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Tony Mays reports on the current status of materials developed
for the Department of Education’s ACE for School Leadership.
On 11 February 2009, SAIDE handed over to the Department of Education
a CD which contained Word and PDF revised final versions of the
eleven modules (excluding the ICT module which was not revised),
the curriculum outline and the implementation guidelines that comprise
the national ACE for School Management and Leadership.
This represented the end of a three-year project involving a collaborative
endeavour between 17 Higher Education Institutions(HEIs), teacher
unions, a number of NGOs and individual consultants, and the Department
of Education.
Draft versions of the ACE materials were field-tested during 2007
and the materials as well as the implementation of the programme
as a whole were evaluated from three different perspectives –
a specifically constituted project research team, a critical review
of the materials from a subject expert perspective (a step that
had been omitted during development of the first draft due to delayed
processes) and a review of the assessment and practical implementation
activities by a third review team.
The findings of these various reviews were tabled during a national
meeting in May 2008 and a task team identified to take forward the
recommendations. This task team met at the end of July 2008 and
formulated briefs for the revision of the materials, the curriculum
outline and the implementation guidelines. Management of the process
to revise materials according to the briefs from the task team was
then put out to tender. SAIDE was awarded the tender towards the
end of September 2008.
The memorandum of understanding that underpinned the revision process
required:
- The identification and contracting of an appropriate team of
writers to revise the materials according to the task team brief
- Review of the revised materials by at least two members of the
extended national committee
- Importing of the signed-off revised content into a new template
- Provision of the revised materials in both MSWord and PDF format
(to allow both for institutions to add to the materials and for
institutions to use the revised materials as provided).
The materials will be developed in a new template in the revision
process. The revised template provides a much clearer visual orientation,
including title pages for each of the key sections in line with
the recommendations of some reviewers. However, MSWord was not really
designed for desk top publishing. As a result, it will be difficult
for HEIs to effect major changes that result in repagination in
this new template. SAIDE will therefore need to supply the final
materials in three formats:
- an updated Word document in the original format which will be
much easier to make substantive changes in;
- a Word document in the new template which will be compatible
with small changes e.g. additional references that do not affect
pagination;
- an updated document in PDF format which can be printed as is
without change.
The materials will be licensed under a Creative Commons license
and will shortly be posted on the Department
of Education’s Thutong website in a space specific to
the project.
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