TUTORS’ AND PRINCIPALS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A QUALIFICATION-BASED IN-SERVICE PROGRAM FOR MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE TEACHERS

The purpose of this study was to determine tutors’ and principals’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) programme offered at a South African university. The ACE reported here was a qualification meant to prepare practicing teachers to be more effective practitioners of Mathematical Literacy, Life Sciences or Physical Sciences in the Senor Phase (Grades 7-9) and Further Education and Training (FET) phase (Grades 10-12). The study involved soliciting tutors’ and principals’ perceptions through interviews and a survey questionnaire regarding the effectiveness the programme in terms of its fitness for purpose. The primary purpose of the programme was to upgrade or to reskill teachers for these crucial subjects in the midst of a gripping mathematics and science education crisis and a rapidly evolving curriculum in the country. A 5-point Likert-type semantic scale version of the student questionnaire was adapted to evaluate the perceptions of graduates’ principals as proxy consumers and an interview schedule based on the questionnaire was prepared and used to collect interview data from the full time and part-time tutors who facilitated in the programme.

Findings were that although there were contextual, process, content and outcome aspects of the programme which were rated highly by both tutors and principals and needed to be consolidated and some, such as subject matter knowledge that needed to be re-examined. On balance there was a relatively high approval of the programme in terms of meeting its purpose of preparing teachers to cope with the current curricular changes and classroom proficiency demands. The findings also corroborated the experience of professional growth in teaching competencies reported by graduates in a separate study (Ndlovu 2011).