Professional development for government teaching professionals: can it be realised through the balanced scorecard approach?

Abstract

Professionals make decisions, problem-solve through experience, skill, and cognition, while providing a unique community service. For the government employed professional teacher, professional associations, standards, identity and their employer contribute to professional development (PD). Meanwhile, continuous PD, or professional lifelong learning, enables PD beyond maintenance of currency -sufficiency -to provide impetus for forward movement of professions through innovation. The balanced scorecard (BSC) has international use in organisations and education to reduce the gap between vision and reality. Understandings of key PD aspects suggest that the BSC might align to provide a framework for PD. This article discusses the BSC for teacher PD applied in Victorian government schools, Australia, and rationalises why it was only implemented for a year.