Pioneering the way forward: Passionate advocates working to achieve SADTU’s strategic goals.
The SCNPDI’s mandate is to contribute meaningfully to the national professional initiatives led by SADTU in collaboration with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET).
The SCNPDI fully aligns with SADTU’s notions of liberation, supporting the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign and championing labour rights for teachers. In doing so, the SCNPDI supports the strategic goals of SADTU’s Vision 2030.
The institute’s focus is on Strategic Goal 2 which is closely linked to teacher professionalisation. In pursuit of this goal, we see the process of teacher professionalisation as a journey undertaken by teachers driven by ethical commitment to and passion for their profession: teachers immerse themselves in a process of continuous professional development which involves the exercise of professional judgement, utilising both their experience and knowledge.
SADTU advocates that teachers’ professional development should be effected from within the profession. SCNPDI thus sees its task as enabling teachers to play a more active role in their own professional development, creating the networks that can assist teachers to identify best practices in teaching and learning and bringing SADTU to the centre of teacher professional development activities nationally.
Since inception in 2010, we have been engaged in the following strategic areas:
At the school level, the education system is made up of various strata, from the teacher, to the in-school subject committee, to the cluster level, etc. Continuous professional development has to take place from the level of teachers upward. The Institute’s approach therefore emphasises the role of individual teachers and their peers in professional development and ensures that most of the responsibility for teacher development lies with the teachers themselves. This approach makes teacher development less of an offsite activity and a more concentrated, teacher led one, calling for greater involvement of teachers in their own professional development and more intensive interventions.
Through the SCNPDI District Based Professional Development Programme we have managed successful lead teacher training activities.
While we have developed training resources that have been used in the workshops we have undertaken throughout the country, we envisage networking with relevant stakeholders to provide teachers with materials that they can use for self-directed learning and professional development activities in their clusters. These resources will be made available through this website.
We recognise the importance of collaborating with established organisations to enhance our capacity and have initiated working relationships with the Tshwane University of Technology, which assisted with implementing the Institute’s Assessment for Learning Programme, and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, which implemented the School Management Team Training Programme.
The SCNPDI, in consultation with SADTU, conceptualised a Trade Union Education Programme which targets school managers with a view to bringing them to the same level of understanding of labour relations as shop-stewards. This initiative was informed by the realisation that shop-stewards are more conversant with labour relations legislation than their school level managers, the majority of whom are SADTU members. The intention of the programme is to proactively maintain labour peace and appropriate application of labour relations regulations in educational institutions.
The Institute engages in key strategic professional development training programmes for implementation both at national and district level. The programmes are demand driven in response to teachers’ needs and supply driven in that they complement the strategic teacher development goals of the Department of Basic Education (DBE).
Get in touch with the SCNPDI to partner with us and help grow teachers and improve teacher professionalisation. At SCNPDI, we’re committed to the facilitation of economic growth and development.
