Clever Ndebele made a presentation on the Structure, Culture and Agency project at ICED, Stockholm, in June 2014. The data focuses on the voices of academics at Venda University, South Africa.

1. 1

2. ICED 2014 SWEDEN
Voices of academics on conditions enabling and
constraining their uptake of professional
development opportunities as teachers at a south
African university
Dr Clever Ndebele
Director
Centre for Higher Education Teaching and Learning
University of Venda, South Africa
2

3. The Study
Study sought to find out from academics what they considered as
the enablements and constraints in their uptake of professional
development opportunities in their role as teachers
3

4. METHODOLOGY
• Qualitative paradigm
• Semi structured interview schedule
• Ten academics who indicated willingness to be interviewed in a
preliminary questionnaire
• The study used Margaret Archer’s Social realist analytical
framework (specifically the concepts Structure , Culture and
Agency)
• Archer sees the social world as consisting of two components,
parts(structure and culture) and agency (people)
4

5. Social Realism
Structure: relates to material resources and to the recurring
patterns of social behaviour or to the interrelationship between
different elements of society around the distribution of these
(e.g. social class, gender, race, marriage, education, systems,
committees –Staff Development Committee, Senate Teaching
and Learning Committee)
• What mechanisms have been put in place to support
academics wishing to develop themselves as teachers?
5

6. Social Realism
Culture: ideas, beliefs, values, ideologies (What ideas, values,
beliefs are held in relation to professional development of
academics as teachers by the academics , by management , by
ED practitioners? Does one have to receive training or is
disciplinary expertise enough on its own to make one a good
teacher?
Agency: personal and psychological make up of individuals, their
social roles and relates to the capacity of people to act in
voluntary ways .(Boughey 2010). How does structure and
culture(e.g. how do huge workloads and the valuing of research
over teaching affect the way academics respond to professional
development opportunities offered?
6

7. Constraints -Structure
Huge workloads-little time for issues such as professional
development
People are extremely busy. Everyone has got more than enough
and then there is also pressure on new academics to be
finishing their masters, or doing PhD because that’s what’s more
valuable to the department
The workload might affect how you embrace a lot of things,
because if you are teaching a huge number, it tends to affect
how you avail yourself to such opportunities, and I think
there's a need to look into that, the large classes
7

8. Constraints -Structure
Lack of administrative support in schools was said to affect
academics ability to get time to engage in professional
development opportunities as shown in the responses below;
•-You don't get a secretary or somebody who can assist you to be
doing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And you are responsible for teaching; you are
responsible for marking; you are responsible for entering marks;
you are responsible for everything
•-If they can employ more staff, or if they can employ supportive
staff for lecturers. Because as lecturers we also work as
academics and we do all the other administrative things for
ourselves, and we don't have time to do that
•-as academics, whether you are a professor, whether you are a
doctor or a senior lecturer, you do all the administrative stuff by
yourself.
8

9. Constraints: Culture
Privileging of research over teaching-
•In most cases it seems that to have a post graduate qualification
in your own field is valued much higher than working with your
teaching and learning so the research is often given far higher
priority.
•I really think teaching and learning does not enjoy the priority that
it should by default, simply because of this huge emphasis on us
jacking up our research output and our research endeavours. You
know, what happened was that suddenly the university put
resources into research.
9

10. Constraints: Culture
• So I think what constrains the development of academics as
teachers is the emphasis on research, and the perceived
benefits...well, not only the perceived but the real benefits in
terms of financial reward, and the perceived benefits for their
academic careers.
• -Even the one now (teaching development workshop held
recently) , I was supposed to be there, but I had to go to a
paper-writing retreat. So I was writing papers for publication
and all that. You know, at the university they always demand
papers out of researchers
10

11. Enablements- Structure
• The establishment of the Centre for Higher Education Teaching
and Learning (CHETL)
-since CHETL started, they now have induction for academics. I
think it runs for three days, and they will actually take them
through what is expected of a teacher, which I think is important.
So after they've attended the university-wide induction, we
have our own induction for the staff members in the faculty.
• Deliberate identification of courses/formal qualifications on
academic development and funding staff members to enrol for
these
11

12. Enablements- Structure
• Funding readily available for staff development from the
Teaching Development Grant and the staff development and
training section in the human resources department
• The structures that have been put in place; School Based
Teaching and Learning Committees and the Senate Teaching
and Learning Committee have been established
• A policy on staff development exists which provides guidance
on staff development issues
12

13. Enablements- Culture
• Valuing of teaching The recently introduced VC Teaching
Excellence awards (alongside the well established research
incentives) was seen as helping to enhance the status of
teaching as shown in this response; The award system, in terms
of teaching and learning , I was very impressed with that.
• The recent classification of Teaching and Learning as a
research niche area now attracting similar funding from the
university as disciplinary research (this was achieved after
extensive lobbying by CHETL(funding for research on teaching
and learning was previously half of that of disciplinary research)
13

14. Enablements : Agency
• Supportive key agents in the university-the support of key
agents in executive management in the university was said to
create a conducive environment for academic staff
development There is higher management support especially
from the DVC academic
• The strategic positioning of the post of director as member of
decision making committees means he can push the staff
development agenda at those meetings
14

15. Recommendations from
academics
• A special category of leave, for example, special leave would be
more appropriate rather than using their current study leave
entitlement
• More incentives for teaching
• Provision of administrative support to free up lecturer time so
they engage in professional development opportunities
15

16. Recommendations of this
study
• Evidence of competence in teaching and learning should form an
integral part of policy on promotion and tenure in universities. This will
ensure that the three tier issue of teaching and learning, research and
community engagement is taken seriously with equity in universities.
• Professional development courses offered by teaching and learning
centres in universities should be varied and tailor-made to ensure
relevance to different faculties and departments in universities as this
can encourage uptake.
• Equitable distribution of teaching load to ensure that staff members
have teaching loads that allow them to participate in other
professionally relevant activities.
• Teaching and learning centres should devise ways of constantly
engaging staff to motivate them to make it a priority to undertake
professional development courses in teaching and learning.
• Compulsory HE teaching qualification
16

17. THANK YOU
Ndo livhuwa
17