The Power of Persistence: Education System ... - EQUIP123.net

supportive. The Circuit Support Teams (CST) provided direct technical assistance
to schools and communities in conducting the school self assessment and
developing school improvement plans, and were also responsible for teacher and
principal professional development at the circuit and school level.
Institutional Dimensions
The institutional framework evolved in stages as the reforms took place and
experience was gained. In the first years after independence, the challenge was to
create a single Ministry out of the 13 separate ministries—one for each homeland.
Moreover, the Ministry had to integrate the existing school system—in which
there were principals, teachers, and parents who had never been in the exile
camps—with an alternative system in exile that had developed a philosophy and
approach with the assistance of donors. These two streams were coming from
fundamentally different experience.
The major policies in the early years focused on teacher development, with
the Basic Education Teacher Diploma (BETD), and a new curriculum taken
directly from the principles that the Swedish advisors introduced in the SWAPO
exile camps. This was in effect an effort to scale up a system that had been
developed with a small, homogeneous group and sufficient resources and use it
in an environment with diverse cultures and languages, with a different history
of teacher training, and with limited resources. However, a key feature of the
system was critical inquiry and reflective practice, which enabled learning while
encouraging the emancipation of teachers and learners.
A central feature of the institutional development, particularly in the period
after 1995 when the Ministry of Education was consolidated, was the ongoing
and supportive professional development of the cadre of Ministry officials most
directly involved with schools: Inspectors of Education, Advisory and Resource
Teachers, principals and teachers. Two aspects of this professional development
program are particularly noteworthy. One is that the system was structured to
put into practice the philosophy of critical inquiry and reflective practice—a
feature that deepened both understanding and ownership of the reforms. The
regional programs were designed and implemented with regular regional and
inter-regional workshops to review progress, refine instruments and approaches,
and conduct technical training. Over time, this embedded a deep sense, and
reality, of ownership of the strategies and reforms among the operational staff
(circuit support teams), school principals and teachers, and in the regional
education leadership.
SECTION 2: lESSONS fROM COUNTRY CASE STUdIES
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