Expansion of Quality Teacher Development in Botswana

The National Professional Diploma in Education (NPDE) is approaching the end of its life span as an interim professional development programme in South Africa. However, it has received a new lease on life in Botswana, through the agency of Ba Isago University College. Tony Mays reports.

Ba Isago University College is a private higher education institution with campuses in Gaborone and Francistown. It has for a number of years provided contact-based support to students registered with Unisa for several programmes. In 2002 Ba Isago approached Unisa with a request to assist with the upgrading to diploma status of a group of teachers employed by the mines in Orapa. As private contractees these students were not able to access the professional training opportunities of the State. At this time SAIDE had been contracted by Unisa to manage its NPDE programme. Having explored the need to re-contextualise the NPDE for Botswana and the need to recruit, train and monitor local Botswana tutors for this purpose, Ba Isago and Unisa-SAIDE had several meetings with Ministry officials to ensure that the recontextualised NPDE was compatible with the Botswana curriculum and that the teachers’ qualification would also be recognised by the State.

It became clear from these engagements that the Botswana Ministry of Education not only supported the initiative but saw it as a way to augment its own teacher development programmes for teachers in public schools. As a consequence, the then Minister of Education presided over the graduation of the Orapa teachers and encouraged the expansion of the programme to include public school teachers.

In 2006/7, Unisa made the decision to begin phasing out the NPDE programme and Ba Isago approached Unisa to buy the rights to the programme. It has subsequently begun a revision of the programme and materials in line with the most recent developments in education in Botswana and is also building its own systems to offer the revised programme independently.

As part of this process, Ba Isago is seeking accreditation for the programme internally in line with the stipulations of Botswana’s Tertiary Education Act (TEA) of 2005. Its longer term plan is to seek registration as an accredited independent provider of higher education rather than as an agency supporting students studying for qualifications elsewhere. SAIDE has been contracted to support the most immediate of these initiatives – accreditation to offer the revised NPDE programme independently of Unisa. This has involved the development of a portfolio-based self-evaluation template based on the TEA, but also responding to lessons of experience and quality guidelines that have evolved from engagements with Nadeosa and the CHE HEQC in South Africa. SAIDE will provide critical feedback on drafts of the self-evaluation portfolio at key stages and will assist where necessary with responses to the accreditation submissions.