Teacher knowledge and employer-driven professional development : a critical analysis of the Gauteng Department of Education programmes

There is growing consensus in international and local literature that, to be effective, professional development activities (PDAs) should focus on ways of teaching that improve learners' learning, but there is no clear consensus on the teaching focus and the form in which teacher learning is organised. Drawing from literature on teacher knowledge, in particular Shulman's distinction between subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), this article critically reviews the PDAs provided by the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE), South Africa. It identifies 2009 as a turning point in the GDE provision of PDAs. Until 2009, most PDAs were targeted at the improvement of a few discrete aspects of teacher practice, to comply with a new curriculum framework. Around 2009, the GDE turned towards scripted teaching in a form of standardised lesson plans, to engineer a whole new practice for teachers in order to improve learners' results. The argument of this article is that teacher knowledge of subject matter, consisting of knowledge of the substantive and syntactic aspects of the curriculum content and beyond, has not been imparted to teachers by employer-driven curriculum implementation workshops or short courses, and that only a limited number of teaching routines such as sequencing and pacing of the curriculum content can be imparted by scripted lesson plans. Although the idea of scripting a new practice is understandable in the light of the general agreement that PDAs in South Africa failed to make a difference to teachers' practice and to learners' performance, it is essential to understand its limitations.