A Framework for the Professional Development of in-Service Teachers in Kuwait

Abstract

One of the common challenges encountered in the field of education is the incompetency of in-service teachers. Particularly in the Gulf Region, teachers’ transition from classroom education to professional work environments has not yielded much success. The study begins by first identifying the existing initiatives for teachers’ professional development and evaluating their importance in Kuwait, from the perspectives of supervisors and in-service teachers. Obstacles facing in-service teachers and supervisors are evaluated in the case of Kuwait. A qualitative methodology is applied to a randomized sample of 18 supervisors and 36 in-service teachers. The research instrument of in-depth interviews reveals the critical need to further enhance teachers’ professional development initiatives in Kuwait. Data analyses highlighted major weaknesses in teachers’ current professional development initiatives, of which include a limited number of training centers, redundant training program curriculum content, uneven ratios of supervisors to teachers, lack of strategy to improve teachers’ professional development, unqualified trainers, and shortages in the numbers of existing training programs. The purpose of this research is to propose an interactive framework for teachers’ professional training programs that integrates analytical research results, literary findings, and country experiences in the field of teachers’ professional development. The framework, along with a list of practical recommendations, is expected to provide proactive solutions that can be made generalizable for educational environments beyond classrooms in Kuwait and for international, professional workshop series.