We hope you enjoy Issue Two in JEID's third volume of manuscripts. For this issue we have collected four papers concerning professional development, writ large. As development practitioners, many of us have witnessed integrated forms of professional development, where new approaches to teaching and educational leadership work in concert with each other. Many of us have also witnessed when this does not occur, when trainings become, in the current jargon, "stove piped", i.e., largely separate activities that are not integrated at national, regional or school levels. These papers speak to these different scales of professional development and the various ways to improve practice. In addition to this thematic focus, we also have the good fortune of having three manuscripts based in the Pakistani context. The increasingly complex political, economic and social situation in Pakistan warrants in-depth analysis. Looking at education reform through the lens of the USAID-funded ESRA project, we hope the manuscripts contribute to deeper understanding of education in Pakistan.

JEID's mission is to publish and disseminate relevant research and field reports that provide development professionals timely and in-depth analysis of development practice. JEID prides itself on including voices from the field in addition to those from more traditional outlets, such as colleges and universities. While JEID often publishes thematic issues (please see our recent Call for Papers for more information on our current themes), we welcome unsolicited papers on a variety of topics. Please consider contributing to JEID and to register as a peer reviewer.

Volume 3, Issue 2: General Issue

F. Henry Healey, Ph.D., RTI International

Training is a central feature of most social sector development efforts. This paper examines the impact of training against the backdrop of the Education Sector Reforms Assistance (ESRA) program and draws the conclusion that without attending to the demand-side factors of training that: a) make public sector personnel seek out professional development opportunities that will enhance their job performance; and b) ensure that what they learn is actually utilized on behalf of better job performance—the impact will be of minimal value to the sector it was intended to improve. Donors and donor-country parliaments must take the long view and the political risks necessary to help put into place these critical demand-side factors.

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How Information-Based Planning Can Flourish Where Traditional Politics Reign: An Example from Pakistan

Jonathon Mitchell, RTI International

The benefits of decentralization in education are often undermined by a number of factors. In Pakistan, under a national devolution program, elected district governments have been given budgetary and operational responsibility for social sector service delivery, but severe capacity gaps within education departments have in places led to increased local political meddling in resource allocation. The USAID Education Sector Reform Assistance program has conducted a series of district-level planning exercises using EMIS data that interactively allows education officials to set objective prioritization criteria for the allocation of physical inputs to schools framed to appeal to representatives in the district assembly. The resulting priority criteria, budgets and resource allocation lists have given department officials the ability to quantify their needs, justify budgets, fend off political interference and generate political backing for their proposals. The paper outlines the process and tools that were utilized, emphasizing elements critical to success.

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Co-constructing Meaningful Professional Development: Lessons for International Collaboration

Dawn C. Wallin, Ph.D., University of Manitoba
Phyllis Hildebrandt, Lakeshore School Division
Sakil Malik, International Reading Association

This paper describes a conceptual framework co-constructed by international collaborators for a short course designed and delivered to participants in a development project in Pakistan. The purpose of the project was to support teacher educators in the development and management of effective and innovative pre and in-service teacher education programs. The conceptual framework of the course focused on three factors commonly found in the literature to influence the quality of professional development: (a) content; (b) process/structure; and, (c) context characteristics. Finally, this paper details the evaluation of this project using Guskey’s (2003) model of professional development evaluation, and discusses the need for this kind of evaluation to be an integral part of all international development projects.

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Mobile Teacher Training Troupes: A Source for Capacity Building in Primary Teacher Education in Malawi

Hartford Mchazime, Ph.D., American Institutes for Research

The education system in Malawi has been undergoing a curriculum reform while the government introduced a policy of free primary education. The innovations created major challenges to the smooth running of the education system: there are acute shortages of qualified teachers to address the huge enrolments and an inadequate supply of instructional materials. While traditional government pre-service teacher training has been modified into a teacher education program known as the Malawi Integrated In-service Teacher Education Program (MIITEP), the approach has been turning out teachers unprepared for their work. The public considers that the quality of education is dropping and among other things it is requesting the Government for a greater budget allocation to education (Nsapato 2006). To address the situation, the Malawian government requested the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in providing in-service teacher education. Consequently, the Malawi Teacher Training Activity (MTTA) was established on September 1, 2004 and within the project a mobile teacher training troupe (MTTT) was to address the provision of high-quality, in-service, teacher training. This article presents how the Government of Malaw, with the assistance of USAID, addresses capacity building within the primary education sector. It also examines the impact the capacity-building efforts on the professionalism of teachers.

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