6 EXPLORING LECTURERS’ RESISTANCE TO ACADEMIC STAFF DEVELOPMENT AT A HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION IN THE EASTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA Zwelijongile Gaylard Baleni1, Andrea Mqondisi Buka2, Clever Ndebele3 1,2,3Walter Sisulu University, South Africa Abstract. Higher education institutions and specifically lecturers must stay pertinent and informed of the changes in the academic world. The necessity for staff development programmes in higher education institutions is in accordance with the acknowledgment that transformation for academics is crucial and they need to continually consider their practices to stay pertinent in their disciplines and in teaching and learning issues. Using Karl Marx critical theory, this article explores some dialogue that build lecturers’ assertiveness towards teaching and learning in their fields of study. It strives to explore academics' struggle to engage in initiatives on professionalising academic training. Lecturers might interpret academic staff development initiatives as dictatorial and these result in unwanted consequences for both academics and the institution. The study used the 2017-2018 Campus academics statistics on Academic Staff Development (ASD) workshops to sample participants. Questionnaires were sent through google docs to 80 participants. The findings show that there is resistance to undertake professional development courses because of departmental cultures and traditions are detrimental to academic staff development; workload; undervaluing teaching and learning; workshop emphasis on the theoretical features of teaching than practical examples as well as lack of motivation and incentives among others. A well-planned and continuous ASD creates better impact on encouraging and professionalising academics on innovative pedagogies. Keywords: Academic Staff Development, Culture, Resistance. To cite this article: Baleni, Z.G., Buka, A.M., & Ndebele, C. (2022). Exploring Lecturers’ Resistance to Academic Staff Development at a Higher Education Institution in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Education. Innovation. Diversity, 1(4), 6-19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17770/eid2022.1.6738 Introduction The purpose of this article is to explore lecturers’ attitudes towards academic professional development and to investigate why some lecturers are less interested to enroll for academic professional development. There a various definitions of academic staff development in literature. Some definitions are put in the following paragraph. Academic staff development is an on-going process of educating, enhancing, learning and support activities that assist lecturers to develop their pedagogy within the university in which they are working (Severino, 2016) while Quinn (2012) reputes academic staff development as a series of formal and informal activities that aim to contribute towards lecturers’ capabilities as scholarly university educators. Its key determination is to enhance the lecturers’ awareness of the different responsibilities they need to perform in contributing to their students learning success and the execution of the university’s strategic plans (Boughey, 2007). These definitions of academic staff development show encompass improvement or strengthening of knowledge and skills for academics that lead to quality teaching and learning, what Herman, Bitzer and Leibowitz (2018) refer to as Teaching Content Knowledge (TCK) and Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) but with more emphasis on PCK because university teachers are subject specialists already in their respective disciplines. Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is very crucial in classroom teaching. In the learning and teaching process, PCK comprises the lecturers' competency in facilitating the theoretical methodology, interpersonal consideration and adaptive cognitive of the module content. The majority of academics in higher education maneuver contending desires. Contending desires incorporate the burden to create income-generating research, scaffold students for future https://doi.org/10.17770/eid2022.1.6738 7 jobs, facilitate different student cohorts, produce techno-skilled students, and fulfil the university and national strategic goals towards quality and liability (Ghenghesh & Abdelmageed, 2018). The necessity to empower and uphold scholarly development in university educators is inescapable and perceived universally (Clarke & Reid, 2013; Barefoot & Russell, 2014). Although Higher Education Institutions have put the focus on scholarly development, they face the test of uplifting the excellence and position of teaching in spite of pockets of resistance to change and with some doubting professional development programmes (Clarke & Reid, 2013). Universities have to handle the enactment of academic staff development programmes as all academics hypothetically require continuous upskilling and updating on the subject content and pedagogy (Geldenhuys & Oosthuizen, 2015). Concerns of disjuncture between the content of training and lecturers’ working contexts have been reported in various settings. These disjunctures disrupt the expected outcomes of ASD that is enhanced pedagogical skills as lecturers lose interest in innovations once they do not supplement their teaching practice. There needs to be a formal well-structured ASD procedures that encompasses diverse approaches towards academic staff development, it might be discipline-based or departmental based approach. Lewin and Stuart (2016) studied educational changes in developing countries and highlighted the threat of applying ordinary training models that disregard academics’ explicit restrictions, shortfalls and fundamental motivation. Universities must be flexible in affording academics opportunities to grow both professionally and within their disciplines. In South Africa, higher education has undergone significant change since 1994 when the country transitioned to democracy. These changes have taken place in policy, legislation, enrolment numbers and the composition of institutions to ensure that higher education in the country is coherent. These changes also improved access to higher education which resulted in considerations of the role of the lecturers from developing the ‘underprepared’ student towards developing teachers (Volbrecht, 2003; Boughey 2007). Many of the national imperatives play out quite differently across the system, resulting in substantial institutional diversity. Historically, this institutional diversity has legacy provided perspectives on how opportunities for lecturers’ professional development emerged and continue to emerge. DHET (2013) reports that in 2011, there were 938 200 students enrolled in higher education in South Africa supported by 16 935 academic staff. Despite the growth in student enrolments, however, academic staff numbers have been relatively stable over time. Teaching and learning conditions are clearly affected by this finding. According to Cloete, Sheppard and Bailey (2015), the proportion of permanent academic staff with a doctorate was only 35% in 2012. Due to massification as well as lecturers’ shortages who can undertake all responsibilities related to teaching, including doctoral supervision, the likely outcome is a shortage of academics who can fulfil those duties were substantial (CHE, 2016). In addition to the requirement for more staff to attain higher qualifications, there is the potential conflict between what staff had to do as researchers and as university teachers, which might impact on the quantity of time the lecturer could dedicate to each. With the increasing demands on academic staff of teaching, research, publication, institutional transformation, community engagement, and hard management, the plan for staff development has found it difficult to find coherence. It is thus difficult for academic developers and university managers to agree on the primacies of academic staff development. Despite global trends influencing academic staff development in South Africa, the local perspective contributed greatly in determining its process, significance and range. Thus, South African higher education institutions show significant differences in pursuing and implementing academic staff development. In pursuit of enhancing university teaching, a national workshop on strengthening university teaching was jointly convened by the Council on HE (CHE) and the Department of HE and Training (DHET) in 2017 (CHE, 2018) where a 8 national framework was developed. The purpose of this framework is to guide universities in developing and implementing strategies to enhance university lecturers, to enable institutional strategies to align with national strategies, and so to maximise the impact of initiatives across the sector. However each HEI has autonomy to develop its own academic staff development strategy, policies and procedures. Literature Review Professional development and professional attitude are crucial for everyone (Ndebele & Maphosa, 2014) and, for all professional members to progress in their career, professional development is a necessity. Hence, higher education institutions worldwide need to have frameworks set up to guarantee they raise the quality of teaching to stay competitive in the commercial place. These desires affect the way lecturers intellectualize their teaching duties and participate in teaching development. According to Lipsett, (2005), lecturers ought to professionally enhance their learning and teaching methods, targets and plans. It is significant for institutions to connect academic staff with new methods of teaching, so that they move away from traditional teaching towards learner-focused learning and improve the student learning experience. A significant method to realize such change is through sorting out staff development training (Deaker, Stein, & Spille, 2016). Staff development is an approach institutions use to change lecturers’ attitudes, convictions, and discernments as well as to upgrade their teaching abilities and their students' academic accomplishments (Blandford, 2000). It will likewise assist lecturers in remaining updated with the latest pedagogical strategies, which thusly will contribute fully towards the accomplishment of objectives of the institution. Consequently, as these workshops, seminars and innovations enhance academic skills and performance of academics in their core disciplines, they also prompt lecturers to strive towards achievement of the institution’ s vision and mission (Asfaw, Argaw, & Bayissa, 2015; Kumarm & Siddika, 2017). Such ASD augments the lecturers’ full potential, supports them to realize their pedagogic precincts, and guide them through the facilitation of information and skills grown from academic developmental programmes conducted in higher education sector (Balyer, Özcan, & Yildiz, 2017). Hence, Bingwa and Ngibe, (2021) insist that universities must contemplate academic staff professional development vital and as a perilous constituent towards quality teaching and learning. With all that supporting evidence of academic staff development benefits, resistance within academics to attend academic staff development exist (Ndebele & Maphosa, 2014). Ghenghesh, and Abdelmageed, (2018) pointed out that the two key causes for academics to attend staff development are to achieve innovative knowledge and skills and for personal academic growth. Conversely, the two external factors that constrained them from attending all the workshops were time conflict between their schedule and timing of workshops and workload. Quiin (2012) divided discourses of resistance into 4 categories: i. Disciplinary - Lecturers repel teaching development since it is a specialized field and they believe that their content-specific knowledge is ample grounding towards facilitating a module. A PhD is automatic confirmation of teaching competence. ii. Student deficit (underprepared students) – Lecturers assume that students are underprepared for university, as a result they resist academic staff development because the students admitted by institutions are the challenge to teach not academics (Ghenghesh & Abdelmageed, 2018). Skills- Staff development focuses on teaching methodological skills. Lecturers resist staff development because they view ASD as unnecessary as teaching as a scholarly set of pedagogical skills; understanding of relevant learning theories and techniques 9 and as such not aligned to content facilitation. iii. Performativity – Research is rated higher than teaching as a result, ASD is not valued because research is one of the highly recognised criteria for promotion and integrity; whereas academic development activities are just for compliance on institutional quality control. iv. Concept of ‘border crossing’ effect by Van Schalkwyk and McMillan - the belief is that academic developers cannot be jack-of-all-trades and use the concept of one size fits all. Academics maintain that they need discipline entrenched teaching training not generic ones. v. Academic Developers’ practitioner qualifications – Academic developers’ not holding doctoral degrees lowers the integrity of their efforts in training senior academics. Academic Developers and the institutions need to strategise on how to incentivize academic staff development attendance. In fact not attendance only but completion of the course and implementation of new strategies. Motivation and passion are vital reasons that drive a person to take actions (Sasson, 2011). Generally, once your motivation is low you become unreceptive and blame all around you. On the contrary, a person who is highly motivated is more energetic and optimistic. Usually, lecturers resist transformation, enhancement or proposals for the development of their competencies, creating a challenge to implement academic development initiatives (Bamber, 2008). It might be that they feel not motivated towards attending academic staff development or there are other factors within their environment that hinder their zeal for professional development. Reasons Why Low Uptake of ASD The reasons for lack of enthusiasm and zeal in professional development training can be deficient self-confidence on skills, fearing disappointment, low self-esteem, no interest, indolence, non-consciousness of the significance of academic staff development, anxiousness or jumpy feeling, nonexistence of enticements, lecturers’ conservativeness, clash with work timetable, household tasks and lacking nuts and bolts (Muzaffar. & Malik, 2012). German educators highlighted why they lack interest in professional development workshops as influenced by professional development, which they felt were not adequate for them and conflicted with their work schedule, as well as programme that are impromptu resulting into an unproductive exercise. (Muzaffar & Malik, 2012). Muzaffar & Malik (2012) also identified that professional courses, which exclude the opinions of participants, especially their necessities, are probably going to encounter truncated inspiration and also result in non-obligation in attending such courses nor execute learned ideas. Professional development trainings, which are more theoretical than practical, also are not motivating. Pedrosa-de-Jesus, Guerra and Watts (2017) also argue that some aspects which might impede individual professional progress are: institutional interferences like teaching loads, administration of learning and teaching, class sizes, limited teaching assets, qualification necessities, and additional personal dynamics for instance superiority of academic role, self-efficiency and group-value and self-reliance, and distinct personality. Some negative views on ASD like some lecturers feeling that they are masters and specialists in their disciplines as a result they take teaching for granted. They see ASD as a university fuss and waste of their research time. They also believe that their high qualifications are enough to scaffold students to pass espec ially the experienced academics who claim to have taught so many years with good student success rates. Professors regarded themselves as experts in their disciplines and noticed no gain in taking part in ASD initiatives. Lecturers have a negative mind-set towards ASD programmes. The main reason of this negative mind-set is that academics undermine teaching; they view it as ordinary. This concurs with what Lipsett, (2005) found on the professionalisation of teaching 10 in higher education institutions in South Africa. They established that the dialogue about teaching in universities regarded teaching as a common sense occupation as a result anyone in possession of Doctoral qualification should teach effectively, an assertion also stressed by (Ndebele & Maphosa, 2014; Pedrosa-de-Jesus, Guerra, & Watts, 2017). Studies of teacher development programmes across the US, UK, Canada and Australia likewise support this discourse. Yet, such an assumption might be detrimental to constructively aligned teaching and assessment especially in student-centred approaches. How to Motivate Them to Take Part in Workshops All lecturers ought to be mindful of how critical proficient development preparing is, for their effective career (Ndebele & Maphosa, 2014). Much accentuation ought to be on practical implementation than the theoretical perspectives. Lecturers ought to be remunerated for great occupations. Motivations or jolts ought to be presented amid professional improvement trainings. There ought to be legitimate one-on-one monitoring of their teaching implementations after workshops. Lecturers have to be empowered and persuaded amid trainings. Theoretical Framework The critical theory originally started in Europe (Sullivan, 2021). Critical theory, a Western-Marxist-motivated development theory, is primarily linked with the work by the Frankfurt School (Sullivan, 2021). Drawing especially on the idea of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, scholars maintain that an essential objective of critical theory is to comprehend and to help defeat the social structures through which individuals are ruled and mistreated. Critical theory is inspired greatly by Marx's theoretical formulation of the relationship between economic base and ideological superstructure and focuses on how power and domination operate. The work of the Frankfurt School members, including Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, and Herbert Marcuse, is considered the heart of the critical theory (Crossman, 2019). Critical theory is a social theory adapted for critiquing and transforming society as an entirety (Crossman, 2019) and in education is about questioning how our educational system can best offer education to all people. Critical theory provides a basis for conceptualisation and it also provides a guide for social change. It is underpinned by values such as empowerment, emancipation, transformation, and contradiction. However, for this paper only empowerment, transformation and emancipation will be used. In the field of education, empowerment is often associated with the classic work by Freire (1979, 1986). In the process of improving lecturers’ teaching skills, they are empowered to be good lecturers. These lecturers through ASD will be motivated to teach effectively as they will be confident i.e. self-efficacy is enhanced. When an individual feels empowered, he/she has a greater sense of intrinsic motivation and self- confidence; alternatively, a feeling of disempowerment can result in decreased levels of motivation and self-confidence. Empowerment leads to transformation. Critical theory is applicable to ASD as it advances transformation and change, which are the aims of developing academics towards being quality university teachers. Empowerment is the trademark of academic staff development and without it, there is no transformation in HE to discuss. Scherer (2008) claims that emancipation concerns critically analysing, resisting, and challenging structures of power. According to Clouder (2010), reflective practice promotes professional development through critical analysis of contextual issues of power and inequality, diversity and inclusion which manifest themselves in HE (Karban & Smith, 2010). Chabaya (2015) also supports that reflective practice as part of critical theory is accepted as a key component of professional development. The implication is that ASD ought to empower academics to be critical and independent thinkers who will engage in 11 critical inquiry. For academic staff development, critical theory is useful because lecturers that are trained come from different disciplines. Their levels of professional training in teaching differ so critical theory will assist this study to critic how it is implemented to cater for their individual needs and not as one size fits all. Methodology The researcher used quantitative approach to attain the objective of the study. Quantitative research is grounded on positivism that believes logical clarification to be nomothetic (Creswell & Guetterman, 2019). The approach was chosen because it determined the contemporary convictions and assertiveness of the lecturers with respect to their professional advancement preparations. Furthermore, it portrays and investigates people’s personal and mutual communal activities, convictions, contemplations, and recognitions factually (Creswell & Guetterman, 2019). The population for the study composed of lecturers who attended academic staff development in 2017-18 and the targeted sample size was 80 although 51 only responded. The researcher used simple random sampling to select participants for the study. Data was collected using questionnaires. The questionnaires were sent through a link of google docs to the lecturers from various departments. A questionnaire is regulated interviewing, wherein every participant responds to the same questions with the similar selections in responding to them (Hofstee, 2018). They are a cheap, easy, and efficient method of accessing a large number of participants (Maree, 2016). Google docs make interface much easier as it automatically creates graphs and even clusters common info. The participant’s responses were analysed from the graphs created by google docs as the graphs shows responses as percentages or numbers. Results and Discussion The results were analysed from the graphs as generated by google docs as follows: In the figure 1 below, the majority, 63%, are females, while 37% are males. Figure 1 Gender distribution The age distribution of the participants in Figure 2 below, shows that the majority, 43% is 40-49 years old, followed by 30-39 years old. The lowest group is below 30 years old academics. This shows that this institution has functional staff age groups who, if retained and properly professionalised, could be of great benefit to the academic enterprise of the institution. The senior citizen group, 60 years and above, is minimal in the sample, but they might not be the true reflection of this HEI academic profile. The mixture of the age group is useful in collecting data on how academics in this institution conceptualise ASD. 12 Figure 2 Age Distribution This might show a variety on what motivates them as qualifications are concerned in Figure 3, 69% possess Masters qualifications, a basic entry-level for the employment of a lecturer in HE. Only 3% of the sample have PhD qualifications. This scarcity of highly qualified academics might hinder quality, especially for postgraduate qualifications. Such a situation contradicts what Baraiya and Baraiya (2013) advocate, that lecturers with appropriate qualifications contribute a crucial part in excellence and improvement of teaching in their institutions. The primary concern, though, is the Bachelor of Technology, Honours, Bachelors group of lecturers (28%) who are below the norm that a lecturer must teach a qualification if she/he is one NQF level above it. There is no academic staff that has National Diploma qualification in the sample; hence, in fig 4.3 it does not appear, even though it has its legend in the graph. Figure 3 Highest Qualifications distribution The following figures, 4 and 5 show a very alarming situation for this institution where only 33% were trained as lecturers. This means that most of these academics were never professionally trained to teach. The question of being trained as lecturers and what teaching qualification the participants had was not surprising, though concerning. Of the 33% of the participants who were trained as lecturers, only 14% own Post Graduate Diploma in HE, a higher education recognised teaching qualification. The rest of those trained to teach qualify to teach at levels below NQF level 5. The sample has lecturers who possess Primary Higher Certificate (PH), (2.5%) and Primary Teachers’ Certificate (PTC), (2.5%) indicating that part of these lecturers are the old stock. They were trained as teachers long time ago. Considering the NQF level descriptors, pedagogies, and andragogy of teaching, this 86% of untrained lecturers need to be upskilled for the HE teaching strategies. Several studies have determined that lecturers with teaching qualifications are rated higher by the student than lecturers who are under-qualified (Cilliers & Herman, 2010; Weurlandeer & Stenfors-Hayes, 2008). The upper evaluations have been identified with improved teaching approaches. Donnelly (2006) states that the three principles that impact affect lecturer conduct following investment in a scholarly professional programme were the improvement of new instructional methodologies, the usage of new teaching approaches, and the adjustment in convictions about teaching and learning 13 hypotheses. Figure 4 Trained as a Teacher Figure 5 Highest Teaching Qualifications Figure 6 below shows that 43% of the participants have 0 years or less teaching experience while 22% have taught for 16-20 years and only 2% have taught more than 26 years. The number of teaching experience might not match age group because some academics join higher education late in their careers, some are even pensioners from lower department of education levels like further education level. The low number of experienced (26 years) can affect mentoring of junior staff and these might be those lecturers who find it hard to accept innovations in their teaching philosophies. Fig 6: Lecturing Experience in HE 14 Figure 7 Teaching Needs Apparently, academic staff development workshops are crucial for effective persistence in any profession. The figure 7 above shows that the majority of the lecturers view academic staff development as a necessity. It was also noticed from responses that the non trained academics are more interested in attending workshops than the teacher trained ones. However those trained as teachers even though they were not trained to teach in higher education are reluctant to attend since they take for granted that the same aspects of teaching are workshopped. Their argument is that teaching theories are the same no matter what level of education ignoring the National Qualification Framework (NQF) level descriptors guide them on what learning students should get at each level. One response further elaborates recommending follow-ups after the workshops as a serious consideration. This response is from the 60 and above group who might have observed that lecturers although trained do not bother to implement innovative approaches. Figure 8 Institutional Environment constraints ASD Respondents identified various constraints that discourage their attendance of academic staff development initiatives. Workload for example requires departmental conversation on who and how academics can be allowed space to develop themselves towards being better university teachers. By and large, workloads are cock-eyed in the direction of research as lecturers progress, since numerous HEI have a tendency to esteem highly research and its outputs more than teaching throughputs (McComb, Eather & Imig, 2021). As a result, academics respond better to research workshops than learning and teaching based ones. Resisting to undertake academic staff development is caused by lecturers holding in low esteem the teaching duties as their fundamental key performance activity (KPA). Once an institution emphasizes research at the expense of teaching (Ndebele & Maphosa, 2014), as a result it paints a picture that teaching and learning are not considered central core business of the university (Ndebele & Maphosa, 2014). The new academics especially are pressurized to choose between research and teaching and unfortunately they feel research is more crucial as it is linked with their recognition, prestige 15 and status as university academics within their disciplines. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) would be a solution to integrate teaching and research to drive scholarly teaching as lecturers will publish while they are also being enhanced on their pedagogical knowledge. Figure 9 Departmental cultures constrain ASD attendance The responses indicate that departmental cultures and traditions are detrimental to academic staff development as 39.2% plus 54.9% support this statement. If there is no conducive working culture in departments, transforming teaching will lead to just an obedience culture that might result to no implementation thereafter in class. Obstacles within a department tend to discourage innovations and professional development of academics as they feel alienated from discipline colleagues. They end up looking at pedagogical training as unnecessary. This tends to be influenced by old folks in the discipline who believe their old teaching methods have worked effectively as reflected by their graduate outputs. Initiatives like a professional learning community are shot down and disengaged Warhurst, (2006), as a result the envisaged impact towards learning and teaching differ significantly. Figure 10 ASD enhances Quality Teaching ASD workshops transform the teaching approaches, assertiveness and teaching philosophies. Figure 11 ASD transforms teaching approaches 16 Academic Staff development workshops empower lecturer’s philosophies of teaching, their assertiveness and their teaching approaches since the majority of them agreed. Only 14% of them felt it never influenced their teaching philosophies. This means those academics who attend ASD workshops see value in them as their pedagogical knowledge improves. The PGDHE attendees especially those that were never trained as teachers even appreciate more as they now understand education terminology like graduate attributes, outcomes and assessment criteria. They now feel confident to align and ink them in their teaching. Figure 12 Lecturers enroll for ASD for the sake of certification Most respondents settled that ordinarily lecturers partake in the academic staff development workshops for certification, a finding aligned with (Muzaffar & Malik, 2012) research of six universities in Pakistan. This might be influenced by a variety of reasons like university requirements for promotion and professional development points required in some professional bodies. It is unfortunate that the certificate alone never upskills an individual without him/her making an effort to implement learnt strategies. Figure 13 ASD workshops emphasize the theoretical features of teaching than practical examples Most respondents (45% + 41%) agreed that ASD workshops have big theoretical portion than practice. This approach to ASD might lead to their lack of interest in the professional development as lecturers want to be empowered towards better classroom strategies. The 14% of responses that disagreed with this statement value ASD and they believe practical examples are useful for their professional development. 17 Figure 14 The lack of enough motivations and incentives for lecturers results in poor enthusiasm and passion 31% and 59% responses indicate that there are no incentives or stimuli in the professional development workshops as a result lecturers are not motivated to attend them. While 10% of them showed disagreement with this statement. The university’s management ought to eradicate these barriers to enable a conducive climate and stimulate academics towards being enhanced university teachers. Conclusion The constraints to academic staff development attendance might have a negative impact on academics’ teaching innovations. Each discipline and department needs to motivate its staff by continuously engaging them on their developmental needs and plans. To respond to the low number of teacher trained academics, the institution must periodically develop lecturers’ pedagogical skills and strategies to keep them updated with worldwide Courses like Post Graduate Diploma in Higher Education, Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) accredited qualifications and other workshops ought to be linked to compensation, advancement and contract prerequisites for lecturers to be motivated to register and complete them. For instance, all new academics can be forced to complete a certain professional qualification to qualify for being permanent or to be promoted. Training on various pedagogical techniques are strategic in drawing consideration to innovative classroom improvements, however it is regularly challenging to pull in active staff individuals to these programs (Pesce, 2015). It is imperative that institutions have a thorough understanding of what draws academics to professional development programmes, as well as the academics' assertiveness and what they prefer so as to implement engagement strategies that will lead to better learning experiences. The lecturers’ needs based on various evaluation of their teaching should guide their training needs and as such guide the institution on who to invite for which workshop or course. Higher Education Institutions must put an incredible emphasis on refining the skills and proficiencies of academics to succeed in quality facilitation and throughput rates (Bingwa & Ngibe, 2021). A well-planned and continuous academic staff development schedule makes better impact on encouraging and professionalising academics on innovative pedagogies than impromptu training. An annual schedule of ASD events should be drawn up to allow academics to align their professional development needs with them. This will develop a conducive and healthy institutional environment that expedites professional, scholarly growth of lecturers. During workshops, incentives and rewards like useful teaching tools can be given out for good interactions/completing tasks early to entice academics to attend regularly. Proper framework should also be designed for monitoring of lecturers’ performance after training. 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