Teachers’ perceptions of the impact of a one-year in-service teacher education programme in the Solomon Islands

Abstract

The recent development of a one-year campus-based teacher education programme in the Solomon Islands was intended as a step towards improving access to teacher development opportunities for local teachers wanting to upgrade their skills and qualifications. A group of ten teachers from the second cohort of this programme was interviewed individually to explore their perceptions of the impact that their involvement in the programme had on their teaching and on their lives as teachers. A thematic analysis indicated that the teachers perceived some important benefits in the areas of classroom practice, school leadership and management, and teacher professional skills. It also identified a number of challenges that the teachers felt made it difficult to implement what they had learnt, including a lack of resources, the nature of the local classroom, and the responses of their colleagues. In highlighting specific issues in this context, this research contributes to the sparse literature on teacher development in the Solomon Islands and in the wider Pacific.