Teaching the teachers of teachers of teachers

Abstract

Nigeria, like many other countries, is currently in the process of curriculum reform to make the school curriculum more responsive to the changing needs of a 21st-century knowledge economy. This entails re-thinking not only what is taught, but also how it is taught. It is almost axiomatic that teachers teach the way they themselves were taught. Therefore, if we wish to change practices in the classroom, we first need to change practices in the colleges of education, where teachers are trained, by offering appropriate continuing professional development (CPD) to college lecturers. The design and development of a CPD programme for college lecturers was therefore the focus of one of the recent initiatives of the Teacher Development Programme (TDP) in consultation with the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) in Nigeria, which was facilitated by the South African Institute for Distance Education (Saide). In the belief that the programme should practise what it preaches, the design and development of this programme was based on an activity- and resource-based and collaborative hermeneutic model. The article outlines the process followed and the outputs achieved, and may provide a useful example for others contemplating the development of a similar programme.