During 1998, the francophone section of the Working Group on "Management and Mobilization of Teaching Staff" focused on three activities: discussions by the national team on how to mobilize and support teachers; the continuation of country studies already begun in 1997; and the annual meeting of national teams.
Exploring the idea of mobilization and support
In addition to their work on Ministry action plans, the 13 national teams paid special attention to the question of how to motivate and mobilize teaching staff. This issue had not yet been explored as fully as that of the management of teaching staff.
The national teams were able to compare notes on the matter during the 1998 annual meeting of the Working Group, held in Lomé.
Follow-up to country studies begun in 1997
The question of the hierarchical chain of command was first examinedin 1997 together with the Ministry of Education of Niger.
Subsequently, several missions were undertaken in 1998:
- A consultancy trip to Djibouti in March focused on computerizing teacher management. The data processing unit of the Ministry of Education received advice on the computerizing of administrative information about teaching personnel.
- In May, a visit was made to the Ministry of Education in Togo related to the hierarchical chain of command. The Ministry sought assistance in identifying various dysfunctions resulting from the decentralization of services a year earlier. Certain problems are bound to arise with this kind of change, and the Ministry wanted to address them while it was still time.
- In December, a mission went to N'Djamena, Chad to assess the impact of recruiting a thousand civil service volunteers to join the corps of general and technical secondary school teachers. Their presence nearly doubled the number of teachers and thus had a significant impact. Problems were identified easily and were addressed with simple, practical recommendations for improving the system rapidly and at a reasonable cost.
Expert missions, whether advisory or technical, are always made up of two experts: one from the North, one from the South. This system has the advantage of increasing the capacities and expertise of the WGTP network through cross-fertilization, while also offering a neutral and objective point of view to the ministry that has asked for advice on a particular problem.
Annual gathering of national teams in Lomé
The annual gathering of National Teams took place in Lomé, Togo, September 14-18, 1998. There was a strong sense of sharing. Ideas were exchanged on the progress made to improve the management and motivation of teaching staff, as well as the access to and quality of schools.
Each country presented its view of how to motivate teachers, followed by general discussion. All the different incentive schemes were examined: reducing disparitities, awarding promotions and credit for training, self-study, mobility and housing incentives. Examples of various kinds of activities and supporting environments that might easily be transplanted to another country were reviewed.
In the course of these meetings it was decided the national teams should re-focus their work. Greater visibility of the Working Group within the Ministries and within ADEA is sought. Ministers were invited to propose two subjects for research, to be carried out during 1999-2000. The topics should correspond to some particular problem inherent in the work plans of the Ministries of Education in each of the 13 countries of the network.
New themes for research
The topics were then examined
by the steering committee of the WGTP, francophone section at its
meeting in Abidjan, November 19-21, 1998. Four main subject areas
were identified. These will be the focus of four methodological workshops
to be held during the first half of 1999. School participative
management of schools and teacher crises will be the focus of
a meeting in Dakar, March 22-26, 1999. Volunteer workers and gender
issues will be examined in Cotonou, April 5-10. The issues of
Employment, posts, personnel and the redeployment of teachers
will be discussed in Lomé, April 26-30. Teacher personnel
training, supervision and support will be the focus in Ouagadougou
May 24-27. During the workshops, issues will be discussed and existing
research, initial data and results will be presented.
Pierre
Faugere
Coordinator, Working Group on the Teaching Profession, francophone
section
![[ADEA logo]](../../pics/top_main.gif)
![[Table]](../../pics/top_right.gif)
![[ADEA Newsletter Image]](../../pics/newsletter.jpg)
