DEVELOPMENT OF TEACHER

PROFESSIONALISM
 Module outline

Outline
• Meaning of professional development
• Teacher professional development
• Teacher professional development in
Tanzania
 During colonial era
 Post colonial era
 Agents of teacher professional
development
 Meaning of the concept
 Definitions of Professional Development differ
according to educational traditions and contexts.
• Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) as the sum total of
formal and informal learning experiences throughout
one’s career from pre-service teacher education to
retirement.
• Day & Sachs (2004) a term used to describe all the
activities which teachers engage in during a course
of a career which are designed to enhance their
work.
 Meaning of TPD
• Guskey (2000) as those processes and activities
designed to enhance the professional
knowledge, skills, and attitudes of educators so
that they might, in turn, improve the learning of
students. 
• Danielson & McGreal (2000) a process by which
competent teachers achieve higher professional
competence and expand their understanding of
self, role and context.  
 Meaning of TPD

 Craft (2001) Professional development is a

term used to cover a broad range of
activities designed to contribute to the
learning of teachers who have completed
their initial training.
 Generally professional development
involves both academic qualification and
professional growth
 Why TPD
• To gain information about new practice in
education
• Change of policy
• Improve the existing practices
• New roles
• Emerging challenges in education and
teaching in general
 Importance of TPD
• Provide opportunity to explore new roles
• Development of new instructional
techniques
• Refine the practice and broaden teachers
themselves both as educators and as
individuals
 TPD initiatives
 Available literature suggests several
different initiatives that are employed to
develop quality teacher professionals;
 Creation of clusters or centers (TRCs) that
collect teachers in the vicinity and offer them
the required professional assistance
 Offering open and distance learning
schemes
 Organize in-service training programmes
through educational institutions or ministry
of education.
 TPD initiatives
• Consolidating and facilitating of subject
associations, such as the Tanzania
historical association, Association of
Mathematics etc, which organize
seminars, workshops and symposia for
teachers
 Effective TPD strategies
• lead to changes in knowledge and skills of teachers to
more effectively respond to the problem of practice;
• recognizes teacher’s work as being based on specialized
knowledge and skills, expecting all teachers to have the
ability to use them appropriately in a variety of institutional
contexts and with diverse student demographics;
• necessitates that teachers adopt an inquiry orientation to
investigate pedagogical issues, and critically utilize
evidence-based knowledge to inform professional
practice;
•  
Effectiveness of TPD strategies
• accepts the involvement of education
stakeholders and non-education
communities to work in collaboration to
ensure that educational reforms and efforts
remain pertinent to society; and
• expects teachers’ self-directed commitment
to continuous learning related to the
individual’s own expertise and experiences
 TPD in Tanzania
• Historical perspective
• It has long standing history dating back the
post-slave trade era
• Teacher education programmes were a
result of Christian missionary activities.
• During this period, freed or ex-slaves were
the first potential teacher trainees on East
African soil
 TPD in Tanzania
 Teacher education during the colonial
(Germany Era)
 In the 1902, the Lutherans opened a
seminary for training assistant teachers at
Kidia, Old Moshi, with nine prospective
Chagga teachers
 TPD in Tanzania

• British Era
 colleges of teacher education popularly known
as training centers were established during this
period.
 The director of education was appointed in 1920,
for his first years of tenure of office he was
mainly concerned with training African teachers
and re-opening some of the pre-war village
schools
 TPD in Tanzania
• By 1945 small government teacher
training center with African staff had been
opened in all but one of the eight
provinces of Tanganyika.
 TPD in Tanzania

 Post independence era

 the adoption of the 1961 education Act lead to:
 Abolish of racial and religious segregation in
education
 Change of curriculum
 Expansion of enrolment in all levels of education
 TPD in Tanzania
 As a result the government has to undergo
the following in TPD;
 Establish unified teachers service (UTS)
 Expand the existed teacher education
colleges
 Building new teacher education colleges
 TPD in Tanzania

 TPD in the context of ESR

 Following the adoption of the philosophy of
ESR in 1967;
 The government embark on expanding the
primary education at the expense of other
levels of education
 Through the Musoma resolution of 1974 the
government embark on implementing
universal primary education (UPE)
 TPD in Tanzania

• The Goals of UPE

• To attain this goal, the government
needed at least 40,000 teachers, a
mission impossible using a conventional
teacher education approaches with its
limited capacity and man power
• government was forced to deploy primary
school leavers and train them on job
 TPD in Tanzania
• initiative was increasing the number of student
teachers in the teacher education colleges
 TPD in the context of liberalization
 the government embarked on the liberalization
of teacher education so as to alleviate the
chronic shortage of teachers
 TPD in Tanzania
 Context of PEDP
 Initiatives
• Increase enrolment in Grade A programme
• expansion of teacher education
• private teacher education colleges
• Lower the entry qualification
• Reduce the time span for grade A programme
 TPD in Tanzania
 Context of SEDP
 Initiatives
• Induction course for form six leavers
• Reduce the time span for diploma course to one
year
• Reduce degree course to three years
• Expansion of education course
• Education course was give priority for loan
• Use of non-education graduates
Challenges of TPD in Tanzania
• Teacher professional development in
Tanzania encounter four main challenges:
1.Allowing un-interested, academically or
professionally weak members to enter the
teaching profession and receive the title of
teacher
2.Altering the training programmes of teachers
without reflecting on the consequences and
image of teachers
 Challenges of TPD
3. Not developing a professional
development and in-service training
program such that teachers who were
trained years ago continue to teach
the same thing in the same way
4. Appointing weak or poorly qualified
people into leadership. These people
care little about professional
development
 Agents of TPD: TRC’s
• Teachers’ Resource Centres (TRCs) were
first established in Britain between the late
1950s and early 1960s as a way to help
teachers develop as professionals and
improve teaching and learning process
• In Tanzania, the first TRC was established
at Kleruu Teachers’ College in 1972 with
financial support from Government of
Denmark.
 TRC’s
• In 1986 the Ministry of Education and
Culture issued a directive to establish
TRCs in every region and district
• By the year 1999, for example, a total of
283 TRCs had been established in
Tanzania Mainland and 9 in Zanzibar
 Objectives of TRC’s
(i) To provide support and co-ordinate the
cluster teacher centres;
(ii) To provide support in educational
innovations and the use of low cost teaching
and learning resources;
(iii) To provide in-service training to education
supporting staff, like subject advisors,
material writers and other education related
personnel;
 Objectives of TRC’s
(iv) To revise curriculum and suggest any
technical changes;
(v) To co-ordinate teacher support
programmes with the aim of improving the
status of teachers academically and
professionally
 TRC’s
TRCs as strategy for teachers ‘professional
development has the following potentials:
• To establish an upgrading system for
untrained and under qualified teachers;
• To improve pedagogical skills of teachers
through systematic in-service training;
• To improve school management by training
heads of schools;
 TRC’s
• To improve teaching and learning by
establishing TRCs libraries and encourage
teachers improvise teaching materials;
• To supervise and assess the impact and
effectiveness of training using inspectors’
reports, and classroom observation
 Challenges facing TRC’s

• shortage of resources to run teachers’

professional development programmes
effectively and efficiently
• TRCs used one model of training
(traditional) that did not consider teachers’
educational background which to some
extent affected the quality of training and
hence teachers’ performance
 TSC
• Was established in 2016 by the
government Notice No. 308 to replace the
Teachers Service Department (TSD)
 The functions of TSC
 Recruitment, appointment and
development of teachers
 Deal with teachers disciplinary issues
 Registration of teachers who are in service
 Deal with teachers welfare and development
 TSC
 To maintain a record of every teacher in the
service
 ensure that the employers are performing their
functions in accordance with the teachers
service regulations
 To promote teachers,
 Deal with teachers disciplinary issues
 Challenges of TSC
 Overwhelmed by huge number teachers
compared to resources available
 The Commission seemed to be reactive
than proactive to teachers problems
 The Tanzania Teachers Union
 Teachers’ movement in Tanzania started in
the early 1940’s
 From 1964 to early 1990’s the workers’
movement become party of the ruling political
party (under Jumuiya ya Wafanyakazi
Tanzania-JUWATA)
 with socio-economic changes in 1990’s,
teachers started to demand for a forum of
their own to be a strong voice for their welfare
 The Tanzania Teachers Union
• The union was registered in 1993 under the
Trade Union Ordinance, Cap. 381of 1956
and given its registration number TU. 002.
• In 1998 the Parliament of the United
Republic of Tanzania passed a new trade
union act (Trade Union Act No. 10) which
led to re-registration of trade unions in the
country.
 TTU Vision & Mission

Vision.
• To become an organization with the highest
efficiency in uniting teachers and handling
various grievances affecting members,
striving for better working conditions and
the welfare of teachers and to be in the
front line in advocating for and protecting
the status and dignity of the teaching
profession and quality education for all.
 Vision and mission
Mission
• to improve, advocate for and protect the
welfare of teachers, both, social and
economic welfare including advocating for,
and protecting the status and dignity of the
teaching career and making sure that
quality education is accessible to every
Tanzanian child and adults.
 Pillars of TTU
• That of welfare: it is under this pillar that the
teachers air their voices to demand for rights
and justice
• That of professionalism: this has to do with
influencing education policies,
professionalism and access to quality
education as right for all.
Motto:
• Responsibility and Rights
 Contribution of TTU on
professional development
 Promote and protect the dignity and status
of the teaching profession including the
observation of the highest form of morality,
understanding, knowledge and skills.
 Encourage teachers to uplift themselves
professionally as actors responsible for
effective rendering of services in schools
 Fight for conductive teaching environment
 Challenges of TTU
 It seemed to be reactive than proactive in
dealing with teachers issues
 Interference from the government and
politics
 Overwhelmed by huge and diverse
members
 Issues patterning to membership
 Contribution and management of funds