ABSTRACT
While few educators or policy makers would argue that planning for professional development is unimportant, and while considerable lip service is paid to teacher in-service education, the facts of the matter suggest a different picture. When student enrolment falls and the budget is stretched, professional development is one of the most likely targets for the financial pruning shears. The suggestion is clear - when hard priorities are assigned, professional development is often still perceived as a frill, as something outside and beyond the essential core activities of the school. Like most misperceptions, the vision of professional development as an add-on has numerous antecedents, among them the grand promise of an educational panacea and the admittedly poor track record of traditional models in effecting the improvement of instructional practices.
