Voices to be heard: What do teachers have to say about the reform of secondary school system in Bahrain?

Abstract

Since "educational change depends on what teachers do and think - it's as simple and as complex as that" (Fullan, 2007:129)*, teachers' version of any change story matters. This paper is an attempt to voice out teachers' perceptions on change in a centralised educational system like the one in Bahrain to improve the current and future reforms. It focuses on the perceptions of the teachers on one school who was pioneering secondary educational system reforms that took place in 2005 in Bahrain. The findings from teachers presented in this case study are a result of field notes, focus group, 5 interviews, and 56 questionnaires with a 65% return ratio. The data collected from these methods was triangulated in a thematic structure in a way that presents the perceptions of teachers about the change process from their points of view. The main themes of analysis are the perceptions of teachers about the creation, preparation, and the implementation of reform initiative recently introduced by the government. Teachers have little control over the decision-making process and emphasised their perception that current reform was affected by its relation with their academic life. Several issues relating to the quality and quantity of training, leadership and motivation were raised. In addition, their ambitions and expectations about how any reform should change things in the classroom played a crucial role in shaping their reactions. Chronic problems when it comes to the implementation stage existed and, most of the time, were identified even before the implementation. Nevertheless, the lack of empirical evidence contributed to the continuity of these problems. Therefore, this paper constitutes a step forward in the educational change literature in Bahrain that is available and accessible to the public. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.