Policies for Effective TVET Teacher Continuing Professional Development in Kenya

Előadó: Moses Njenga

Szerző bemutatkozása:

My research interest centres on Educational Policies and their impact on Teacher Education. As a PhD student, my research focuses on developing acceptable and cost effective policies to sustain and stimulate effective continuing professional development of TVET teachers in Kenya. Between 2014 and 2018, I taught educational policy making and philosophy of education at Machakos University, Kenya. Between 2009 and 2012, I worked as an instructor at Machakos Technical Training institute.

Előadás absztrakt:

Kenya’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training continues to face numerous challenges despite the many initiatives undertaken to improve its quality. Literature suggests that the persistence of these challenges can be explained in part by the deficient pedagogical competencies and limited subject knowledge in some of Kenya’s TVET teachers. There is therefore a strong need for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for TVET teachers in Kenya. In this article it is argued that Continuing Professional development (CPD) of TVET teachers in Kenya has been erratic due in part to a lack of supportive policies.  An analysis of several of Kenya’s key education policy documents reveals a lack of clarity in the policies meant to guide continuing professional development. Kingdon’s Multiple Streams framework, suggests that the policy gaps are as a result of policy makers lacking clear and viable policy options to stimulate and sustain CPD.  Consequently, from a review of literature on effective continuing professional development, various policy options are suggested. These include clarity in the requirements for teachers to engage in CPD and a supportive rather than prescriptive policy framework that allows teachers to innovatively choose what and how they will learn. Further, career growth should be linked to professional learning. To support the development of a viable policy framework current TVET teacher learning practices and acceptability of suggested solutions should be empirically investigated.