Enabling factors and challenges emanating from primary data at Stan I4

The semi-structured interview was held with the grade 9 mathematics teacher. In response to how this teacher felt towards the CPT, the teacher stated the following: “The Jika iMfundo

tracker, firstly covers a vast number of books so I agree on that, it’s actually quite a nice instrument to use. But the problem with it, some of the books are not available, like for instance if you using the Sasol Inzalo. Sasol Inzalo is on the tracker but we cannot use it because we do not have it. Not every school is provided with Sasol Inzalo. The tracker covers the topics but the timeline is not realistic. Too many disruptions with school like SADTU meetings. Also, some topics are incorrect and were supposed to be done in other terms.”

Those comments are similar to what had been said at other schools. Even though the school contexts were all different, many of the challenges experienced were similar. Here it was more

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an issue of LTSM availability as the books the teachers would like to have used were not available. In addition, school disruptions were not accommodated for in the CPT. That echoed what was said by schools in Pinetown district (Zuzu P1 and Glen P5) as well as in ILembe district at Grout I3, in which contextual factors such as school disruptions made it difficult for teachers to work with the CPT. In response to questions posed on other challenges or factors that contributed to being able to use the tracker, the teacher provided the following response:

“Like I said, the weeks are unrealistic, we do not correspond with their dates, we use our own and follow the ATP. I honestly feel we should do away with the tracker, they should meet with teachers to meet realistic goals to know the reality rather than involving subject advisors. Basically, it’s just doing paperwork. In terms of the tracker, it’s not a helpful tool, a new teacher comes in, the tracker does not develop them. Senior teachers and the HOD will develop them, the tracker will only confuse them. It will help if it is revised. Do away with the tracker and Jika iMfundo, the HOD goes for the workshop and doesn’t have time to meet with teachers to explain how the tracker works. Rather have the workshop with all the teachers even if it’s over a weekend so it does not disrupt school that will be a better way to improve. Another problem is having more than one teacher using different books and then parents come to complain why children in one class have certain examples and in the other class the examples are different. It is because we are using different books that suit the tracker. If department give us enough textbooks we all can use the same and same examples because parents think.”

From the comments of this teacher, it seems the restraining forces that hinder usage of the CPT are actually not the CPT itself but other external factors, for example, HODs were not workshopping teachers on its usage. Those comments were evident also in 2017 at Zuzu P1 where “train the trainer model” was considered to not be working. It seemed that the problem was not that teachers did not want to use the CPT but rather that they lacked the training and knowledge to do so. The lack of training and knowledge is the restraining force which prevented change. From the comments, it appeared that this teacher did not view the CPT as a helpful tool for teacher development. The teacher felt that the role of developing new teachers stemmed from senior teachers and the HOD. The CPT is a document like a book or the ATP and it is the duty of the senior teachers or HOD to guide new teachers on how to use it. One can conclude that because of a lack knowledge such sentiments were raised (as seen by Zuzu P1 and Glen P5) that the CPT was also seen as additional administrative work. What appeared as the enabling factor was the fact that teachers were using the CPT to track curriculum as Grout I3 did. This was evident when the teacher commented that the work was still covered in

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different timeframes from those in the CPT and further stated that: “…we always finish the

syllabus and ensure it is completed. Learner performance is terrible, there are problems with bunking, learners have poor foundation in maths from primary school, they are just pushed through from there, no good foundation and then we sit with the problem.”

It is suggested that a way to improve the tracker would be to involve the people who are meant to implement it, namely the teachers in the classroom and not the HODs, even if it needs to be done on a weekend. The cascading of the information from the HOD sometimes does not take place due to a time factor and all these issues compound the challenges that hinder the utilisation of the CPT. Though the report back from the HOD did not always take place due to time the teacher said that: “Subject committee meetings take place twice a week with the HOD,

he always converses with us to where we are with the syllabus.” The HOD took an active role

in ensuring that he was aware of where the teachers were with the curriculum and what problems they were facing. It is assumed that these conversations would be similar to the professional conversations that Jika iMfundo advocates for.