School-Based Teacher Development, Promise and Potential for Ongoing Professional Learning

Teachers’ professional learning at individual, school and system levels is now considered crucial for schools’ qualitative growth. The restructuring of education system in Small Island Developing States education system is aiming to improve the quality of education, especially the students’ academic performance. For this to materialize, the school leaders need to design and implement effective and continuous school based teacher professional development programmes to professionally guide their teachers’ instructional practices. As such this study argued on the role of school based teacher professional development in Small Island Developing States and its impact on teachers’ instruction. This conceptual study, resembled information through a review of literature on the best practices and the researchers experience on the impact of school based teacher professional development in both developing and developed nations in and around the Pacific. This study highlights the impact of teacher professional development on the teacher change process and also provides insights on the role of school leaders in valuable goals setting and effective planning of teachers’ continuous and professional learning that is aligned with the needs of teachers based on the reforms initiated. These insights may also be relevant and significant for other educational leaders and authorities’ within and beyond the small island developing states of the Pacific that are undertaking reforms in the education sector, focusing on improving teacher performance to optimise students’ learning outcomes