Abstract
Teacher professional development is the ‘key’ of the developing students’ quality of the outcomes in the 21st century. Under such a situation, teachers have to update and intensify their knowledge, skills, attitudes and practices according to students’ current expansive demand. In this context, School-Based Teacher Professional Development is a very important concept, because it allows teachers to plan, organise and implement their own professional development programs, considering their particular needs, as well as those of students and school. However, this concept has not been extensively developed in the Sri Lankan education context. Focusing on the Sri Lankan secondary school context, this study examines the possibilities, effectiveness, strategies, issues and challenges involved in implementing these programs in the teachers’ professional development. Simultaneously, the situation of the Non-School-Based Teacher Development programs are also examined because these are currently prominent and this study assumed that both programs need to be integrated in order to provide balanced teacher professional development. The qualitative research approach and the case-study method has been employed. The data were collected by conducting interviews, non-participative observation and sample-based documentary searching. According to the findings, strong recommendations were proposed and relevant guidelines were suggested for future researches.
Highlights
The Ministry of Education in Sri Lanka has recognised that good teachers are ‘keys’ to enhance the quality of education (MOE, 2004)
This study focuses on investigating School-Based Teacher Development (SBTD) programs in the secondary education system of Sri Lanka, because they are currently rarely used in Sri Lanka
The overarching research question of the investigation is how do Sri Lankan secondary schools implement SBTD programs? Four sub-research questions are made to seek answers to the overarching research question: 1) What factors affect the development of SBTD programs in Sri Lanka? 2) How is the effectiveness of the SBTD programs demonstrated in each school? 3) Which professional development activities are reflected in the SBTD programs in secondary schools in Sri Lanka? 4) What specific changes in teacher practice followed SBTD programs?
Summary
The Ministry of Education in Sri Lanka has recognised that good teachers are ‘keys’ to enhance the quality of education (MOE, 2004). Sethunga (2007, p.3) states “Many international and local researchers have emphasised the need for school-based teacher professional development programs” Under such a situation, in order to organise and implement SBTD programs in secondary schools in the Sri Lankan context, the principals and staff of schools have two major options:. The project objective had three aims: firstly, preparing self-study training materials for teacher trainers with special emphasis on the use of multimedia and distance teaching methodology; secondly, supporting pre-service education for student teachers, in-service training of untrained teachers and short-term refresher courses in newly specialised subject and teaching methodology; and thirdly, upgrading facilities at Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) and Teacher Education Institutes (TEIs) This project did not consider developing or encouraging SBTD programs as an effective part of teacher professional development. In analysing these experiences in the report, some important aspects of SBTD programs are reflected
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
