An exploration of challenges that school managers face in the planning and implementation of continuing professional development (CPD) in public secondary schools in Malawi : a case of Northern Education Division (NED)

Abstract

This study was an exploration of challenges that School Managers face in the Planning and Implementation of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Programmes for public secondary schools in the Northern Education Division (NED) in Malawi. The study originated from a concern that, despite the running of CPD Programmes in Malawian secondary schools, research has shown that School Managers face many challenges in conducting CPD Programmes because they are not involved in the Planning and Implementation of CPDs at national leve. As a result, many challenges have been encountered in the Planning and Implementation of CPDs in many secondary schools in Malawi. For instance, some of the challenges revealed in the study were inadequate resources for conducting CPDs such as material, finance and human resources, limited time for facilitators and teachers, lack of coordination, involvement of school managers at national level, proper CPD structures in many secondary schools, maintaining same participants to CPDs every year, absence of participants from other schools especially CDSSs. Much as we have a lot of information on the planning of CPD Programmes, literature has shown that very little, if any study, has been done before on the challenges that impede School Managers’ involvement in the Planning and Implementation of CPDs in secondary school in Malawi.The study was placed within the mixed- method research design that incorporated concurrent procedures in the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data. Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data while qualitative data were collected through interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis. A total of 50 respondents were involved in the study. Theresearcher conducted 3 focus group discussions with teachers from various secondary schools.