steering. School directors play an important role by enabling them (providing time, space etc.), acting as instructional leaders and bringing in external input.

Reflection

The presentation resulted in a fascinating reflection on the South African system of professional development. It is more top-down organised with SACE playing its role as a body for the professionalisation of the education field in managing professional development and ensuring quality. Mr Van den Brande reflected that many of the elements for successful professional development are present, but that they tend to be structured in different organisations, as silos. Also, given the differences in scale and capacity at the local level, a more decentralised organisation as in Flanders may not be directly transferable to the South African context.