This small-scale study sought to investigate “Teacher experiences and practices of Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS) at a primary school in KwaZulu-Natal”. This qualitative study gathered data through the case study approach guided by the following key questions: 1. What are the teachers’ understanding of how IQMS evaluation process works? 2. What are the teachers’ perceptions of the shortcomings of the IQMS? 3. How do teachers perceive the support that they may have received or not received as a result of IQMS interventions? The study entailed interviewing the principal of a school, deputy principal, three heads of department and four level one educators; providing and administering questionnaires to ten level one educators; and doing documents analysis. The findings of the study revealed that the teachers understand the purpose of the IQMS policy but this policy is challenged when coming to its implementation. It emerged from the findings that one factor contributing to the unfairness of the system, was the tendency to give high scores on educator’s performance when the performance is not up to the standard. Level one educators argue that the system allows educators to appoint their friends to act as DSG members, and that in their minds, this presents some flaws which undermine good intentions of the policy. It was also fond that the National Department of Education made assumption that the educators have skills to evaluate themselves and that all educators are honest and trustworthy people and this in their view, contributes to ineffective implementation of the IQMS policy. The teachers feel that they needed training on self- iv evaluation prior to the implementation of this policy. The issue of the lack of physical resources in schools was also raised. These physical resources need to be used in the classroom during the teacher evaluation in class and during the professional development of educators in order to assist them to grasp the new concepts easily. It also emerged from the findings that the Teacher Unions who represented the educators during the initial stages of the introduction of the IQMS policy, did not express all the teachers’ concerns regarding the policy and as a result the educators still do not have the ownership of the policy. In the light of what has been said above, I recommended that the National Department of Education must review this policy and change some of its aspects where the teachers have concerns, for example, an expert in the subject/learning area in which the teacher is evaluated, must be appointed and serve in the DSG instead of a friend appointed by the teacher. This will eliminate the awarding of undeservedly high marks and dishonesty. The expert may be appointed within the school or from a neighbouring school or district office. I further recommended that the educators need to be trained in a workshop on how to do self-evaluation or self-reflection in preparation for their appraisal. These are the important skills that the teachers need to acquire so that they will be honest to themselves and effectively determine their real strengths and areas of development. Another recommendation is that the Department of Education must equip all the schools with support materials to facilitate learning at all levels. The professional growth of educators must be supported by the physical resources or learning materials. On the whole the IQMS policy needs to be reviewed and revised by the National Department of Education. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2010.

This research seeks to understand what it means to be a teacher and the experiences that shape what teachers do in the context of a primary school. In asking the question, What’s a teacher anyway? I produced data of teachers’ daily practices and social realities within their lived experiences. Located within an interpretive paradigm, I documented various identities and meanings of teachers which helped me to understand how teachers negotiate the multiple forces within the setting of a primary school. The research looked at teachers in their social context, since teachers do not work in isolation but are subject to particular social influences. Using the participatory approach, I produced data of the lives of two experienced teachers who work in a primary school in the eThekweni region of KwaZulu-Natal. The participatory methodology was most appropriate to gather the necessary data, as it allowed for the teachers’ voices to be heard. Against the social, institutional, contextual and programmatic contexts, data were sourced by means of career life-history interviews and photovoice. Through narrative analysis, the teachers’ stories were reconstructed and represented as identity categories through which they were able to construct their professional selves and their professional work. The findings that were generated from the two experienced primary school teachers were analysed and represented under the key themes of professional self and professional work. The findings offer an understanding of how practising teachers manage their work and themselves against all the changes and challenges of the South African educational landscape specifically in the schooling situation. Through the reconstructed stories by the teachers, the study makes visible how teacher identity shapes teachers and their work in the school. The data reveals that teachers have multiple identities of who they are and how they respond from their position as teachers, which clash with what is expected of them in the school. The findings show that teachers are unhappy with the curriculum and political shifts, as these are imposed on them in an arbitrary manner. The study contributes to a nuanced understanding of the relationship between teacher identity and teacher work. The study revolves around the teacher who tries to build an interesting relationship between the identities of “mother”, “teacher” and “caregiver”. Being a teacher, innovative ways are created to manage the administrative work and the curriculum work. The iii second teacher, an Indian male, as a person and an activist, growing up in a poor community, negotiates between the forces to make sense of what it means to be a teacher in the present shift, given the diversity of pupils and the various issues that accompany it. The teachers are working in a social reality and have to manage a range of challenges, difficulties and struggles. They find creative ways to negotiate the multiple roles and responsibilities and make sense of what it means to be a teacher. Due to excessive administrative and curricular demands being made on them, teachers are found to be experiencing tension and undue stress in their work while negotiating the multiple forces that surround them in the context of the school. To answer my research question, What’s a teacher anyway, I considered how they moved beyond their conventional roles and responsibilities as teachers, and how they endeavoured to make meaning and sense of themselves as successful teachers within the four dimensions of Samuel’s (2008) framework. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2010.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2119. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 283-306).

Thesis (M.P.H.M. (Primary Health Care Management)) --Mahidol University, 2006.

Thesis (MHSc--Health Science) -- AUT University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print (iv, 90 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm.) in the Archive at the City Campus (T 371.1023 POW)

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 95-100).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-81). Also available in print.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry, 2010. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 220-235)

M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract