Teachers, Educational Change and Professional Development: Some Thoughts from a South African Experience

In the past decade, widespread educational changes were proposed for education at all levels of the system in South Africa. Educational reform has therefore become an inescapable part of the reality of teachers’ work. Initial implementation of the new curriculum for schools, guiding reform after the shift to democracy in 1994, was not easy for teachers and this was later revised and streamlined. These processes happened in a compressed time frame and in-service programmes were developed to assist teachers with the preparations for curriculum delivery. This paper explores ideas on in-service teacher education and professional development and draw on a case study of an in-service process developed for teachers to highlight participant’s views and responses to the programmes presented. Finally it discusses options and possibilities that might be considered for processes of continuous professional development to be more related to the needs and contexts of teachers’ practices.