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CHAPTER THREE : 'The Teachers' Centre as a Strategy for Teacher Development in the Developing World': A Review of the Literature


1.0 A Concept To Sell Abroad
2.0 Teachers' Centres In The Developing World.
3.0 Major Issues Related To The Recent Development Of Teacher Resource Centres In Developing Countries
4.0 Teachers' Centres As A Strategy For Teacher Development

Genevieve Fairhurst and Gary Knamiller

1.0 A Concept To Sell Abroad

Following the successful early development of teachers' centres in Britain, they became a concept to 'sell' abroad, both to developed and developing nations. Thornbury (1973 a) suggested that by the mid 1970s they had become one of Britain's major visible exports and that interest and sponsorship for the British prototype abroad was greater than it was at home. Weindling (1983) noted the frequent visitors from overseas to centres throughout England.

Such was the faith in the idea and the demand for the model, that the Commonwealth Secretariat commissioned a group of experts to produce a 'handbook' which could be 'applicable to those setting up or developing teachers' centres in widely differing social, economic and educational conditions' [Commonwealth secretariat (1983) cited in Kahn (1983)]. The book, Teachers' Resource Centres, was first published in 1984 and revised in 1991, after being in 'constant demand', according to the Director of the Education programme for the Secretariat (preface 1991). While Kahn, the principal author, demonstrates his great enthusiasm for the role of teachers' resource centres, he mention in his introduction that the 'handbook' should be seen as a reference for guidance rather than a 'description of Utopia'. He recommends that readers should 'concentrate on what is practical to achieve in their own particular area, given available human and physical resources, and the needs of the teachers and of the educational system' (1984: 4).

1.1 The underlying philosophy

While British teachers' centres were rather difficult to define, being uncoordinated and developing according to local circumstances and constraints, it was felt that there was an over riding 'philosophy' which could be captured and that this could guide the establishment of teachers' centres elsewhere (Kahn 1983, 1991. Gough 1989).

The philosophy that was so important and enduring for the teachers' centre phenomenon was explained by several commentators. Gough (1989: 51) claimed that the pivotal idea which was 'built into the fabric' of the early centres 'was that teachers' centres are teacher centred and should be quickly responsive to teachers' needs and wants'. Kahn (1984: 8) felt that the 'main plank' in the philosophy of teachers' centres was that they should offer support to 'the teacher as a professional'. He finds the philosophy neatly 'encapsulated' in a case study by Levine and Horowitz (1976): teachers' centres embrace 'the concept of professional growth which values the integrity of each teacher's work... the importance of an interactive approach to learning... the need for an informal atmosphere... a concern for building self confidence as well as knowledge among participants' (cited in Kahn ibid). The ultimate aim of teachers' centres, Kahn believed, was to support teachers in their aspirations to improve teaching and learning in the classroom.

Elements of an 'ideal teacher centre'
(Kahn, 1984, 10)
· 'neutrality', so that all 'should feel free to expose their weaknesses and strengths in a mutual search for improvements'

· 'relevance' as identified by the teacher not by someone from 'above'

· 'flexibility' to 'reflect the changing needs of teachers and the educational system'

· 'education not training' so that teachers are not expected to carry out 'almost blindly' the instruction they have received but 'are given the tools for the job and then trusted to apply them with understanding'

· 'teachers as providers' as well as consumers so that teachers would not just seek in-set from experts but will also be able to 'use personal strengths' to share ideas with colleagues and act as leaders of workshops

· 'problem centred' rather than solution-centred as there are no 'universally applicable solutions'. Such change would lead to an 'emphasis on diagnosing and studying problems', and, by sharing expertise and calling on outside resources, on 'finding appropriate solutions to the real situation'

· 'professional atmosphere' as regards 'the building and the relationships set up by the staff of the centre', while acknowledging economic restraints. In particular are required 'a non institutional building' and 'an "open" director' who 'commands the professional respect of his staff, teachers and visitors'

· 'small beginnings' so that 'by offering realistic support' for teachers 'struggling to meet daily needs', it would attract a growing clientele and expand with demand, and thus 'retain credibility (with) teachers and the community as a rational and realistic institution' in a way which 'a lavishly housed and equipped centre' would not.

· 'locality' is ideally within easy reach of schools or homes of the teachers

· 'democracy' which implies a majority of teachers sitting on committees and sub-committees associated with centres thus demonstrating 'the importance of the apostrophe after the word 'teachers' in the name Teachers' centre'.

In the Handbook Khan also considers the practical issues of running teachers' centres. (1984: 110-113). He admitted that it was difficult to 'prescribe how the job should be done' but then, having conceded this, his set of basic views about the workings of centres undoubtedly, now with hindsight, appears to ascend to a Utopian dream world. He concludes his 12 point plan for the 'day to day running' of centres:
'The Teachers' Resource Centre will weave the various educational agencies and the almost untapped expertise of the teaching force into its own democratic patterns through its committees, its co-operative style of work, and its empathy with its clients so that its work will win the confidence of the administration and the trust of the teachers and community. In this way the Centre will establish for itself an influential place in the evolution of educational advance.'

This, together with other such enthusiastic statements in Khan's Handbook frames the backdrop of much of the rhetoric that subsequently one sees in regard to teacher resource centres in planning documents and hears in seminars in developing countries.

1.2 Prophets of caution

Even Kahn and his associates offered warnings to overseas visitors not to adopt wholesale the British model of teachers' centres, but rather to adapt what they saw to their own circumstances (Kahn 1982: 79). Such caution has been repeated by many writers. Gough (1989: 54) notes 'if the present set of practices (in teachers' centres), and their likely developments are the result of a set of historical, political, economic and social and cultural processes, then we need to examine those aspects that we are considering sharing with people overseas, because there is no inherent reason why the patterns we have now -developed in a particular context - should be appropriate elsewhere'. While Hawes (1977: 37) confirmed his commitment to 'the principle of local involvement in the improvement of quality', he remained concerned about the wholesale adoption of teachers' centres saying that 'we are as yet only a little way into the idea, only half prepared to face its consequences'. He makes the point that a commitment to teachers' centres on a large scale involves considerable investment in terms of money and trained personnel. In developing countries, both of these are not only in very short supply but might possibly be employed in more effective ways. He points out that 'undertaking any major commitment involves cutting back somewhere else in the system'. Hopper (1996) takes the interesting tack that in any case it is not possible to 'export' such a model to a different educational and cultural setting because, in a different country, it would be influenced and shaped, intentionally and/or unintentionally by prevalent ideology and practice.

The belief that teachers' centres could fulfil such a role as put forward by Kahn in the mid 1980's implies a number of important assumptions. It assumes that the teachers served by a teachers' centre have a high degree of autonomy, experience, involvement in their work, and the skill and confidence to be reflective practitioners. It assumes a level of stability in teacher's professional and personal lives, which fails to take account of important contextual factors. It assumes that the expertise to tackle curriculum and materials development is available locally or can be easily developed. In particular it does not acknowledge that teachers might be faced with major initiatives for educational change coming from those with real 'power' - the department of education, and/or the donors who provide the funding.

Kahn's model does not consider the possibility that, in the face of massive politico-economic and educational change, teachers as a body might not be seen first and foremost as strictly 'professionals'. A possibly more realistic approach for teachers' centres was presented by Gough (1989) to the British Council Seminar 'Teachers' Centres World-Wide'. He sees the teachers' centre as reacting to and living with centrally directed policies and curriculum documents. In such a scenario, teachers are viewed more as technicians following blueprints rather than as professionals creating local initiatives on the basis of their own perceived needs and opportunities. Indeed, we may go so far as to say that Gough heralded the demise in Britain of teachers' centres as Kahn described them; in those earlier days before the emergence of the National Curriculum, SATS, league tables,

OFSTED and the Teacher Training Agency, to say nothing of the Literacy and Numeracy Hours.

2.0 Teachers' Centres In The Developing World.

2.1. Before Jomtien

The literature on teachers' centres in developing countries prior to Jomtien and Education For All (EFA) in 1990 is sketchy at best. This does not mean that they did not exist; only that for the most part teachers' centres developed in an ad hoc fashion.

Hoppers (1996), writing about the early emergence of teachers' centres in southern Africa, says that periods of political instability and poor economic growth after independence, coupled with expanding demand for education at a time when countries had neither the resources or the trained personnel to cope with it, ironically often served to 'create space within bureaucratic structures for teachers and headteachers to appropriate greater autonomy for local decision making and action.' The inability of existing authorities to provide effective support for teachers lead in some areas to the establishment of teachers' groups and teacher centres, which were initiated by communities of teachers rather than by education departments. They represented the action of teachers to deal with education problems from local perspectives. Through them teachers and heads had 'full involvement in needs assessment, planning and implementation of activities, in accordance with local interests and priorities. ' They were meeting places where teachers could compare problems and exchange ideas, much in the way Khan was advocating. The teachers' centres and teacher groups which developed in those early days often owed some of their characteristics to contact with British teachers' centres.

Hoppers goes on to point out that the early projects in Mozambique (ZIPs), Zimbabwe (school clusters) and to some extent Zambia's SHAPE project were grassroots attempts to support professional self development, locally and on a modest scale. Over time, with increased political and economic stability and with the backing of finance and expertise from outside agencies. Hoppers found that these early models changed. Teachers' centres became strategies of central control for the 'training' (our emphasis) of teachers and the implementation of new curriculum initiatives in the general quest for improved quality and increased school effectiveness. He found that this inclusion of locally initiated teachers' groups into a hierarchical and bureaucratic framework usually involved them being 'streamlined and adapted'. Where this happened, 'much of the de facto devolution of responsibilities towards teachers' communities was reversed.' (p. 13)

2.2 Jomtien and beyond

The 'World Declaration on Education for All', formulated at Jomtien, Thailand in March 1990 represents a watershed in regard to the proliferation of teacher resource centres in developing countries. While the main message of Jomtien was one of quantitative expansion of basic education, 'universal access to... primary education by the year 2000' (cited in Little 1994: 238), professional educators, if not politicians, were clear that the issue of quality of education had to be addressed as well. And, one could not look at quality, of course, without considering the state of the teaching force that was to man this great quantitative expansion. Before moving to the issues of quality and teachers, however, a brief word about quantitative expansion since Jomtien will perhaps help to set the scene.

2.2.1 Quantitative expansion of formal schooling

While the literature documents the 'extraordinary quantitative expansion in the availability of formal schooling' (Farrell 1993: 25), it also points to the continuing 'profound crisis' in the education systems of many developing countries (ibid.). It notes that, in a period of international financial crisis, the already low educational expenditure per student has been declining. Lockheed and Levin (1993: 2) claim that 'much of Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America and Asia have not and will not come close to meeting universal primary education for the foreseeable future' and that some countries 'are farther from achieving this goal than they were a decade ago'. They and other writers mention that an estimated 145 million primary age children are still out of school (Farrell 1993, Little 1994, World Bank 1995).

Figures which show the availability of primary school places and initial enrolment do not provide the full picture. Lockheed et al (1991) found the sphere of influence of schools to be considerably reduced when the discrepancy between the numbers initially enrolling for primary school and the completion rates are considered. In Mozambique, where it is claimed that 50% of children between the ages of 6 and 14 do not attend school, only 1 in 5 of the children who do enrol for school will continue beyond Grade 5 (Arusha Workshop Report 1996: 40). Such a high drop-out rate suggests a considerable wastage of the resources that are available. Lockheed et al (op cit) claim that, generally, in the 'low income' countries fewer than 60% of children actually complete primary education, and that these completion rates have declined in the last decade.

Even though education provision is low in some African countries, it also is under-utilised. According to the work of Hallak (1991 cited in Little et al 1994: 8), in some countries the lack of demand rather than lack of provision is partly causing the failure to meet the EFA goals. Hallak acknowledges that this is to some extent due to the contribution children can make to family economics, but he found that demand is also limited because parents are not always convinced of the worth of education at the primary level. Lockheed et. al. suggest that the issue in several countries is not how to increase provision but how to maintain it at the present level of uptake (1991).

In many countries, the commitment to primary education for all has come at a time of severe economic constraints combined with high birthrates and substantial population increases (Lockheed and Levin 1993). Governments are forced to search for cost effective ways of providing more primary schools, basic educational resources and teachers. In Malawi for example, where primary education became free to all in 1994, enrolments in one year increased from 1.3 million to 3.2 million with the result that teacher pupil ratios increased dramatically (Arusha Workshop Report 1996: 36). To cope with the massive expansion in schools various emergency measures to increase the teaching cadre were employed. Retired teachers were brought back into service and 22, 000 untrained teachers were taken on after only two weeks 'survival' training (op.cit).

The main outcome of such rapid expansion has been an unavoidable disregard for the effectiveness of the education being provided, Gardner (p.28) notes that 'there is the temptation of political expediency to buy quantity at the expense of quality'. The World Bank in fact admits that, even in countries other than in Africa, where impressive figures are given for increases in length of attendance at primary schools, these 'do not reveal anything about the quality of education' (1995: 33).

2.2.2 Quality of education in schools

In recent discourse concerning EFA the concept of quality has taken a central place (Little et al 1994), and this increasing interest in quality has resulted in a substantial amount of literature relating to school effectiveness in the developing world (Black et al. 1993). There are two main reasons why bringing the issue of 'quality of schools' is important to our consideration of teachers' centres.

The first is that 'good practice', i.e. 'the characteristics of learning activities conducted inside the classroom' (Hoppers, 1994: 175), has to be defined in fairly precise terms. Only then can the teacher centre develop its programmes and design the content of its activities. Recent projects have attempted to do this. For example, the Andhra Pradesh Primary Education Project (APPEP) in India had a focused idea of what it wanted to see happening in schools and on the basis of this laid down six principles that teachers were to be trained in:

1. providing teacher generated learning activities
2. promoting learning by doing, discovering and experimenting
3. developing individual group and whole class work
4. providing for individual differences
5. using the local environment
6. creating an interesting classroom by displaying children's work and organising it effectively
(Wiegand and Jain, 'Teachers' Centres in Andhra Pradesh, India', reported in this paper)
In similar fashion the Action for the Improvement of English, Mathematics and Science (AIEMS) project in Zambia identified 12 skills for its in-service programmes, which like APPEP rested on its notions of 'good practice':

· making and using teaching aids

· planning the chalkboard

· using songs, games and rhymes

· using the local environment

· encouraging communication

· testing for teaching and learning

· planning lessons

· questioning for teaching and learning

· planning group work

· exploiting the text books

· drawing

· reflecting

The second reason why we need to consider the quality of schools in regard to teachers' centres is that there are minimum conditions at schools that have to be in place in order to provide a receptive environment in which teachers can bring back ideas and resources from teachers' centres and get them going in their classrooms. (Knamiller, Maharjan and Shrestha discuss this issue in some detail in their case study of Nepal reported in this paper).

Pennycuick (1993: 18) points out that even highly competent teachers will find it difficult to teach effectively in the type of inadequate facilities that are all too common in developing country schools, particularly if there is also a scarcity of instructional materials. In Uganda, for instance, the absence of books is a point that has clear implications for attempts to improve teacher effectiveness (Arusha Workshop Report 1996: 64). It is clear that many of the contextual features which gave teachers in Britain a feeling of being a professional teacher - comparatively spacious, well maintained and resourced schools, access to a range of teaching/learning materials, students from homes where education is often valued highly and support is available in terms of parental educational background, interest and books. This context, which set the scene for teacher centres in Britain, is often missing in the developing world.

It seems possible that conditions and contexts can considerably reduce the contribution teachers' centres can make to the quality of education. The conditions in which teachers work could, quite understandably, make them feel unable to go back to the reality of their-schools and implement the ideas and approaches they encounter through the teachers' centres. If this is so, it might be more effective to direct scarce resources towards more basic interventions, and introduce teachers' centres when the infrastructure and conditions in schools are in place to give support to the work of the teachers' centre. (We will revisit this theme several times in the pages to come, and couple it to the issue of the 'relevance' of teacher centre 'messages' to the life in classrooms.)

3.0 Major Issues Related To The Recent Development Of Teacher Resource Centres In Developing Countries

Since Jomtien, teacher resource centres have been increasingly put forward by donor aided projects as one strategy in a drive to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools. This strategy is dominated by two main issues: the policy of decentralisation and the philosophy of teacher training. But before considering these issues separately and in some detail, it may be helpful to set the scene by taking a brief look at educational reform in general. For, we must remember that teachers' centres is only one strategy, some may say a relatively minor one, for affecting what happens in schools. It certainly is dependent on a whole host of other strategic inputs and conditions.

3.1 Educational reform

Attempts to reform education have often focused on particular aspects of the system. However, this 'system' comprises a complex interlocking of institutions which are linked together in 'prescribed', long accepted and often finely balanced ways. The UNDP/UNESCO report believes that:

attempts to produce changes in one component of the system can have strong repercussions throughout the system. What appears on the surface to be a project to improve primary school teachers, for instance, may be producing problems in the schools because of a curriculum which is based on older teaching techniques, which in turn may affect the chances of the student to pass examinations for entrance into the next level of schooling. Resistance to such an ostensibly simple goal may come from all those most closely concerned: parents, students, teachers and supervisors, (p.3)
Though it is very difficult, to attempt to analyse the scope, influence, assumptions and possible repercussions of a particular strategy this type of analysis is important for project planning, development and evaluation.

Deciding on the best type of innovation and the points of impact on the system that the innovation will require, present very real problems for change agents. Havelock and Huberman (1980) identify five common problems related to educational innovation, each of which have implications for the success of teachers' centres:

1. The poor understanding of the nature of the educational process.
2. The lack of proven good innovations.
3. The need for effective strategies for installing innovations.
4. The problem of sustaining innovations after the initial stage.
5. The problem of spreading the innovation throughout the educational system.
(Cited in UNDP/UNESCO Evaluation Study no. 7 p. 7)
These problems mainly relate to the context. As the teachers' centre phenomenon is so dependent on context, its adoption as a strategy would require careful consideration of whether essential contextual features were in place to ensure effectiveness, particularly considering the amount of investment and commitment required for wide scale implementation of this approach to teacher education.

Findings suggest that such considerations do not always proceed inclusion of particular change strategies. The UNDP/UNESCO report gives a very depressing view on the way national education officials are often advised on options for change. It claims:

In effect, innovations are promoted by practitioners who have experience and usually direct involvement in the development of a particular innovation. National education officials are faced with a variety of options in education, some of which are heavily promoted by practitioners from more developed countries, and some of which come with substantial offers of financial assistance if they are adopted. This set of dynamics encourages the unfortunate situation where solutions are roaming the world looking for problems to solve. The crucial linkage between the nature of the problem and the subsequent choice of a particular solution which is relevant to the problem is often lost in the process. Innovations tend to be adopted because they are available, because there is a local promoter who has the knowledge and the interest in trying the innovation, or because financial assistance is available. The activities of development agencies often aggravate this problem as they search for feasible projects which can be implemented with limited resources in a relatively short time frame.
(p. 7)
One can't help wondering if this description of the state of affairs was prompted specifically by Kahn and his Handbook for teachers' centres (1984). The UNDP/UNESCO study found that 'less than half the projects in their sample showed evidence of serious consideration of alternatives when projects were designed' (p. 71).

Havelock and Huberman (1980 cited in UNDP/UNESCO p8) identify four types of strategy for installing and sustaining an innovation:

1. 'Crusade': which involves large scale campaigns in the context of revolutionary change.

2. 'Radical change': involving relatively rapid change through careful planning, assistance from external agencies and full support from national leaders.

3. 'Controlled expansion': involving modest goals for small modifications and additions to a fairly stable system.

4. 'Small local projects': which are modest in scale, slow in pace, rely on local resources and tend to originate outside of government control and possibly even 'go counter to prevailing government policies and goals'. These are rarely backed by the larger international agencies. Hoppers saw this type of 'grassroots' initiative as allowing more dynamism and local, collegial collaboration (1996: 13).

In Britain, the use of teachers' centres seemed to fit in with 'controlled expansion' or possibly 'small local projects'. As the case studies in this report suggest teachers' centres in developing countries are much more in the 'radical change' category, and possibly at times even approaching a 'crusade'.

3.2 Decentralisation

3.2.1 Moves towards decentralisation of control

Teachers' centres, as advocated by Kahn (1984), presented a way of empowering teachers, of giving them a role in decision making at a number of levels. However, such an approach assumes a level of decentralisation apparently rarely found in developing countries. The 1995 World Bank Review provides evidence to show that schools in low-and middle-income countries are far less autonomous than those in developing countries. It points to research by Hannaway (1991) indicating that the management structures in these countries, which make schools 'solely accountable to central bureaucracies', limit school and teacher autonomy (op.cit p. 127). It claims that in many of these countries education systems are rigid 'with, for instance, central selection and purchase of textbooks and central direction concerning classroom instruction' (op.cit p.88). In a number of developing countries, schools and teachers work under much tighter bureaucratic controls than is typically the case in the developed world. Resources and autonomy at the local level are virtually non-existent and initiative can not take place before central permission is granted. In these countries, teachers who strive to implement change may run into difficulties with the authorities that they may not be prepared to confront (Avalos 1993: 183). In 1987, APEID claimed that thoughts about decentralisation were only 'exercising the minds of policy makers in a few countries' (p.11).

Over the years, the belief in the benefits of a greater level of local decision making and choice has increased. Hawes, writing in the late 1970s charts the way the high hopes for centrally managed curriculum development, and the attempts to improve the quality of teachers by centrally run initial training programmes fell foul of 'the complex human process of implementation in the field'. He also notes the fact that attitudes and practices were far more difficult to change than syllabuses, and that innovators often knew little about the attitudes that existed or of the processes by which these could be changed (1977: 27). He felt that because of past failures to impact on education there was a mounting tide which pointed to the 'desirability and the practicability of establishing a local machinery for the implementation of central policies and further of investing professionals in the field with greater power and responsibility for local professional decisions of identifying and using local enthusiasm and expertise' (op. cit p.29).

A major area of concern, identified by Fan-ell (1993: 16), is the 'control of teaching activities and the costs and benefits associated with centralised versus decentralised supervision policies.' He claims that in most countries teachers implement policies planned for them from above, but this implementation is poorly controlled and consequently not effective because close supervision is too expensive. The World Bank Review also notes that management and supervisory links are often weak (1995: 88). They claim that, as a result, teachers tend to work in isolation, the consequence of which is that 'the curriculum is not implemented, instructional time is reduced, and teaching tools are not used' (ibid.). Three factors are identified in the Review which would, it is claimed, 'overcome these shortcomings: shared local consensus about desired outcomes, professionalism among teachers, and school autonomy' (ibid). Like many other writers, Farrell supports this belief by advocating the freedom for schools and teachers to 'exercise professional judgement' and the opportunity to 'learn from each other and from their own mistakes' (ibid.). In fact the promotion of such measures is a frequent recommendation in the literature (Harvey 1997). Although the World Bank (1995: 140) describes instances where wide consultation helps to develop and implement reform policies, there do not appear to be specific examples to demonstrate that the application of such measures as more local collaboration and decision making, result in marked changes in educational quality and attainment. Such measures, however, certainly equate with the Khan (1984) concept of teachers' centres.

Recently, concerns about 'control' have become more evident in much of the literature about education systems and about increasing the effectiveness of education in developing countries. The World Bank, in its consideration of future operations, talks in terms of increasing decentralisation and the need to consult key stake holders (Review, 1995: 14). Hoppers (1996: 2) notes that the need for more 'involvement of stakeholders in educational development' has been emphasised for some years and has become part of the debate about "decentralisation". He believes that having more local control enhances the participation of local players and in turn can improve the quality of schooling. He points out that it is, after all, in the schools and communities that parents and teachers are 'faced with the daunting task of upholding a semblance of education that for most participants had lost meaning in the face of crumbling schools, seemingly irrelevant curricula and an absence of tangible benefits' (1996: 1). He quotes the claim of Ghani (1990) that the tide of decay in the schools can be stemmed through 'increasing awareness about the value of schooling, greater parental involvement with the education of their children, more community involvement in school management and provision of resources' (ibid).

Lockheed and Levin (1993: 14) report that school decentralisation, in which control is shifted from central bureaucracies to local districts and schools, 'is one strategy to promote effective schools'. While they feel that centralisation is important for 'achieving scale economies or national consistency in activities such as textbook production, teacher training and setting standards', they also believe in the importance of 'increasing the authority of teachers and school administrators to design programmes that meet local needs', although they do note the difficulties associated with developing ' local autonomy and responsibility' (ibid).

The 1995 World Bank Review uses findings from the Effective School movement to support the claim that 'building national consensus involves stakeholders in the education system in national consultation mechanisms' and 'increasing the involvement of parents and communities by making schools autonomous and accountable can offset the power of vested interest; it is also critical for increasing flexibility and improving instructional quality' (p. 14). They maintain that while effective inputs are important to improving quality 'the flexibility to decide locally how to combine and manage inputs in schools and other institutions' is more critical. They believe that input packages from central government, supported by donor agencies, while one useful strategy for school improvement, 'are not used unless the inputs fit local conditions, (and) teachers know how to use the inputs.' They, therefore, point to the need for a strategy of providing 'budget transfers so that schools and other institutions can purchase what is relevant to prevailing local conditions' (op.cit p. 86).

The World Bank Review suggests that there have been moves to encourage local influence on curriculum and related issues in some countries. They quote Kenya, where the language of instruction is decided locally in the first four grades and India which has a central competency-based curriculum, but where states and districts have responsibility for adapting materials and teacher training to local circumstances (World Bank, 1995: 81). However, in the three South African countries discussed by Hoppers (Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique), he claims that 'administrative decentralisation was achieved more in rhetoric and in a semblance of powerless local structures than in effective power-sharing', with a marked reluctance on the part of education authorities to hand over 'responsibilities for key education functions'(1996: 13). As a result he believes that in these countries power has continued to rest in the hands of the senior education bureaucracy which may have 'delegated authority but never really lost it' (op.cit p. 14). If his assessment of the situation is correct, the effectiveness of teachers' centres as a strategy for increased teacher professionalism and autonomy in this type of "decentralisation" seem unlikely. The Workshop Secretariat at the Arusha Conference claims that 'it will not be possible to use teachers' centres for local curriculum development if teachers are obliged to "cover" an over-loaded, centrally controlled and examined curriculum' (1996: 7/8).

Despite concerns about what was being termed "decentralisation" in a number of countries, the level of conviction regarding the desirability of local innovation was so strong that it was, Hawes acknowledges, a 'logical step' to advocate the setting up of teachers' centres (1977). In the resolutions drawn up at the end of the Arusha conference this feeling that teachers' centres could be major instruments of educational decentralisation was still being clearly stated (1996: 98). However Hawes makes a very telling comparison between the context in which centres evolved in Britain and the conditions prevalent in many developing countries. He claims that teachers' centres in Britain were:

a very promising and a fairly successful series of answers to needs in a particular context, a context (i) which is diverse and uniquely uncentralised, (ii) where teachers are encouraged to innovate and gain prestige by so doing, (iii) where despite spending cuts there is still an elegant sufficiency of money, (iv) where transport and communication are good, (v) where there are very few untrained teachers, (vi) where teachers are well educated, professionally minded, relatively secure in their jobs and are not under compelling financial pressure to live above their means and support large tribes of unemployed relatives.
(p.30)

While he stresses the contrast with conditions in developing countries and the danger of importing alien models, he recognises how tempting it was to 'close your eyes and hope that the teachers' centre model can travel' (ibid.).

3.2.2 Reactions to decentralisation

There is certainly a level of caution in the literature about the automatic benefits of decentralisation to education and reform. Hoppers finds there is in fact little systematic evidence to support the relationship between decentralisation and educational development (1996). Hawes felt that the two examples of totally non functioning teachers' centres he describes indicate the fundamental hesitance in developing countries, where there is often a strong tradition of bureaucracy, 'towards devolution of responsibility to teachers in the field' (1977: 31). While he points out that the intention that teachers' centres should innovate rather than just disseminate 'may touch upon the whole authority structure within society' (op. cit p.31). Shaeffer (1990), reviewing the findings of Greenland (1983) and Greenland and Bude (1983), agrees that a more participatory approach to teacher education is based on 'a North of Western' premise that teachers are and should be professionally autonomous and that schools have and should have a well established climate of professional attitudes in which teacher initiatives are expected and encouraged. Whereas, in fact, he points out that, in many societies, teachers expect to be subservient to a larger, controlling bureaucracy.

The APEID report suggests that the usefulness of local decision making 'depends on the professional capabilities of teachers and the local political climate' both of which have been identified as problems in many countries (1987: 11). The extra demands and responsibilities the process of decentralisation places on local education personnel is also noted by Hoppers (1996) and Dove and Pennycuick. Dove (1986) points in particular to the new skills that the ideology of professionalism and autonomy demand for head teachers. Pennycuick concludes that decentralised control is effective if it is accompanied by good management and that training is necessary for this, particularly for head teachers (1993). There is no comment from either writer about the likelihood of local personnel being able or inclined to cope with such extra demands or of where the necessary training would come from.

3.2.3 Decentralisation and teachers' centres

The need for teachers' centre empowerment, with teachers' centres being responsible for professional and academic improvement, where the training ideas come from both top-down and bottom-up initiatives, was seen as an important policy issue at the Arusha Conference (1996: 10). However, Hoppers (1996: 2) feels that, while there is now a 'convergence of thinking' on the need for teacher's participation and while teachers may now be 'participating in in-service training', this participation does not in fact involve any 'serious decision making'; nor does it 'influence the substance of training'. In fact Hoppers attributes what he sees as the lack of impact of decentralisation policy on teachers' centres to the nature of decentralisation, where 'participation in decision making is not focusing on the right things' (1996: 14). He feels that the type of autonomy, suggested for instance in the 1995 World Bank Review, in which 'the teacher must have authority to determine classroom practices' but not to make other decisions 'so that (their) energies are not diverted to other areas', is a rather 'circumscribed' autonomy. From this point of view the functions of teachers' centres in such a system would be increasingly 'prescribed' (op.cit p. 16).

In an attempt to influence the nature of decentralisation, The Workshop Secretariat at the Arusha conference (1996: 7) claimed that, if Departments of Education were to liberalise the curriculum, 'setting overall goals but allowing teachers the opportunity to reach those goals through their own efforts', teachers' centres would then be in a good position to help teachers to translate these goals 'into meaningful and relevant experiences' at a local level. In theory, such a system could give real meaning to teacher participation and professionalism. Gough (1989: 52) identified the freedom to make curriculum decisions at school level as one of the 'great strengths' of the British education system, prior to the legislation in the late 1980s. Within this system teachers were free to introduce initiatives emanating from courses and curriculum groups at teachers' centres, giving 'a clear relevance to in-service education'. This is a relevance which is lost when 'curricula are mandated or centralised' as they are in many developing countries (ibid.).

Blackwell expressed the opposite and quite unique belief that the argument that teachers' centres are best suited to decentralised systems where there is local control of curriculum is unfounded. He suggested that 'the role of teachers as agents of curriculum development (is) in many respects easier in a centralised system'. That a centralised framework 'often gave teachers the security within which to innovate' (1977: 65). Of course, that depends on how tight the framework is.

Hoppers (1996) feels there is often a discrepancy between accepted wisdom and actual practice. He concludes his paper with the claim that early teachers' centre initiatives showed that when the opportunity existed for local decision making, head teachers and teachers were quite capable of instigating and controlling educational reform. What they lacked was support from other agencies (op.cit p. 18). However, he finds that the more recent drive to create 'effective schools' has combined with the philosophy of decentralisation, not as a way to give more local autonomy or promote self-empowerment, but rather to give 'increased government control in the promotion of school effectiveness'. He says the aim has become to find 'an effective delivery structure so that pre-construed ideas about relevant competencies and good practices can reach the schools and "stick" (op. cit p.11). He sees the new wave of resource centres 'acting as a springboard for reaching the teachers and heads' and school clusters as 'efficient delivery points of training at school level' rather than as the 'local expressions of teachers' autonomy and self reliance' they were often billed to be (ibid). In fact, this model seems remarkably similar to training centres as opposed to teacher centres now emerging in Britain in response to the profound educational changes of the late 1980s and 1990s.

3.3 The training of teachers

One of the most important roles established for teachers' centres in Britain was the role of providing a local centre to which teachers could go for in-service training. Many of the recent education projects in developing countries, in which teachers' centres have been included as a strategy, have also stressed this training role. We must remember, however, that a teachers' centre is merely a venue for training. In itself the teachers' centre provides no distinctive approach to training apart from that given at any other in-service venue. It does not give any clear guidance regarding how, through contact with a centre, change can be achieved in schools.

Historically teacher's centres developed and thrived in Britain at a time when there was relatively little central control over schools and their curriculum. When there was also little uniformity in the approach to teacher training, and when there were high levels of teacher choice. The success of teachers' centres was associated with teacher autonomy, professional development and participatory learning (Kahn 1984). The 'training' provided by the teachers' centre was mainly intended to support and extend what teachers were already doing in the classroom.

In the context of developing countries, the relationship between the experience of teachers and the aims of recent, in-country training initiatives is very different. The long established, traditional approaches to teaching and learning in the schools, where teachers in these countries received their education and now teach, are often greatly at variance with the approaches being advocated by recent educational projects. Also, in the past, the initial and in-service training teachers received, if any, often had quite a different emphasis from the more practical training now being encouraged.

In response to the all too common context of inappropriate curriculum, paucity of resources and untrained personnel, the emphasis in new education development programmes in developing countries is towards introducing radical pedagogical innovation in an attempt to improve the quality of the education provided. While radical change was never the aim of teachers' centres in Britain, teachers' centres in developing countries are often being used as a strategy in a bid to achieve rapid and far reaching pedagogical change.

Because teacher training is the major activity of teachers centres in developing countries, we examine it here in considerable detail. It seems likely that the success or failure of teachers' centres as a strategy depends principally on the approach adopted for training programmes.

3.3.1 Initial or in-service training?

One quandary for governments and donors when considering training, is how to share the available financial and training resources between initial training and in-service training. Greenland (1984: 11) found that many ministry officials identified initial training as their highest priority, 'although few questioned the actual impact of such learning on the classroom'. Looking at long term strategies. Wolff et al. al. (1994: 85) seem to support such a priority, suggesting that 'improved pre-service training may be the strongest impetus for changing teaching strategies'. Oliveira and Farrell (1993: 13) suggest that governments need to decide a balance between pre-service and in-service. They claim limited research evidence suggests:

· the number of years schooling is generally positively correlated with students' performance, but there is a limit after which additional teacher training adds no visible gain

· teaching skills are best learned in close contact with the realities of the classroom and under the close supervision of experienced teachers

· short term, structured, pre-service training is an appropriate method for preparing graduates with purely academic backgrounds

They found that most of the teaching skills that teachers use are acquired during the first five years of practice.

Pennycuick (1993) looked at research into the relationship between teacher training and effective teaching and found that though the evidence was often inconclusive, if expenditure was taken into account, lengthy pre-training was unnecessary. Farrell (1993: 34) pointed out that while pre-service teacher education was found to be important it was not for instance as strongly associated with success as textbook provision. Lockheed and Verspoor (1991) recommended emphasis on in-service, while Farrell (op.cit p.11), admitting that the findings are not clear, says there is some indication that the most cost effective combination would be relatively brief pre-service followed by systematic provision of in-service training (ibid.). He claims that strong evidence from a few studies show that in-service is important, especially if it is relatively participatory and it responds to needs the teachers have identified. Its influence is weakest when experts tell teachers what they ought to know (Shaeffer 1986 cited in Farrell 1993).

In-service training as a relatively cheap tool for educational reform was very attractive for governments and donor agencies (Gardner 1983). The World Bank Review shows that, while lending for teacher training had remained fairly constant until 1990, after this date there was a clear shift away from pre-service to in-service training (1995: 150). At a time when the concept of on-going teacher education and the notion of teachers as professionals were increasingly influential, a set of goals and approaches for in-service education were presented at the UNESCO International Conference on Education in 1975 (cited in Dove 1986).

These goals stressed the importance of the right of teachers to have access to continuing education. They called for the setting up of regional centres to provide continuing education, to train unqualified teachers and to provide the guidance and resources for teachers to take care of their own 'self-education'. They also stressed that the professional experience of teachers should be used to benefit others in the profession. Dove (1986: 222) pointed out that by 1986 these "ideals" were 'largely unchanged', but that they were still 'far from being realised'. She identified problems not only because of financial constraints but also because of the demands such goals make on managerial and training personnel.

The type of in-service the World Bank (1995) identified as effective certainly seems to put even more demands on trainers. In its Review, The Bank points out the usefulness of well designed, continuous in-service training, based on the Joyce and Showers 1985 model, which includes elements of exposure to new theory or techniques, demonstration of application, practice, feedback, and coaching over time. It quotes projects in a number of countries (Colombia, the Philippines, Botswana and Sri Lanka) where in-service training is claimed to have had noticeable impact on student attainment (p.83).

Wolff et al. (1994: 91) analyse the Colombian New School project among others, and similarly conclude that 'in-service training should consist of highly targeted hands-on programs designed to change specific classroom behaviours, linked with provision of educational materials'. While they do bring out this link between training and the materials used in the classroom, they do not comment on the problems arising for the trainers and the teachers if the classroom materials provided by the government do not match, or support the particular approaches being promoted by the training process. This type of problem is being encountered for example in Andhra Pradesh where the project is attempting to change teaching practices through the use of teachers' centres without first changing syllabuses and course books.

Shaeffer (1993: 188) mentions the number of dilemmas facing bureaucrats and professionals charged with the job of providing in-service training. At whom and at what should the money be targeted in the face of such a wide range of need? Which approach is most appropriate for different contexts, particularly with regard to emphasis? Should it concentrate on theory or on practice, 'training' or 'education'? Is any one approach more effective than any other?

3.3.2 In-service training provision

There are several types of in-service training in developing countries noted in the literature. Training for new curricula, textbooks and materials; training for specialist roles such as headteacher, resource person, inspector; training for specific curriculum initiatives such as continuous assessment. Indeed, in-service training has been thrown at a whole range of problems (Greenland, 1983a; Dove, 1986). Two measures that have been widely adopted in an effort to improve the quality of teachers in the developing world are upgrading and training for serving but untrained teachers.

Up-grading is concerned with advancing the qualifications teachers hold. Increasingly the approach to this type of training is through distance learning. From the teacher's point of view, upgrading is popular because certification means advancement on the pay scale. Greenland (1983) found that, with this goal in mind, teachers were prepared to spend long hours acquiring formal qualifications. He says that, unfortunately courses were, for the most part, 'heavily biased in favour of academic knowledge rather than classroom methods'(p. 11). He claimed 'tacit conspiracy, between governments, teachers' unions and teachers, to reserve the lion's share of financial rewards for those who acquire formal academic qualifications. ' He notes that this practice is increasingly coming under attack from those who dispute the link between academic knowledge and practical teaching skills (ibid). Wolff et al. quote a program in Venezuela which encouraged primary teachers to gain a higher education degree, and rewarded their achievement with 'salary increments of 50%'. While the scheme lead to a vast increase in in-service courses and distance learning programmes, Wolff et al. claim that the provision of such training was very wasteful because it did not produce a discernible 'reduction in repetition rates' or an 'increase in learning' among primary students (1994: 85). Indeed, the more money that goes for teachers' salaries as they advance up the pay scale through additional certification, the less there is for learning materials for children.

Courses for serving but untrained teachers have been developed in response to rapidly rising school populations and the need to employ untrained teachers. Established training institutes are ill prepared to meet the overwhelming demand for more teachers. In Uganda, for example, where half the secondary teachers are untrained and a quarter are primary trained, the training institutes can not begin to meet the training needs (Arusha, 1996: 65). In Zambia in 1994 out of 45, 519 teachers only 500 had experienced any sort of in-service training (AlEMs Review 1995). To meet the particular demand of these untrained teachers, there has been an attempt to cut down initial training to a very basic skills course lasting only a few weeks (e.g. Malawi).

As suggested above, up-grading courses and courses for serving, untrained teachers are frequently leaving teachers about in the same place in terms of pedagogical practice as they were before taking the courses. This is not always due to the content and processes used in such courses, although these may be irrelevant to the realities of schools and classrooms or too difficult to implement. It is mainly due to the lack of on-going support for these teachers in their work place. It is also due to a lack of continuous access to further in-service training. Few governments have the resources to provide for the range of support and training required. This gap in professional provision has increasingly become a concern of international donor agencies. The projects initiated by these agencies place new demands on teachers by initiating new curriculum and curriculum materials, new pedagogical practices, new exams and so on. Such new demands on teachers considerably increase the perceived need for continuing teacher education and training.

3.3.3 Theory in teacher education and training

A large body of research has looked at a wide range of theoretical issues concerning teacher training and how adults learn. It is important to touch on these here because most educational development projects which include in-service training aim to change teachers' pedagogical behaviour. Although the importance of theory associated with teacher development is acknowledged, project resources, particularly time, forces short-cut, quick-fix approaches to in-service training programmes. Nevertheless, we feel that any study of support strategies for teachers, such as teachers' centres, must consider the theoretical side of how teachers are helped to grow and develop. Some of the issues which are pertinent to decisions about the nature and content of training in a teachers' centre include: the investigation of what influences teachers and their practices in the classroom, suggested models of educational change, stages of teacher development and initiating innovation and the evaluation of the outcomes of training. A reminder of some of the findings of this research may help us to understand and evaluate the approach to training taken by different teachers' centre programmes.

Teachers and what influences their practice: The literature about the processes of change in education considers the way the school context supports change, and it tries to analyse teachers' perceptions and motivation. Fullan and Hargreaves (1992) claim that educational change depends on what teachers do and think.

There have been some attempts to understand the subjective experience of teachers and to understand the logic involved in their decision making. Guthrie (1990) points to the distinction between certain practices in teaching being 'symptomatic' rather than 'problematic'. In a study of school based support for science teaching in South Africa, Harvey (1997) found that behaviours which had been targeted for eradication at the beginning of the project, were later recognised to be rational responses to contextual constraints. He claims that the demands of the task of teaching are so great that teachers cope reactively in the face of routine, over load and limits to reform. Teachers perceive and evaluate change in very pragmatic terms. He cites Doyle and Ponder's claim (1977) that 3 criteria influence the teacher's vision of practicality:

· instrumentality

does the change proposal describe a procedure in terms which depict classroom contingencies
· congruence
does the proposed change fit into the way the teacher normally conducts class activities
· cost (time)
the ratio between return and investment.
Criteria such as these may well be in direct conflict with training which calls on teachers to adopt general principles of pedagogical practice, an aim frequently intended by education projects. The principles adopted by such projects are often identified in, and generalised from, a different context and have little in common with accepted practice in schools in many developing countries. One problem that Shaeffer identifies with this type of imported training programme is that they 'often try to reduce training to standardised, teacher-proof activities and a discrete and common list of teaching skills' (1993: 188).

Considering the widely different cultural and environmental contexts targeted by donor aided projects, it seems likely that such standardisation can greatly reduce the relevance and ease of application of imported ideas presented during training courses. Wolff et al. (1994) note that, in the context of rural Latin America and the Caribbean, where there are 'ingrained current practices' and where there is a lack of heterogeneity in most classes, and where attendance is erratic due to agricultural and family commitments, learning particular teaching strategies would not be the most essential aspect of training. They see the need to help teachers to vary their teaching style to take account of the 'situational specific teaching and learning process' (p.78).

Accepted rules and norms within the particular context of teaching: the literature looks at the wide range of influences on teaching, particularly teachers as a group with accepted norms and practices. Hargreaves (1992: 219) makes the point that the content of teacher culture consists of the substantive attitudes, values, beliefs, habits, assumptions and ways of doing things that are shared within a particular teacher group. The form of any teachers' culture takes shape among communities of teachers who have had to deal with similar demands and constraints over many years. He notes that a lack of congruence between a proposed innovation and the existing teacher culture can lead to difficulties in implementation (op.cit). Kinder and Harland (1991), in their evaluation of an in-service project in England, found that teachers tend to have their own 'code of practice', often implicit and unarticulated, and derived from a range of professional and personal experiences. They suggest that any in-service provision attempting to change practice may need to acknowledge the challenge of impacting on the unique and 'discrepant' professional philosophies of the targeted audience (op.cit). Several writers have noted that in many developing countries the teachers' centre 'ideal' of teachers coming together to develop the curriculum and their own practice was in conflict with the professional culture.

The implications of the fact that teaching is subject to strong rules, norms and expectations, both spoken and unspoken, has been investigated by a number of writers. Fuller and Dark (1994) identified three main dimensions that the norms and rules of teacher's classroom conduct take within such professional cultures:

1. norms about teacher authority

2. implicit rules about pupil participation, pertaining to interaction with the teacher and with fellow students.

3. the structure of classroom work and tasks, including what instructional tools are employed, how task's demands are placed on students, and whether work is performed independently or co-operatively (p. 139)

Harvey (1997) in the South African looked at the way the above dimensions influenced the implementation in their project and found that:
a) the new teaching methods most readily adopted were those most congruent with the existing role of the teacher as sole source of authority e.g. modelling experiments rather than letting the class do a practical session. The teacher asked all the questions, couldn't leave students to come up with their own queries. They had problems getting teachers to teach process skills as well as content;

b) regarding rules of participation, code switching was used for a limited range of purposes and was initiated by the teacher. Chorus responses were seen as animating the students and were controlled using a code of cues;

c) there was a strong expectation that pupils should prepare answers as individuals, even when performing activities in groups.

Kinder and Harland (1991) noted in the study that, as teachers were being supported with the implementation of the new national curriculum in England, they were encouraged to select methods for the classroom with which they felt most familiar and comfortable. Use of such value-orientation was seen as having the key advantage of requiring minimal change and disturbance. Kinder and Harland conclude that the importance of value-orientation (I like to/I prefer...) should not be overlooked in the planning or evaluation of in-service programmes.

Models for changing teachers classroom behaviour: several researchers stress that achieving change in the way teachers teach is a difficult and protracted process. Whittaker (1983, cited in Kinder and Harland 1991: 5) went into schools in England to help primary teachers improve their teaching of science. He found that the teachers had no background in science and a low esteem for the subject, so that a significant change in their frames of reference about science was required. He suggested that 'very few people are capable of deliberately making radical changes in their view of the world: most can modify it gradually, if they are convinced of the value of doing so'(ibid).

As a result of their evaluation of in-service, Kinder and Harland (op.cit) felt that in-service projects could only achieve fairly limited influence on teaching style. For example they found that changing from formal to informal approaches was very difficult for teachers. In their experience, this could not be achieved in six weeks of in-classroom support and guidance. While Harvey (1997) claims the South African study shows that teachers can change their style, he stresses that this is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary process. Initially, the South African project began with week long, isolated in-service courses, which had little effect. Now they believe that 2 to 3 years of workshops (for modelling and collaborative planning), class support and teacher group activities are the minimum required to achieve meaningful change (op.cit).

In an attempt to better understand the change process, various writers have suggested models to explain what happens when schools and teachers change. Beeby (1966) produced a much quoted model of change for schools in developing countries. Amongst others, Guthrie (1980) has criticised this to some extent, in part because it has a 'western' bias as its end-point, but it does at least provide a set of descriptors.


"As education systems develop, teachers proceed through four stages of evolution.

1. 'The Dame school', with ill educated or untrained teachers - unorganised, relatively meaningless symbols, very narrow subject content - 3Rs, very low standards, memorising very important, untrained staff.

2. 'Formalism' with ill-educated but trained teachers - highly organised, symbols with limited meaning, rigid syllabus, rigid methods - one best way, one text book, external examinations, inspection stressed, discipline tight and external, memorising heavily stressed, emotional life largely ignored.

3. 'Transition' with better trained and educated teachers - Same goals as above but more efficiently achieved; more emphasis on meaning; still rather 'thin' and formal; syllabus and textbooks less restrictive, but teachers hesitate to use greater freedom; final leaving exam often restricts experimentation; little in the classroom to cater for the emotional life of the child.

4. 'Meaning' with well-trained and educated teachers - meaning and understanding stressed; somewhat wider curriculum, variety of content and methods; individual differences catered for; activity methods, problem solving and creativity; internal tests; relaxed and positive discipline; emotional and aesthetic life, as well as intellectual; closer relations with community; better buildings and equipment essential. [Adapted from a citation in Guthrie 1980: 414]

Beeby hypothesises a causal relationship between teaching style and levels of teacher education, which includes the general level of education and the amount and kind of training teachers have received.

Harvey (1997: 109) describes a number of attempts to use Beeby's model to inform in-service. He says that the resulting models are based on 'a changing sequence of teacher's concerns, throughout the implementation of an instructional innovation', de Fetter et al (1995) combine Beeby's stages with a 'concerns based adoption model' conceived by Lousks and Hall (1977) to arrive at the model shown below [cited in Harvey 1997: 109].

Stages of concern

Levels of use

Levels of development

non awareness

non-use

Dame school

awareness

orientation


informational concerns

preparation


personal concerns

mechanical use

formalism

logistical concerns

routine use

transition

concern for consequences to students

refinement of use


concern for collaboration with colleagues

integration of use

meaning

refocusing on other concerns



A further model, discussed by Harvey, looks at the processes involved in the acquisition of new learning from the view point of cognitive psychology. Norman (1978) and Bennet et al (1984) claim that there are 3 different processes involved in the acquisition of new learning (cited in Harvey 1997: 110):

· Accretion - the direct acquisition of new knowledge and/or skills
· Restructuring - the reorganisation of new knowledge or skills into meaningful patterns
· Tuning - the process by which the use of new knowledge and skills becomes increasingly fluent and automatic.
They suggest that the three processes occur to some extent simultaneously, but the prominence of individual elements varies. They put the interaction of these processes in 4 different stages:

1. Incremental - discrete facts/skills accumulate: accretion predominates

2. Restructuring - once have new facts it is increasingly likely that new concepts will be perceived linking these facts: restructuring takes over

3. Enrichment - following restructuring there is a fresh demand for facts and skills associated with the newly developed structure: resurge of accretion

4. Practice stage - practise whole structure until it becomes automatic

A major implication from this, and other models mentioned in the literature, is that training for behavioural change needs to progress through a number of stages. In the above model these stages would include: transmission of knowledge; application activities; and supported practice in a familiar environment.

Stages of teacher development: the need for phases of teacher development, such as the developmental stages suggested by Joyce and Showers (1980) gains support from various models. According to Harvey (ibid), de Feiter (1995: 91) recommends different types of teacher development activity for each of Beeby's stages.

Level of development

Teacher development activity

Unskilled

train teachers in subject matter and a few basic teaching techniques

mechanical

increase subject mastery training; introduce a few simple techniques to make teaching more effective and varied; increase confidence of teachers through training and school level support

Routine

Introduce more complex forms of teaching; promote professional exchange between teachers and career development of teachers

professional

teachers encouraged to view themselves as professionals; offer diverse staff development opportunities

The belief in stages of development would imply that training for teachers should recognise their present stage and try to advance them from this, and that there should be interim 'models' appropriate to each stage of development (Harvey 1997). Backing for this approach comes from Beeby who claimed it is wiser to concentrate on helping teachers to do better the things they are already doing than to try to switch to a radically different concept of education (Beeby 1986). Vygotsky's theories regarding the Zone of Proximal Development and the need for 'scaffolding' have also been used to justify the belief that the focus of in-service at each stage should be just ahead of the existing stage of development (Harvey 1997). Harvey points out that many teacher education projects recognise one 'model of excellence' located at the final stage in the change process rather than a sequence of stages, each with specific goals.

Claims for the need for a range of different levels of in-service gain support from evaluation reports. Kinder and Harland (1991) found that if teachers were just presented with approaches to teaching, through practical experiences and model lessons during in-service courses, there was a danger that they would only implement what they had done or experienced during the in-service 'event', without extrapolating from it on the basis of understanding why and how they carried out the practical activity.

In a tracer study in Andhra Pradesh, John's (1993) followed teachers back into school after an in-service course. He provides an extreme example of a lack of extrapolation. During the in-service course he observed, one of the 'principles' being conveyed was that teachers should use higher order questions, what they interpreted as 'difficult' questions. During one session, the participants were given an unrelated list of questions as examples of questions which provoked thought. They were supposed to notice the difference between these and 'closed' questions. John found that one course participant went back to his school and simply gave this list of questions as homework. The children, parents and village elders then spent some time sweating over them. The participant's teaching continued as before. When the parents were asked if their child's education had changed at all they said that the teacher had started asking very difficult questions.

One stage of training identified as important by many writers is what Joyce and Showers (1988: 69) label 'coaching'. This stage usually involves a trainer working with teachers in real classrooms. Joyce and Showers believe in the importance of a 'coaching' stage because they found that when faced with a new innovation, experienced teachers become temporary novices. They become awkward and anxious, and want clarity and tangible benefits. They may try a new approach or strategy but, when it seems less effective than their usual practice, they quickly reject it. Actually getting teachers to persist with an approach, beyond the initial 'novice' stage, was found to be a major obstacle. It was particularly difficult to get teachers to change when they had fairly dependable strategies already fully developed.

Joyce and Showers (op.cit) suggest that coaching alleviates anxiety and confusion. They felt that demonstrations in realistic contexts give a model to copy and to use for planning, and that team teaching, by sharing, reduced perceived risk from an innovation. On the other hand, Kinder and Harland (1991) found that having an expert around can increase anxiety. However, in studies where the main strategy is school based in-service, Joyce and Showers are much quoted about the advantages of 'coaching' teachers in classroom environments.

Approaches to in-service training: the relative effectiveness of different approaches to training have been debated frequently in the literature. The choice of approach depends greatly on the nature of the teachers, the context in which they teach and on the requirements of an innovation. For this reason a number of writers point out the possibility that approaches which appeared to work well in Britain prior to the introduction of the National Curriculum, could have little relevance in developing countries (Hawes 1977, Dove 1986, Gough 1989).

It has been found that the conditions in which teachers work in many developing countries only exacerbate the fact that they have often not received the same level of initial training in subject knowledge, educational theory and pedagogical practices as teachers in Britain. Neither is there the same supportive environment in their schools, in terms of classroom materials and accepted practice. Nor is there access to the same range of educational guides and teaching resources, all of which gave support to 'professional' teachers in Britain, support which also gave the training at the teachers centre a sympathetic base to build on. In developing countries, teacher autonomy and professional development often persist in the rhetoric about the merits in-service training. Yet, when the context is considered, it may not be appropriate for training to whole heartedly embrace such ideals.

Traditional training systems were often found to be unable to 'respond to the difficult task of training teachers to handle an increasingly complex process within an increasingly complex context' (Shaeffer 1993: 188). Discussion of alternative approaches to in-service inevitably leads to the debate about to what extent teachers, per se, can be educated as 'professionals'. Shaeffer says that training teachers to use new curriculum materials and new approaches is merely producing 'technicians'. He claims that this does not provide teachers with 'the skills needed to master new content and subject matter, to learn appropriate and varied teaching methods, and to face the variety of pressures that confront them both inside and outside school' (Ibid.).

Zeichner (1983) identified four 'paradigms' for teacher education: behaviouristic, personalistic, traditional-craft and inquiry-orientated. The British teachers' centre philosophy in the early days probably linked closest with the personalistic paradigm. More recent approaches to in-service training, backed by educational theory, have moved closer to the inquiry-orientated paradigm. In practice today, however, in both Britain and the developing world approaches seem to be increasingly reflecting the behaviouristic paradigm.

In-service training for professionalism, i.e. the reflective practitioner, would have teachers recognise problems with the present curriculum and approach teaching/learning by reflecting upon and reshaping the context within which they work. Fullan and Hargreaves (1992: 5) believe teacher development must actively listen to the teacher's voice: 'establish opportunities for teachers to confront the assumptions and beliefs underlying their practices; avoid fadism and blanket implementation of favoured new instructional strategies; and create a community of teachers who discuss and develop purposes together over time'. It is widely felt that teachers should be encouraged to participate in decision making and implementation. The South African project claimed to see the teacher as a partner in and an agent of change, not as something to be changed (Harvey 1997). They felt that teacher development was synonymous with increased participation in the planning, implementation and management of the programme. This way of viewing teacher education is very reminiscent of what Kahn (1984) believed should happen at the teachers' centre.

Training for the reflective practitioner vs training for the blue-print technician: in the developed countries, more participatory methods of developing teacher's skills and understanding are widely discussed in the literature. According to Shaeffer (1990, 1993), reviewing what he calls 'participatory teacher training', the typical characteristics of this approach include the teacher actively participating in the training process and being the 'agent' not the 'object' of change. Teachers direct their own learning by assessing problems and designing and experimenting with appropriate solutions. They define, exam and analyse the teaching/learning situation for themselves. This is a type of reflective approach which is widely advocated for post-service training following the work of Schon (1983). Teachers are to face up to the real situation confronting them in the classroom, rather than trying to extrapolate from generalities or universals. They are to work and learn co-operatively with other teachers and 'facilitators'. Through such an approach, training is supposed to become 'an integral and permanent part of teaching' (1990: 98), rather than a series of unconnected training sessions which teachers often attend in a fairly arbitrary way.

Advocating a similar approach for developing countries, Avalos (1993: 183) suggests that, in view of the many constraints and the nature of the job, in-service training in developing countries should 'allow teachers to examine reflectively their experience and the constraints they must endure, (training should) enable teachers to receive information and assistance as they plan the course of their practice'. She further suggests that the information 'is valuable only if it is presented as a choice and not as a prescription' (ibid). This type of approach could be considered ideal for a teachers' centre, at which local teachers, as Kahn proposed, could meet together regularly to work on their approaches to teaching. However, Avalos does not discuss how realistic it is to expect such a lack of prescription. Nor does she suggest how attitudes and expectations can be changed in the event of such an approach not readily being acceptable.

Their are reservations concerning the extent to which the 'reflective practitioner' approach to professional development at teachers' centres is appropriate for the expectations and experiences of teachers in developing countries. Andrews et al (1990) found that teachers in their study responded more positively to planned and formal rather than spontaneous and informal programmes. Shaeffer (1993: 196) points out that teachers are not always willing to work with such methods, claiming that 'many are uncomfortable with group dynamics, self analysis and consciousness-raising' and that 'others do not have the time or energy required. Their salary levels may rarely motivate them to experiment with new and often complex methods'.

Gardner (1977: 56) found that the group of teachers he worked with felt that 'egalitarian teachers' centres may only be possible in societies where teachers have a relatively long history of professionalism and autonomy'. They thought that teachers may not readily accept such a concept in societies which are highly stratified, where authority and control are centralised and knowledge and expertise are thought to be properly in the hands of superiors. In many developing countries moreover, they claimed that 'teachers lack professional status and confidence'.

The SHAPE project in Zambia seems to illustrate this point. It was forced to adjust its organisational structure to ensure that decisions were being made by people with traditional authority, thus reducing the influence teachers once had, often in regard to initiatives in which particular teachers had played a founding role (Chelu and Mbulwe 1994).

A further consideration in the debate about the benefits of 'participation' rather than 'instruction', concerns whether teachers need to reach a certain level of awareness, knowledge and skill before they can effectively participate and collaborate. McDonald and Rogan (1985) adopted a three stage approach: a security stage; a methods stage; and an aims stage. They believed that where teachers have low levels of initial training and education there is a need to build up the level of confidence before teachers can cope with an innovation. They suggest that meaningful participation only emerges in later phases of projects when teachers have achieved a level of confidence in handling the more technical aspects of the new approach to teaching

Based on the above models of change and stages of in-service training, the South African study (Harvey, 1997) suggests the need for a sequence of a 4 stage-specific instructional programme for teachers. Interestingly, only in the final stage are teachers expected to take initiative in and control of their own autonomous professional development and to engage in curriculum development at the school level. In the British context, and in the context of the way teachers' centres were 'sold' abroad, the teacher's centre was used mainly for courses for teachers who were at this final stage of development and able to take control of their own professional growth.

There seem to be clear reasons to question whether, at the present time, approaching the training of teachers by using reflective, participatory methods of professional development is appropriate, firstly when considering the contexts in many third world countries, and secondly to achieve the level and kind of changes in education often deemed necessary. Shaeffer (1993: 196) suggests that it is a labour and time consuming method of training. 'Small group work, reflection, discussion, self learning, action research, none of these are particularly fast, efficient or inexpensive processes'(ibid.). He claims that where hundreds and possibly thousands of teachers 'need to be trained quickly in a new syllabus or a new method, these methods will not work'.

On the other hand, if Davis's (1994) cynical view of the need for 'inefficiency' rather than 'efficiency' in mass education is to any extent taken seriously, it is possible that teachers' centres, though they may only encourage a technological, prescribed approach, e.g. how to use new textbooks and the chalkboard better, do encourage a sense of well being and involvement amongst one of the largest body of employees in a country. As such they might be a very attractive option for Governments. By backing the growth of teachers' centres, ministries of education can show they are interested in improving both the quantity and quality of trained teachers while maintaining a fair degree of control over the curriculum. In this way they can maintain the status quo regarding access to the various levels of education in the country.

The teacher as a member of a group: studies looking at achieving change in schools have considered how best to approach teachers and their practices. Innovations in schools and schooling usually require additional inputs of the teacher's limited time and energy and an element of risk. Evidence from studies into risk aversion and decision making suggest that teachers are more likely to take up innovations if they do so as a member of a group or have supporting evidence from respected peers (Hurst 1983). Findings from other studies indicate that new teaching methods are only implemented in a sustained way once they have been proven in practice by a 'critical mass' of teachers, who mutually reinforce change through social interaction which in turn leads to a change in teacher culture. Dalin identified team spirit, in situations where teachers help each other, as one of eight characteristics of projects where implementation was considered successful (1994). He found that encouraging motivation and commitment, and increased empowerment through delegation, combined with staff development and support produces higher commitment among teachers (op.cit). Harvey's study in South Africa (1997), claimed that teacher collaboration can help reduce perceived risks of adopting innovative teaching practices. He quotes a number of studies which found that 'in schools with good professional dialogue and a collaborative work culture, teachers are more likely to incorporate new ideas from in-service programmes'. These studies suggest that the most radical improvements in schools are associated with mutually supportive teams of teachers who have shared goals and a supportive principal.

The belief in the benefits of treating teachers as a group rather than as individuals has had the effect in Britain of moving towards school-based rather than centre-based training. In Kinder and Harland's (1991) study of school-based in-service training in science, it was found that both teachers and head teachers supported this type of in-service partly because it resulted in more effective science teaching. More teachers participated in science and were more confident because the training was on 'home ground'; it was tailored to teacher's individual needs; teachers increased their awareness of pupils' needs; and more favourable attitudes to science were fostered. However, Kinder and Harland (op.cit p.6) also found that this school-based in-service had more wide ranging effects. They quote one head as saying that he found that this type of in-service fostered long-term corporate and co-operative attitudes, which facilitated curriculum development work in other areas.

Harvey's study finds justification and support for school-based in-service, particularly from Dalin's World Bank study of three successful projects (Dalin 1994). It sees classroom support and collaborative learning furnishing an appropriate context for the validation of new teaching methods and for the negotiation of meaningful educational aims. Dalin accepts that this type of in-service is expensive and labour intensive. Beeby (1986) recommends that if you can't afford this kind of support it is better to have a less ambitious but more effective project. Whatever the design of the project studies suggest that neglect of social dimensions of change may be at the heart of many widely reported problems relating to the sustainability of educational innovations.

3.3.4 Cascade systems of training

In attempts to make training far reaching and comprehensive throughout the education service, both developed and developing countries have increasingly looked to cascade systems of training. Typically, in this approach, a training package is developed by an education department, training college or donor agency. A hierarchy of levels of personnel are then identified and training of the same, tightly framed package is passed down through each level of the hierarchy, with the trainees at each level becoming the trainers for the next level down. Teachers at the bottom of the cascade often receive their training from their headteacher or a member of staff from their own school.

The cascade method of training has been used in a number of developing countries e.g. Zambia, Andhra Pradesh in India, Nepal, Thailand. In Zambia it was considered necessary because of the number of schools and teachers which needed to be covered by the new AlEMs initiative (Arusha 1996: 84). However a number of problems have been identified with this approach. The problem of making sure centrally devised training modules do not become diluted as they progress down through the various training phases, thereby possibly losing much of their impact before they ever get to the teachers, is widely discussed. Putsoa (1983) found in his study of a number of countries that the process of infusion used for in-service 'aroused the consciousness of the inspectorate' but it was very slow in reaching the bulk of the teaching force and he implied that it had not yet brought about the 'anticipated education changes'(p. 32).

Time available for such training can also be a problem, particularly where large numbers of personnel are involved. Hayes (1995) examining an ODA backed project in Thailand to improve English teaching (PISET), calculated that, at the bottom layer of a cascade to implement a new curriculum for English, teachers received only seven hours of in-service training mandated by the Thai Department of General Education. During this short time they were supposed to make the radical change from 'traditional lockstep' teaching methods to a problem-solving, process skills approach (p.255). He anticipated that, because the amount of training was inadequate, the network of English Resource and Instruction Centres, established as part of the project, would 'be used increasingly as a "remedial" training agent for the new curriculum' (ibid.) to make good the shortfall in training.

The system also relies heavily on various kinds of personnel being able to transmit the same ideas effectively. Workshop sessions, which move teachers beyond the stage of 'awareness', and in which teachers experiment with new approaches, need trainers who possess their own know how, not just the experience they themselves have recently gained from a course. Many trainers in a primary level cascade are secondary teachers. At the highest level, department personnel and inspectors may not have the relevant classroom experience needed to support the training of practical activities for the primary classroom. In such circumstances it might be considered easier to make the training more theoretical than practical. Also, within the school teachers in the role of subject coordinators may not have the level of status and authority necessary to influence their colleagues. Kinder and Harland (1991) found that the use of subject coordinators in the school to continue staff development in science teaching after the support from advisory teachers finished was not successful. They found that the co-ordinator's understanding increased and that their classroom practice changed, but very little of this was carried over into other classes.

3.3.5 Evaluating the outcomes of in-service training

Kinder and Harland (1991) present a framework that itemises what we might expect teachers to get from in-service training programmes. Different outcomes might be targeted in different types of programmes. It describes the different outcomes achieved through different types of in-service and suggests that, though all types of outcomes make some contribution to change, some outcomes are more critical than others for achieving real, long lasting change.

Material and provisionary outcomes, (materials of some kind) But, they felt these need an associated increase in knowledge and skills.

Informational outcomes. This kind of outcome tends to be short lived and has little or no impact on classroom practice.

New awareness outcomes. To have any effect, this needs to be matched against ones own pedagogical preferences and curriculum values and to be attempted in ones own established practice.

Value congruence outcomes. Looks at personalised versions of curriculum and classroom practice and how far these coincide with in-service messages about 'good practice'. Value congruence is identified as a major factor in subsequent classroom practice. It seems that acknowledging and solving possible tensions accruing from a teacher's sense of dissonance with prescribed practice should be part of the in-service agenda.

Affective outcomes. This outcome recognises the emotional experience inherent in any learning situation. Kinder and Harland found a strong correlation between limited impact on practice and negative affective outcomes.

Motivational and attitudinal outcomes. Enhanced motivation is was the strongest reported outcome
during and immediately after in-service sessions. However, this outcome declines with time, though some participants can be motivated to study more. Continued follow-up and support might help, but enthusiasm is no substitute for deepened understanding.

Knowledge and skills outcomes. These outcomes signify enrich teachers' understanding of the tenets principles and issues which underpin curriculum areas and classroom pedagogy. They denote deeper levels of understanding, critical reflexivity and theoretical rationales'. Short courses, with a limited input and approach to training, may relieve feelings of inadequacy and motivate for a short time, but in the end you still have the same teacher with the same style coping with the same constraints.

Institutional strategic outcomes. In-service can have an important collective impact on groups of teachers and that such corporate outcomes can have a constructive influence on teachers' efforts to change their personal, individual practice.

Impact on practice outcome. This represents the ultimate and most crucial outcome. All other outcomes are for the purpose of changing teachers' classroom practice.

Kinder and Harland (1991) attempt to order their 10 outcomes to indicate their interdependency and the complex nature of the whole enterprise of 'in-setting' to achieve 'impact on practice':

INSET

3rd order

Materials/resource

Information

New Awareness

2nd order

Motivation

Affective

Institutional

1st order

Value Congruence

Knowledge and Skills

IMPACT ON PRACTICE

They hypothesise that 1st order outcomes are least likely to impact on practice if they do not include 2nd order and eventually 3rd order outcomes. Sustained impact on practice, i.e. new teaching behaviour is very rarely achieved and properly applied in classrooms if value congruence and knowledge and skills are absent in teachers.

4.0 Teachers' Centres As A Strategy For Teacher Development

In developing countries there seems to be a dichotomy between what teachers' centres are expected to achieve and the reality of how they work. The aims given at the Arusha Conference (1996: 6) suggest that teacher resource centres are 'essentially strategies to provide professional services to teachers to enable them to perform effectively in their classrooms'. They should be 'places where professional and academic support is provided and where teachers discuss and solve their problems for the improvement of the quality of education'. Such definitions suggest that teachers' centres should be places where practitioners come to reflect and share their ideas.

Shaeffer (1993: 191), on the other hand, suggests that in reality most teachers' centres are 'quite traditional in orientation, with experts on hand to provide more or less formal courses on new curricula, texts and equipment. Teachers come mainly for guidance, training and information'. The reality is that curricula, examinations and inspection are controlled by central government, and it is felt by teachers that there is very little room for manoeuvre, i.e. little purpose in centres to search for and solve one's own problems and attempt to initiate new ideas. Blackwell (1977) points out that these are barriers to local participation in curriculum development of the type usually advocated at teachers' centres (Blackwell 1977). Dove (1986: 237) points out that even in countries like Britain, where professional self development was more common, many teachers 'did not accept and use teachers' centres for professional improvement'. She suggests that 'in countries where a culture of autonomous professionalism does not exist or where teachers are restricted by bureaucratic regulations from gathering together informally, teachers centres are probably not an appropriate strategy for in-service training'.

4.1 Concerns about the use of teachers' centres for training

Given the nature of change required by many educational projects, the level and status of teachers and the conditions in schools, it seems possible that an entirely different model for on-going training could be more appropriate for many countries at present. As in Britain in the last few years, when Kahn-like teachers' centres all but disappeared, it may be that simple 'training centres' are required. Ankrah-Dove (1977) felt two decades ago that training centres should be set up and named as such, rather than taking the teachers' centre model with all its associated ideas, hopes and promises, and then using it for other purposes. She warned that countries were 'in danger of advocating the setting up of teachers' centres and only then deciding on their purpose' (p. 80). Gardner (1977) makes an interesting point which seems very pertinent to decisions about the use of teachers' centres as a strategy. He reflects that if the aim is to move teachers to increased professionalism, the training colleges would have to develop into a system within which the teachers' centre concept could come into play when teachers were ready for it.

A further concern about the approach taken by many teachers' centres towards training, was whether courses which encourage teacher self development can properly prepare teachers for the real situation they face in the classroom. Shaeffer (1993), quoting Avalos (1985), suggests that such training can stop at the stage of raised consciousness only, and may not 'provide enough content, methods and direction to help teachers deal with "the effects of poor material conditions of teaching, of pupil learning difficulties and of an often miserable wage structure"'(p 197).

Further more, even if involvement in training at the teachers' centre does bring about individual changes in teachers, Haddad (1985) believes that this does not necessarily mean that teachers will be able to use their new skills or knowledge in a system based on different assumptions or be able to transfer them to a regular school setting. According to Oliveira and Farrell (1993: 14) this view is supported by evidence from Lockheed, Fornacier and Bianchi (1989), who found that teachers who begin displaying behaviours in their schools that they learned in training institutions eventually switch to the prevailing behaviours of their colleagues. Dove (1986: 224) also suggests that, 'although follow up studies are rarely done, it is likely that individual teachers, trained in isolation from others in their schools, are unable to use and disseminate new ideas and practices against the likely tide of institutional conservatism of their schools'. This effect seems particularly likely where in-service aims to change pedagogical practices in ways which are not reflected in the textbooks and examinations laid down by the government.

4.2 Evaluating the effectiveness of teachers' centres

Hoppers (1996: 2) claims that professional support services for teachers 'have come to be seen as indispensable for an education system that wishes to maintain or promote quality, improve relevance, and increase efficiency in the use of resources'. However, as in the UK, there has been a general lack of reliable evidence to either support or deny the effectiveness of the various approaches to post experience training of teachers.

Andrews et al (1990: 64) point to a sizeable literature on the topic of in-service training in developing countries. They suggest, however, that these studies are not very helpful in terms of evaluating the effectiveness of particular strategies because they are 'mainly anecdotal and authorised by the involved practitioners or do not present credible evaluations of the projects evaluated.' Farrell (1993: 180) found that studies mainly looked at particular aspects of training rather than at making a comprehensive evaluation of the training process. Greenland (1984) found that although half of the sixty in-service activities they looked at had some form of evaluation, the 'dominant mode' was the end-of-course written questionnaire or question and answer session. He doubts the usefulness of this method considering how difficult it is to design questionnaires and that the expertise in designing them is often lacking. He also points out that teachers are not used to responding in this medium. He implies that for proper information about the impact of in-service sessions, there needs to be follow up visits to the schools.

Any discussion of the evaluation and impact of in-service work or of teachers' centres as a strategy, inevitably points to the many difficulties inherent in such studies. Schwarz (1985) points out that it is risky to assume that the effectiveness of an in-service training program will be revealed by gains in student performance because a number of factors - an incompatible curriculum, inadequate materials or facilities, resistance to change on the part of the principals - can preclude impact on student achievement. Greenland (1983: 8), too, states that studies of the effectiveness of teachers are fraught with difficulties, not least the holding constant of countless intervening variables so that we can be sure that the training activity and the teachers subsequent performance in the classroom are causally linked.

Greenland also mentions a further problem when attempting to compare the effectiveness of different strategies. He notes how difficult it is to count the financial cost of in-service activities provided by teachers' centres over, for example training based at teacher colleges or institutes of education. There are so many hidden costs in the complex mix of teachers' time, cover for absent teachers (which never happens in developing countries), expenses, borrowing of staff and buildings. He claims that when searching for cost effective solutions such intangible costs add to the problem of evaluating one strategy over others.

Teacher's centres would seem to be cheaper, less demanding on trainers and less threatening to teachers in that they do not rigorously pursue change in classroom practice, as does, for instance, school-based training which is more labour intensive, intimate and costs more. However, it is problematic whether the impact of teachers' centres is worth the money being spent on them, or whether would it be more cost effective in the long run to aim for a slower more penetrating process of change and development.

Some recent evaluative studies of teacher resource centres in developing countries have focused mainly on how to improve centre management and the delivery of services including the presentation of training courses held at the centres, e.g. (Weir 1995; Shaw 1995). While such formative evaluation studies are valuable for helping to improve the efficiency of centres, the authors frequently comment on their frustration with not having been able to study the effects of the centres' work in schools. What is needed are summative evaluation studies that attempt to assess the effectiveness of the work of teacher resource centres in improving the quality of teaching and learning in schools.


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