education plans and reforms. In-service qualification assistance needs to have
its own clear logic and resources, rather than being one program activity or output
among many.
This is the difference between the Laos Education for All – Fast Track Initiative and Bangladesh PEDP 3 approaches. The latter envisaged timeframes, reform focus and institutional
partnerships distinctively needed for a major capacity change.
Even while noting the strengths of the PEDP 3, its mid-term review concluded that the program may not be sufficiently embedded in institutions and downstream systems. The review
identified three priorities for improving ownership and sustainability, both equal conditions of success for qualification-based investment:
Investing in Teachers | 65
teacher development. In fact, survival of Each Child Learns in Bangladesh thus far is probably only due to it being embedded in PEDP 3.
A related lesson from this evaluation is to think about incentives for Diploma of Education instructors to educate and train teachers differently, as explained by a DFAT program manager in Bangladesh (feature box below).
Motivating teacher educators
Another issue is that the instructors will not benefit in any way through the introduction of this course. So why should they be motivated? But somehow some are willing and motivated, not only through my personal intervention, I was in the system for a long time—almost each and every teacher knows me … but I cannot say each and every instructor is motivated. Previously they would go to the classroom and lecture—repeat. This time, they have to prepare two to three hours every day. Without preparation they cannot go. The students have already got the resource book and they have many questions. Without preparation the instructor cannot answer those questions.
Bangladesh PEDP 3, Interview 3, Program manager
Conclusions: To what extent are DFAT investments consistent with
conditions for success of teacher in-service qualification?
The contrast between the two cases in this chapter highlights the conditions for successfully implementing in-service qualification investments, including characteristics of good practice, which may be applicable in different contexts.
As noted in the introduction, successful in-service qualification depends on governments and donors being clear about the intrinsic characteristics and demands of qualification training as distinct from professional development. Getting it right requires attention to the quality of curriculum and trainers, and determining a study load and content that will motivate practicing teachers to learn and improve as professionals, and successfully obtain a qualification
while working.
In part, the problems of the Education for All – Fast Track Initiative derived from both MoE and donors underestimating the demands of qualification training.
The lesson is that the kind of transformation sought through qualification training
cannot be realised by treating it as an equal part of the busy agenda of sector-wide
education plans and reforms. In-service qualification assistance needs to have
its own clear logic and resources, rather than being one program activity or output
among many.
This is the difference between the Laos Education for All – Fast Track Initiative and Bangladesh PEDP 3 approaches. The latter envisaged timeframes, reform focus and institutional
partnerships distinctively needed for a major capacity change.
Even while noting the strengths of the PEDP 3, its mid-term review concluded that the program may not be sufficiently embedded in institutions and downstream systems. The review
identified three priorities for improving ownership and sustainability, both equal conditions of success for qualification-based investment:
1. In-service provision should be embedded in detailed analysis and assessment of the entire process of teacher management and development, and the institutions concerned with this. 2. To create sustained momentum for change, awareness and understanding of the need and
benefits of quality education should be reinforced at district, subdistrict, school and local community levels.
3. A program of assessment and evaluation should explicitly accumulate and communicate evidence of quality impact.
– This could be used for persuading ministries to persevere with difficult and demanding reforms such as in-service qualification.
Despite its lack of prominence in Australian aid, in-service qualification is a strategic intervention. It addresses a major barrier to improving learning outcomes in partner countries—the extent to which untrained teachers are used in schools. It provides a useful vehicle for pedagogical reforms to be institutionalised and scaled up through ownership of qualifications by teacher training colleges. It also provides an opportunity to link colleges with practice schools to support improved quality and relevance of pre-service and in-service teacher qualifications.
While the Education for All – Fast Track Initiative did not achieve its expected learning improvement outcomes, it did establish a highly-valued learning assessment system and institutionalising data collection and analysis. The quality of program outputs related to teacher upgrading did not meet expectations due to unrealistic timeframes, program complexity,
inadequate design and failure to address known district-level budget constraints.
It was too soon to obtain data on outcomes of Bangladesh’s PEDP 3 but, as noted earlier, DFAT’s mid-term review identified M&E as a priority for future program management and evidence-based improvement.
Australia Awards recipient Chean Toing Ain from Cambodia is studying a Masters of Education at the University of Adelaide. Photo: DFAT.
Introduction
This chapter discusses the evolution of DFAT’s school-based teacher development
investments, within international and national agendas, for improving education quality through school improvement. It then presents a case study on Pakistan.
In Australia’s experience, school-based professional development corresponds to ‘teaching practices’ and ‘relationships and accountability’ in the Conceptual Framework for Teacher Quality (Figure 2A, Appendix 2).
Teacher development through the school is an evolving story in Australian aid. It has grown out of school improvement programs, which themselves belong to different paradigms of effectiveness. Levers for improving teachers’ performance have differed accordingly. There have been three main approaches. A brief summary of these helps explain the indirect route to improving teacher capacity at school level in the Australian program.
Quality as inclusiveness (UNICEF)
The first model is DFAT’s oldest school-based approach—support for the UNICEF model. This model usually builds on government structures for school-based professional development: clusters of schools around a model school.
UNICEF adds value through the development of child-friendly schools (Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste), schools of quality (Laos), and school-based management (Indonesia – Papua Education Sector Development). The common element here is the generalised approach to achieving conducive teaching and learning environments, good school management and community participation. These three dimensions affect a child’s receptivity to learning, making the model relevant to quality teaching and learning.
Improving schools’ accountability for performance
The second model that has influenced Australia’s approach to teacher improvement through school improvement is a service delivery orientation. In this model, enabling and leveraging school accountability to the community for students’ learning was the strategy for improved teacher performance. Enabling was through more decentralised control by the school over its performance. Accountability came through an emphasis on monitoring, measuring and reporting results.
This has had a strong influence on Australia’s designs from 2005 and is ongoing (Fiji, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, PNG, Samoa, Timor-Leste, Tonga and Vanuatu).
5. School-based professional
Investing in Teachers | 67
Improving schools’ performance
The third model supported by DFAT is an emerging one. It derives from the difficulties of delivering quality improvements higher up the service delivery chain. It invests in a bottom-up approach to quality classroom teaching and learning and the school’s orientation to improving student performance. From this classroom and school level, what works is then fed back up the system through policy work.
In Indonesia, the 2016–2019 Innovation for Indonesia’s School Children is an intervention of this kind, and the Professional Development for Education Personnel (ProDEP) program is part of the preparation for delivering it. These programs have developed out of the service delivery paradigm, recognising that effective teachers require professional knowledge and skills as well as school-level accountability and management mechanisms.
One other model featured in this case study does not fit the above paradigms, but offers an instructive variation on the first and may have useful lessons for the second and third. It involves a dedicated focus on improving teacher knowledge and skills at school level, as exemplified by the Pakistan Gilgit Baltistan Education Development and Improvement Program (GB-EDIP). However, this model has problems with sustaining institutions of school-based professional development, namely school instructional leadership by the principal and support by an active school cluster.