Post-conflict teacher development: facing the past in South Africa

One of the priorities of societies emerging from identity- based conflict is to signal a new society, with new values that stand in stark contrast with the old. Education policy becomes a critical arena for highlighting these political values when schools, particularly teachers, are identified as key agents of social change. However, the legacy of the conflict, especially with regard to teacher identities shaped during conflict, is seldom taken into account. This paper argues that unless appropriate programmes of teacher professional development are put in place to open the space for teachers to engage with painful personal legacies of the past, the aim of transforming society through the education system has little chance of succeeding. Using South Africa as the case study, this article analyses the post-Apartheid history curriculum and discusses a teacher development programme, Facing the Past, which, it is argued, provides the necessary conditions for teachers to engage with the past in a way that enables them to integrate issues of moral and ethical decision-making into their teaching.