In 1997/98 a research team from the University of Leeds were funded by DflD to make a study of the effectiveness of the Teachers' Centre as a strategy for teacher development. The work was in two stages: a literature survey and field work in four countries, Andhra Pradesh in India, Kenya, Nepal and Zambia. In-country counterparts worked with the Leeds team and contributed valuable contextual insights to the outcomes.
The Project report is an extensive document. It reviews the issues confronting teacher development using teachers' centres as their organising principle, detailed observations are made through the country case-studies and putative solutions are advanced.
The Executive Summary is written to be both free-standing and to be situated within the main report. As with the report it addresses the growth and development of teachers' centres, their function, funding facilities and staffing, issues to do with developing teachers professionally, the carry over from teachers' centre activity into the classroom and impact on student learning before summarising the reports conclusions and recommendations.
The country case-studies are presented in some detail to represent the complexity of both the issues and their local interpretation. It is acknowledged that the reader might wish to read one or more of these closely and they too may be read separately from the main body of the report.
The conclusions and recommendations draw on all the data - the available literature and the cases studied. They are intended to go beyond the particular cases studied to apply to the use of teachers' centres as a general strategy for teacher professional development.
