6.1 Introduction

This chapter focuses on the College and its staff. It sets out to answer the following questions:

· How is the college organised and managed?

· What are the characteristics of the lecturers, in terms of qualifications, experience, and attitudes towards their careers?

· How do they perceive their work, with particular reference to their views on how young teachers acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need?

It draws on both survey and interview data, as well on document analysis.

6.2 College structure, management, and staffing

6.2.1 College structure and management

The College has a very strong departmental structure, a situation which has both positive and negative aspects. Tutors seldom teach more than one subject, though some have in the past moved between Mathematics and Science, or between their respective subjects and professional studies, or even from Secondary to Primary Division. Staff appeared to work in groups of 2-6 in their individual departmental offices, rarely meeting with their counterparts from other departments. Within departments, some appear to have developed the culture of collaborative work, meeting regularly or frequently; still some share workloads evenly while others do not. Few tutors reported activities or responsibilities outside their teaching, such as pastoral roles, extra-curricular activities, or involvement in the College committees. The comment: 'one just does her work' seemed to sum up one aspect of the College ethos.

The lack of collaboration between subject areas on the one hand and Educational Foundations on the other was said to adversely affect the teaching of the curriculum. On the positive note however, respondents said that although there were no formal links between some subject areas and Educational Foundations, tutors might be persuaded, through informal contact, to include Educational Foundations in their subject areas. In such situations, the practice contributed to students being taught in their subject areas how to apply concepts learned in educational foundation courses.

Staff perceptions of college management appeared rather negative. There is a clear hierarchy of roles, and staff remarked on the distance between 'us' and 'them'. Those coming in from other institutions commented on the apparent disorganisation at the College: meetings called and cancelled at short notice, lack of a clear agenda, and lack of information on both the new DEP programme and the impending changes in the College status, that is, from being a department of a government ministry to becoming an autonomous institution. Others complained about the difficulty in getting materials, the lack of vehicles for teaching practice, and many other issues. It was suggested that the situation might improve once the College became more independent from the Ministry of Education and controlled its own budget.

It was reported that in staff meetings issues are presented in top-down fashion, and that no Heads of Department meetings are held to thrash out common problems. When the new DEP was mooted, a Task Force, drawn from all departments, was set up to advise the donor and the senior management team, and consultative meetings were held. However, it was not clear at the time of the study the extent to which there was a sense of 'ownership' of this important change among the staff of the College. Neither was it obvious that staff development activities were being undertaken in preparation for the implementation of the change.

6.2.2 Staffing

At the time of the study the NTTC had a complement of 106 academic staff for its pre-service and in-service programmes, comprising 19 senior lecturers, 44 lecturers and 43 assistant lecturers.

Staff qualifications ranged from diploma to Ph.D., with the majority holding Bachelors degrees, and a substantial minority holding Masters degrees and above. However, the criteria for grading academic staff are not clear. Some tutors with Masters degrees are assistant lecturers; others with junior degrees are lecturers. There appears to be no system of staff appraisal and no clear guidelines for promotion; it is not uncommon for a staff member to stay in one rank for more than ten years and then be surpassed by someone who has just joined the college. This might be one reason for the high turnover of staff. By the end of the 1990s an average of 15 staff members left the College per year. About 5% can be accounted for by retirement, but if there is 10% turnover amongst younger staff this may be some cause for concern in building stable programmes with consistent teaching inputs.

In terms of age, 21% were below 40 years of age, 40% between 40-50, 21% were between 50-60 and 8% were over 60 years old. Half have been at the College for less than 5 years, while 29% have been there for over 10 years.

6.2.3 Gender issues

Among the NTTC staff 71% were women. Of the Senior Management, three were men (including the Director) and two women (including the assistant Director for Academic Affairs). At the time of the study, out of 11 Heads of Department (HOD) in the Primary Division, 9 were women and 2 men. During interviews, only one respondent thought it was easier for men than for women to get promotion; two (both men) were of the opinion that there was positive discrimination in favour of women, and two that there were equal opportunities, while five were unsure or vague. The vagueness could be attributed to lack of clarity over promotion criteria.

The great majority of students are women. Anecdotal evidence was quoted that men are more likely to drop out of the course, or go into other jobs after graduating. If they stay, said one 'it is because they believe they will become principals'. At the national level, male primary teachers, as is the case in many other countries, occupy a disproportionate number of management posts.

Regarding gender and the syllabus, it appeared that there is nothing in the college syllabus about gender awareness. Both men and women students take all courses, and a home economics tutor commented that male students who have been herd boys in their youth can crochet very well, as they used to make grass hats while in the mountain pastures. But no one mentioned making any other use of such experiences.

6.3 Characteristics of the Primary Division staff

The Primary Division at NTTC, although headed by a male Assistant Director, was manned by predominantly (66%) female staff. Just over half the tutors were between the ages of 36-45 years, and another third were older, with six being over 50. The females tended to be slightly older than their male counterparts. Most were Lesotho nationals, but there were four expatriates, one from India and the other three from other African countries.

All but two of the staff were graduates with a third of them holding Masters degrees. A third of the tutors did not have any professional qualifications, and these tended to be in the younger age bracket. The two non-graduates, and some of those without teaching qualifications, taught practical subjects. Five were Senior Lecturers, and the rest in lower ranks, that is, Lecturers and Assistant Lecturers.

Most of the tutors had gone through several training stages, often interspersed with periods of school teaching, as opportunities opened up or as higher qualifications were demanded. Typically, they trained at NTTC - only four had attended the former church related colleges - and later went to NUL to do a B.Ed degree. Some then proceeded to pursue M.Ed. either at NUL or abroad.

The decision to teach at NTTC was in most cases taken by the individual concerned. Typically, they answered an advertisement, and were then interviewed by the Public Service Commission. Tutors gave a variety of reasons for applying for work at the College. Some just wanted a change, others saw this as a chance to further their studies. One or two were so keen to join NTTC that they accepted posts in departments or divisions other than the ones in which they had applied or for which they were qualified. A teaching job at the NTTC is perceived as being of a higher status, and to be less stressful, than school teaching, and most agreed that 'my friends think I am lucky to be a lecturer'.

Most tutors were trained as secondary teachers, with only 40% having some primary teaching experience. Some said they ended up in the Primary Division because of staff shortages there. Overall, few of these tutors have their roots, or their interest, in primary education. Indeed, the survey respondents overwhelmingly agreed that 'most tutors do not know much about teaching primary pupils'. This is a worrying situation, particularly because there seems to be a tendency for the younger tutors to be even more oriented towards secondary education than their older counterparts.

6.4 Induction and continuing professional development

None of the tutors had been specifically trained as teacher educators, although two had done the Diploma in Primary Supervision specifically designed to train intern supervisors. NTTC has no formal induction programme for new tutors. On arrival they are usually given course outlines and then left to do their own reading and research. Informal induction is sporadic and varies according to department, with some offering more help than others. In English, tutors with only secondary training may start teaching content and move later to methodology. Otherwise, people just learn on the job, drawing on memories of their own training and using what books they can find. In the case of Educational Foundations, some tutors appear to have relied largely on what they had been taught at NUL. This would imply that what is being offered to NTTC students may be 15-20 years out of date.

It was clear that when they first came to the College many tutors did not know what to do, and did not always get the help they needed. One reported a conversation with a colleague thus:

I asked him: What kind of things do we do here at NTTC? He said: 'just teach as you have always taught, there is nothing new here'. But whenever I got to class, I would realize that teaching at tertiary level and training a teacher needed some kinds of skills, which I thought I lacked and, honestly, I don't know how I survived. But in the department, there was a lady who was very helpful. I learnt a lot from discussions with her. Sometimes she would be talking about things she had just been doing in class and that is how I picked a few things here and there and tried to implement them in class.

A particular difficulty was for those trained for secondary teaching to reorient themselves to a primary approach. A recently arrived tutor reported that she had to adjust the way she actually taught in the past to an extent of having to put herself in the position of a primary school teacher, particularly at the time she was preparing her course outline. She had to think of some of the approaches that she thought might be appropriate for teaching in the primary school.

A more experienced tutor explained how she thought about it:

I was put into the primary programme, so I had to re-learn, to teach myself how to teach students who were going to be Primary Teachers. I had to imagine ... how I would behave if I were a Primary School teacher. So I tried to teach these trainees as if they were my Primary School pupils .... when I am teaching pedagogy for example, I say, 'Now you are my class in a Primary School, so how would you approach this lesson?'; So we do it naturally. It works.

These scenarios point to the fact that tutors are not inducted into an up-to-date discourse about the values and principles of primary teacher education, nor are they helped to acquire a holistic picture of the programme. Consequently, they work out their methods in their own way, usually looking backwards to their own schooling and training rather than forwards to a vision of change - although there are some individual exceptions.

There seems to have been no consistent staff development policy at the College. Only half reported any in-service training, and this was mainly in the form of short courses of less than three weeks duration. A few had been sent to do graduate studies overseas, sometimes under donor-funded projects at the College. Others had, on their own initiative, followed part-time post-graduate courses while remaining on the job. An exception was in the field of Early Primary Specialization Programme, where six staff members were sent on short courses and study tours.

The impact of the staff training at NTTC is hard to evaluate. The overseas training in particular, though stimulating, was not always relevant. An older tutor told how she had been sent to the USA to be trained for a specific role, but how on her return she found the project had ended and she went into a different kind of job. Another who studied in UK said, only half jokingly, that although the course had been an 'eye-opener', he had to 'reverse what he had learnt' because of the lack of resources in Lesotho schools. By contrast, study tours to neighbouring countries were rated as very interesting and relevant.

6.5 Current job satisfaction and future plans

While the picture is somewhat mixed, and overall College morale was not particularly high, many showed enthusiasm for their work, and for most the advantages seemed to outweigh the drawbacks. Many expressed strong intrinsic satisfaction with their job, indicating, for example, that it is rewarding to teach people who will be teaching thousands of children. Thus, in their words, teaching at the College is challenging and enjoyable.

The frustrations of the job relate mainly to conditions of service and to the way the College is run. Starting salaries are on a par with high school teachers, and since there is only one college, opportunities for promotion are limited. Officially, posts are advertised and insiders compete with outsiders on equal footing, but there are suspicions that 'who you are matters more than what you can do'. Those without postgraduate degrees complain that there is no fair selection procedure for scholarships.

In spite of such problems over half would stay on at the College, particularly if salary and conditions could be improved. Some would like to move within the tertiary sector or go to the Ministry, but only five people (12%) considered leaving education. This suggests relative satisfaction, although it must be remembered that a number were nearing retirement. Closer analysis, however, revealed a strong gender difference. While only a third of the women would consider moving, half of the men would. Of the women, 70% thought it is the best job they can get, but only 27% of the men expressed that sentiment.

6.6 Tutors' perspectives

The picture that emerges is complex. The tutors come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, and expressed a wide range of views. At times the survey data was inconsistent with what was said in the interviews. No one model of teacher training emerged. The College does not seem to have a widely shared philosophy or a sense of purpose. As one interviewee pointed out, there is no 'mission statement' anywhere. In this atmosphere, many tutors had developed their own 'personal theories' and in the interviews most were able to articulate their ideas. However, the classroom observations suggest that few put their personal theories into practice.

6.6.1 Perceptions of the good teacher

Asked to describe a good teacher, there was a fair degree of consensus, with most tutors embracing a person-oriented approach. There was a much stronger emphasis on personal and professional attitudes such as kindness, patience, dedication and commitment than on either skills or knowledge. The skills mentioned tended to be complex interpersonal skills such as involving and motivating pupils, diagnosing and dealing with pupils' needs, and supporting slow learners, rather than the discrete technical skills of lesson planning or delivery. The teacher's knowledge base seemed to be of less importance, and expressed vaguely as 'knowing the subject' and 'understanding children'. Many described the good teacher in terms of 'holistic' images. The most common description was that of a facilitator or interactive teacher, where 'teaching is dominated by doing', and who 'creates an environment conducive to pupils giving their own opinions.' Another common phrase was that they should be an exemplar or role model for children. Others said: 'like a parent'; 'makes pupils feel at home'; 'makes learning pleasant and unthreatening for pupils'; or 'has the spirit of teaching'. One summed it up: 'a teacher who involved her students in learning, who kept the students motivated, who brought the students' experiences into class'.

Thus the ideal teacher nurtures pupils with loving care and dedication; she runs a child-centred classroom using a variety of methods, has good social and interpersonal skills, and adapts the curriculum to the needs of individual learners. She has high 'professional' -moral and ethical - standards of behaviour and acts as a role model. It is assumed she knows the subject content and something about child development, but she is not expected to develop or change the given curriculum.

This picture is quite similar to that drawn by the entering trainees (see Chapter 3), but with one noticeable difference in that the trainees overwhelmingly emphasised that a good teacher 'makes things clear so that all students can understand'. This emphasis on 'teaching for meaning' did not appear so salient for the tutors.

It should also be noted that such views of the teacher are rather different from those outlined in the Preamble to the new Diploma in Education Primary curriculum document. Here the aims indicate an 'extended professional' view of teachers, who would be capable of developing the curriculum and evaluating their own and others' work, and who would 'act as agents of change within their communities.' The curriculum document lays much more emphasis on cognitive skills and the ability to solve professional problems, rather than just dealing with children and their needs in the classroom (National Teacher Training College 1997:11) (See Chapter 4). Perhaps the new image, with its different requirements, had not yet permeated the College discourse.

6.6.2 The College products

Interestingly, tutors are not sure how far the reality of training matches their rhetoric. When they were asked more directly what sort of teacher the College aimed to produce and how far this was achieved, a rather blurred view emerged, at least from the subject staff. One of the tutors summarized it:

I really do not know. I think they are well prepared for their work. They have been given enough content, they have been given enough resources, and they have been given enough practice under supervision, so they should be more or less good teachers. As I said, though, it also depends on their commitment.

Some said that NTTC graduates were better teachers than those trained by the NUL because they had the 'skills to go to the level of the child'. There were only isolated references to self-evaluation, to teachers as change agents or to reflective practitioners as stipulated in the curriculum document.

This ambivalence about their task is shown in a striking way in the survey, when they were asked to exemplify how the College ensured that students became good teachers. The most common answer was to 'send them on Teaching Practice', followed by 'teaching them skills', giving them content, and by developing their professional and ethical attitudes, in that order. This suggests an uncertainty, perhaps even a lack of real understanding, about how their own work can and does contribute to the development of young teachers. It is also contradictory, in that many expressed quite negative views of the schools' contribution to training through Teaching Practice.

6.7 Teaching practice and the schools

While 90% of the tutors think teaching practice is the most useful part of the programme, they are very critical of its implementation and organisation. They are doubtful whether the College prepares students properly for teaching practice. About two-thirds think students have good subject knowledge and teaching skills, a quarter feel they can't manage a class, and a third believe students' professional attitudes are poor. Most rate arrangements for TP as less than satisfactory, singling out supervision by College staff and the practical arrangements for student travel and accommodation as being particularly weak.

Many do not feel that the schools selected for TP offer examples of good teaching, nor do they believe that students acquire good quality school experiences. Asked what could be done to improve matters, most highlighted the College role rather than the school: there should be more visits by tutors, more of both preparation and follow-up, and more microteaching. In general, they put less emphasis on efforts from the school side, though a couple of tutors noted how important those school efforts might be. More typically, tutors regard the schools as being old-fashioned, uncooperative or even counter-productive. Only one lecturer seemed to welcome teachers as partners. In the final analysis, though, both lecturers and students did express the need for regular visits of tutors to schools.

In interviews, several explained how difficult or even impossible it was to utilize the supervision time properly due to timetable and resource constraints and to the large numbers of PTC students. By contrast, those teaching the DPE are usually able to visit all their students.

6.8 Perceptions of their own teaching

It became apparent that there have been up to now two quite different teaching environments at NTTC. In the pre-service programmes - the old PTC and now the new DEP - student teachers are taught in large groups (50-200 for a lecture; 30+ for a class) and this causes considerable frustration to many tutors. In such conditions, they are seldom able to use learner-centered, interactive teaching, which they espouse. They feel forced to lecture, and have little interaction with individual students. On the other hand, teaching on the in-service programme (the DPE) means working with mature, experienced teachers in much smaller, subject-specific groups. Although this can be a challenge for new or young tutors, the older and more experienced ones perceive the students as fellow-professionals, treat them as adult learners, build on their experience, and use a much wider variety of teaching methods. However, the DPE programme is being phased out and, unless other inservice courses are developed, everyone will be teaching the pre-service students using predominantly transmission methods.

6.8.1 Personal theories

The respondents held a wide variety of interesting and often insightful perspectives, but there seemed to be no shared conceptual framework of what it means to prepare a primary teacher, or how that could be done. The tutors seemed to have each developed their own ways of conceptualising their work, partly shaped by their previous careers and partly by their experience so far of NTTC, and in particular of their subject department. The Mathematics tutors who were interviewed articulated some of the most specific approaches. For the PTC course, they used to integrate content and methods carefully, liasing with Educational Foundations. Talking about DPE work, one tutor explained how she had used a form of action research to help the trainees adapt the primary syllabus to small children. Another put forward a critical constructivist approach, saying that the way he teaches them is to try and get them to relate theory with practice by drawing from their own environment things that are happening, and try to derive mathematical concepts from that. The Science tutors tended to support an academic content-based approach. Only one mentioned Science as 'process' but found it difficult to integrate content and methods satisfactorily.

There were differing views by the tutors of English, particularly concerning the relationship between content and methods. In general, the two seem to be taught separately. One commented that students have to be given a lot of content because they cannot be given methods for things they do not know. A newly recruited tutor from high school teaching, who was also teaching English, was happy to have been given the content to teach rather than the methods. However, a more experienced tutor explained how she was able to integrate the two.

For some of the professional studies tutors, the child-centred approaches were considered to be of paramount importance. Their argument was that students should learn to understand and be friendly to their pupils who would in turn be free to share their problems with them. According to the tutors, the basic task is to equip student teachers with skills that would enable them to reach all the pupils in their classroom. Asked how the department would achieve their aims, they emphasized the idea of a role model: 'you make them teachers through the methods that you use - through your own talking to them (and) the examples that you give to them'. But others were rather more didactic, suggesting that a good proportion of such courses are taught by lecturing.

Although there is some consensus about the good teacher, there seems much doubt and ambivalence about how to train new teachers for the role. Thus, subject tutors are torn between teaching content and teaching methods, and are unsure whether to model primary methods themselves or just teach about them. Most held that there should be an approximate balance between content and methods, and between theory and practice, yet the new Diploma is structured around a ratio of 70% content to 30% methods. The professional studies components did not seem well integrated with the subject disciplines. These are dilemmas familiar to teacher educators worldwide, and every initial training programme needs to develop clear strategies for dealing with them. From the tutors' perspectives, this does not seem to be the case at NTTC.

6.8.2 Tutors' perceptions of the students

Teacher training colleges are often poised uneasily between secondary and higher education. The NTTC sees itself, and is perceived by others, as a 'tertiary' institution, with ambitions to become autonomous and to grant its own degrees. The entering students noted how much more freedom they had than in high school. Staff members in general seem to expect students to work more independently, and to take some responsibility for their learning, but their views appeared somewhat ambivalent.

While most tutors rate students as 'satisfactory' or even 'better than expected', the staff also complain about their low academic standards, particularly in English language, and their apparent lack of motivation. There is general agreement that students lack study skills, but also that the overloaded curriculum, crowded timetable, and perhaps inadequate facilities, militate against independent work. There is no personal tutoring system and a couple of tutors expressed frustration that they had no time to give individual help and advice.

Tutors recognised that many students came to NTTC as a second choice, since their grades were too low for university entrance; it seems that tutors have set out to do the best they could with the poor material, sometimes being surprised by their successes.

6.8.3 Tutors' views of knowledge and learning

Consistent with their university qualifications, most of the staff appeared open to new ideas, aware of the tentative nature of knowledge and of the need for life-long learning. There was an observation that a teacher cannot just stay on with the theory acquired at high school or university level since theory, content and knowledge keep on changing.

Several spontaneously mentioned an interest in research; the College policy was to encourage research, although no time or other resources were allocated for this. Half of those interviewed could give both title and author of a book they had recently read; three more could talk about a specific book on a topic, but had forgotten one or both of the details; and only three said they read very little then.

There was a general acknowledgement that teacher education was a complex task. One commented that 'you have to have the attitude of a learner as a teacher'. Overall, there was no great emphasis on reflection, and the term was mentioned only by one tutor. On the other hand, the importance of teachers' practical craft knowledge was acknowledged, especially when teaching in-service courses.

One of the aims of the DEP curriculum is that the graduates should be 'well-educated in terms of general Basotho culture' (NTTC 1997:10). This topic and its relation to the largely Western-derived curriculum did not seem salient for the tutors. Most averred that the ideas they got from overseas could be applied in Lesotho, perhaps with some adaptation. Talking about bringing in ideas from Western books, a Science tutor saw no cultural conflict in teaching scientific process skills, 'whether it's American or African child, he should have the skills to observe things properly.... The ideas can be applied to Lesotho'. Only one tutor expanded on this topic at length: he wanted Basotho culture to be modified so as to encourage pupils to ask questions and put forward their own ideas with confidence. He hoped traditional taboos about sex would be broken so that pupils could talk more freely about their problems and discuss such things as AIDS. The following exemplifies some of his views:

Our children have been taught to keep quiet and let the parents speak. You only answer if you are questioned or you talk when you are spoken to and that element really bothers me. I would like to see them a little bit more open, a little bit more confident, being capable of presenting their own opinion without fear of reprisal, and appreciation should be shown in that regard once students are capable of coming out.

6.9 Concluding Discussion

From the above account the following four interrelated problems can be drawn out for discussion:

- the lack of a clear shared college-wide model for training teachers;
- the need for a coherent strategy for induction and professional development of staff;
- the nature of the College structure and management; and
- the processes of change and innovation.

6.9.1 The Model of teacher education

An interesting aspect of the study was the wide variety of individual views expressed on the nature of teaching and learning, and of preparing teachers. Perhaps the history and geography of the College has produced this eclecticism: the aid projects, the overseas scholarships, and the proximity to South Africa, have allowed new ideas to be introduced, but may have also militated against the development of a shared conceptual framework. There seems to be some consensus around the concept of good primary teaching, but not about the process of training teachers to practise it. In the absence of a clearly defined model, the common College pattern seems to be that students are offered selected information, both theoretical and practical, mainly related to a discourse of child-centred learning, which they are then supposed to go and apply in practice. The actual questions about how this is best done, or indeed how far the ideas are relevant or practical in Lesotho schools, are not raised.

It is strange that, in spite of the emphasis given to the ideas of child-centredness, the College as a whole does not seem to practise a student-centred approach to teaching and learning. There appears here some contradiction between their 'espoused theories' and their 'theories in action'. As shown in Chapter 4, most of the teaching is transmission oriented and tutors seldom try to start where their learners are.

6.9.2 Recruitment, induction and staff development

It seems that procedures for selecting, appointing and promoting tutors are ad hoc rather than based on a careful diagnosis of the needs of the institution, or of the individuals concerned. All tutors emphasised the need for proper induction, refresher and upgrading courses, and for more transparent procedures for promotion.

Since tutors must be graduates, the recruitment of secondary teachers to the Primary Division is understandable, but this does cause problems. One solution would be to set up a thorough induction programme at the NTTC in which new tutors are introduced systematically to the theory and practice of primary teacher education through workshops, guided reading and perhaps short study tours such as were provided for the tutor for the Early Primary Specialisation programme. A longer term strategy is to ensure that all good primary teachers are trained to B.Ed. level so they can in turn become teacher educators.

If colleges are to be at the forefront of pedagogical change, no tutors should be left to rely solely on memories of their own training; they all need to know about new developments in teacher education, both generally and in relation to their own subject. Time and support could be made available for staff to undertake research and to study part-time. There is evidence of both capacity and motivation for this. Hopes were expressed that the College might be able to offer a B.Ed programme which would itself constitute professional development for interested lecturers.

6.9.3 College management and structure

The issues raised by the respondents are not new, and many of the perceived management problems, and the College ethos, may have their roots deeply embedded in the history and traditions of the institution. For example, there were complaints about large group lectures and suggestions were that this problem could be solved by breaking down classes for teaching purposes, but then staff would have more contact hours. Currently, they have very light loads by international standards, with half teaching eight or less periods a week. This teaching pattern is, however, an established tradition at NTTC.

6.9.4 Change and innovations

The main initial primary training programme was undergoing substantial change at the time of the study and few tutors interviewed were as yet involved in teaching the new Diploma. It was noticeable that their discourse and ideas seemed much more in tune with the old courses than with the aims and objectives of the DEP. Of course, such changes are uncomfortable and pose threats to well-established ways of doing things; good management and leadership are required to give direction and steer the process through.

The evidence reported here suggests that the NTTC is not, and has not been for many years, a 'learning institution', that is, a place where the staff regularly reflect together on their practice, identify problems, and look for more satisfactory solutions and work towards them. The culture, ethos and organisation do not seem conducive to such approaches. In the absence of good induction and staff development programmes to challenge ways of thinking, new staff are socialised into the same traditions. There is little incentive, particularly under the current conditions of service and promotion, to fight for change and renewal.