Within the restructuring agenda of post apartheid South Africa was the national educational agenda which included the upgrading and re-skilling of teachers. One of the programmes identified and developed nationally was National professional Diploma in Education (NPDE) to upgrade the teaching qualifications of under- qualified educators and later un-qualified educators. Within this programme, re-skilling of these educators was also targeted to assist the Department of Education to implement its new school curriculum. Many cohorts have graduated from this programme since the inception of the NPDE in 2002. It is now the time to ask the question “Did the NPDE make any impact in the lives of educators?” The study seeks to offer an understanding of an understanding of the programme within the rural context by asking the following questions: 1. Is the NPDE making any difference in the rural areas- what do graduates and schools in these contexts have to say? In this study, a tracer study of graduates in the Singane area (name created for this study) will be presented to teachers’ (NPDE graduates) experiences of the programme and its benefit to their personal and professional development? 2. Is the NPDE meeting the challenges of the systemic intervention- a curriculum analysis? This study also explores how both the curriculum design and context addressed the needs of the teachers in rural context like Singane. Through a curriculum analysis of the NPDE, the design and delivery are put under scrutiny to explore the relationship between the NPDE’s intentions and what actually.

Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.