This paper discusses the differential distribution of opportunities for professional development of science teachers in post-apartheid South Africa. It is argued that northern/western ideas about teacher change and development are poorly suited to modelling practices and challenges for those who were historically disadvantaged. The environment in which teachers work-physical, social and political-act to select a more limited repertoire of behaviour than those providing in-service might imagine. The paper proposes that evolutionary ideas on teacher change and development offer a more effective model of the constraints under which teachers work. These ideas have general application to educational systems in sub-Sahara n Africa. The implications for policy are a need to research current practices more thoroughly and to facilitate change through modest steps.

No abstract

This paper describes research conducted alongside the implementation of ‘Translation Activities’ to teach science process skills in three Schools for Children with Special Educational Needs (known as special schools) in the Western Cape, South Africa. Teachers were interviewed about the differences of teaching science to their learners in the context of the new Outcomes Based Education Curriculum. They were then trained in the strategy and observed while they started to implement it in their classrooms. Further interviews were conducted over the period of a year to discover how this particular teaching innovation fitted with the special conditions. The case studies explain how pupils were able to spend a greater proportion of time working in groups, learning from the activities, and attempt to throw light on how access to science might be facilitated in a future system characterised by inclusion.

The research reported here is the first stage of monitoring the sustainability of the 'Teaching Science to Large Classes Project'. This project has been introducing teachers, in the Western Cape, South Africa, to paper and pencil 'Translation Activities' (TAs) as a strategy for learning science process skills within the new South African Outcomes Based Education curriculum. By January 2001, 24 sets of TAs complete with teachers' guidance notes had been produced and compiled into four Learning Area Programmes suitable for a complete year of work in the Senior Phase. Two thousand booklets of this resource were reproduced by the Western Cape Education Department and distributed to all primary and secondary schools during a series of training workshops. This paper reports, survey and interview data monitoring the uptake by teachers of this provision. The appropriateness of the intervention and modes of dissemination are discussed in the context of an evolutionary model of teacher development and in relation to future sustainability of the innovation.