D.Ed. / The research study focused on how teachers respond to policy demands given the challenges of rural education and dominating policy discourses and how their professional learning is shaped by these conditions and limitations. In particular I wanted to learn and document what and how teachers learn as they engage in Integrated Quality Management Systems. This study was conducted because there is an outcry of poor examinations results in some rural schools, which could be linked to poor implementation of policies. To respond to this outcry the Teacher Learning Framework which could be used by teachers was developed. The investigation into teacher learning processes when they engage in policy implementation was designed as an interpretive ethnographic study and was conducted in a disadvantaged rural primary school in Ladysmith, in KwaZulu Natal, in South Africa. The study involved five teachers and it was undertaken as an action research study in two cycles. The purpose of cycle one was to verify how teachers presented lessons in terms of policy requirements and guidelines, and authenticate how they learn in the process about their teaching, learners, themselves, and policy requirements. Lessons conducted by teachers were observed and the reflections were also made by two teachers. This was done also as a strategy to gather data. In cycle one, data revealed that teachers were not in a position to implement what they planned to implement. Teachers gave themselves time to plan for cycle two in order to improve on the shortcomings in cycle one. Teachers appeared to have prepared their lessons well, involving learners. Some teachers indicated clear lessons steps which were followed in the classroom. Even before they went to teach in class, they discussed their lessons plans which contributed to the improvement in cycle two. As a process of data gathering, five teachers were interviewed. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed. As a second level of data analysis which was towards developing the Teacher Professional Learning Framework, all the data types were visited with the aim of extracting and discovering codes and categories across data types. These codes and categories were used in a more thorough grounded analysis to formulate a Teacher Professional Learning Framework.