Reaching standards - enhancing the quality of teachers
by Prof. Raja Gunawardhane
In the recent past thousands of graduates have been recruited as
'teachers' for Sri Lankan schools. It is a progressive step that has
been taken by the Government to solve the graduate unemployment problem
in Sri Lanka. However, solving the unemployment problem is one side of
the story.
While considering the prevailing political and economic demands it is
also necessary to have a permanent policy for teacher recruitment which
should be based on needs of the education system and the recent
developments of the modern technology relevant to classroom teaching. It
is high time to reformulate the teacher-recruitment policies with the
objective of providing a standard education to the future generation.
It is an unfortunate situation that 'teaching' is not considered as a
profession in Sri Lanka. Many of us, even our 'academics' cannot
understand the gravity of the problem that arises as a result of
untrained personnel. They think that anyone who has subject knowledge
can become a teacher.
Teaching is a creative, intellectually demanding and rewarding job.
In developed countries no one can go to a classroom and teach without a
'teaching licence'. A teacher in UK should obtain 'Qualified Teacher
Status' (QTS) to enter the teaching profession. Secretary of State for
Education and Skills, in U.K., Rt. Chales Clarke, in his introduction to
the circular (2003) 'Qualifying to Teach' states, "Teaching is one of
the most influential professions in society".
In their day-to-day work, teachers can and do make huge differences
to children's lives: directly through the curriculum they teach, and
indirectly, through their behaviour, attitudes, values, relationships
with and interest in pupils".
He further states that teaching involves more than care, mutual
respect and well-placed optimism. It demands knowledge and practical
skills, the ability to make informed judgements, and to balance
pressures and challenges, practice and creativity, interest and effort,
as well as an understanding of how children learn and develop.
Qualified Teacher Status' (QTS) is the first stage in a continuum of
professional development that will continue through the induction period
and throughout a teacher's career. Initial training given for all new
recruits in UK lays the foundation for subsequent professional and
career development. Initial Teacher Training (ITT) is very important for
all newly recruited teachers.
They can build on the strengths identified in this ITT period, and
work on the areas, which they have highlighted as priorities for future
professional development. The training they obtain during this period
helps them to play an active role in their early professional
development and performance management.
There are standards for the award of Qualified Teacher Status. They
are stated as outcome statements that set out what a trainee teacher
must know, understand and be able to do. The Standards are organized in
three inter-related sections, which describe the criteria for the award.
The first section is the 'Professional Value and Practice' which
includes eight statements. Teachers should respect social, cultural,
linguistic, religious and ethnic backgrounds of pupils.
They are committed to raising their educational achievement. Teachers
should demonstrate and promote the positive values, attitudes and
behaviour that they expect from pupils. In the second section, it is
stated that teachers should be confident and authoritative in the
subjects they teach. In the third section it is stated that teachers are
expected to gain skills of planning, monitoring and assessment, and
teaching and class management.
These Standards ensure that all new teachers have the subject
knowledge and the teaching and learning expertise they need, and are
well prepared for the wider professional demands of being a teacher.
They will also help to ensure that training tackles issues such as
behaviour management and social inclusion as well. These standards are a
rigorous set of expectations and set out the minimum legal requirement.
Recruitment of graduates for the Teachers' Service in Sri Lanka is a
progressive step that has been taken by the Government. These newly
recruited graduates have at least a three year degree which certifies
the subject knowledge needed for the teaching profession. But the
recruitment system is unethical and irregular.
How can we say that all these graduates are competent in teaching ?
Teaching is a professional job and we need professionals to go to the
classroom and teach. Was there a system of checking whether they can
talk or whether they hear properly ? It is very unfortunate to have
system of recruiting persons through a list names prepared by officials
who do not have any idea of the qualities and aptitudes necessary for
teachers.
Major factors that can be identified as being contributory towards
the decline in educational standards have been the haphazard recruitment
of teachers in a large scale. It is essential in future to have a
permanent policy of teacher recruitment. Obtaining a Bachelors degree
from a university does not certify that they are competent in teaching.
It is essential to test aptitude for teaching at the entry level.
What happens today is we recruit individuals in a large scale without
any assessment of their aptitude and permit them to follow teacher
training courses in training institutions. Providers of teacher training
face unexpected difficulties in training them. Training instructors of
our postgraduate diploma courses complain that some student teachers
lack communication skills. Some are not competent in using their own
language for addressing a small group of pupils.
Secondly, all persons admitted to the teaching service should have a
proper training. Unless they obtain a real teacher training from an
accepted teacher educator it is unethical to consider them as
'teachers'.
Plunging teachers into classroom without proper induction has been
found to be generally counter-productive and in some cases, has proven
to be quite traumatic for newly certified teachers. In the conventional
system of education in which subject knowledge and rote learning were
considered important, teachers without any orientation to the principles
of child psychology and educational methodology were able to transmit
bookish knowledge.
In the secondary school curriculum, the emphasis is on projects, self
learning, hands-on experiences and learning by doing. Unless the
untrained teachers undergo a long-term, well-planned, training programme
we cannot expect them to perform effectively at the classroom level.
The number of teachers within the school system stands at 186,015 (as
at 2004). This number includes trained graduates, untrained graduates,
trained teachers, and untrained teachers. There were 52,176 graduates
(28 percent) in 2004 and now this number has increased.
One third of the teachers in Sri Lankan schools are graduates,
however, all these graduates cannot be considered as 'teachers' because
majority of them have not undergone a proper teacher training. A recent
publication of the Ministry of Education 'Education for development and
prosperity' (2005) states that graduates entering the teaching field are
provided orientation immediately after recruitment and thereafter, may
obtain a diploma in education as a professional qualification. These
short-term training programmes are inadequate to make a fully
professionally qualified teacher.
It is important to note that graduates who wish to follow these
graduate training courses apply on their own and the education
authorities are not very much concerned about the postgraduate training
provided by universities. It is essential to have a formal postgraduate
teacher training for all graduates before they are deployed as
'professional teachers'. Training opportunities should be provided for
them through recognised teacher training institutes.
It is timely to revise the curricular, content, and the structure of
the graduate training programmes conducted by the universities. The
reforms of the past decade brought immense improvements in the quality
of graduate training programmes available at universities.
In addition to the traditional subjects information technology has
been introduced to the teacher training courses. Most students are keen
to develop their competency in information technology, both in terms of
personal skills in ICT, and in terms of the use of ICT in the classroom.
For a variety of reasons, not all student teachers get as far as they
would wish towards mastery of the various facets of ICT capability.
The most effective way to learn ICT is to have lots of 'hands-on'
practice and one to one tuition, but there are difficulties - inadequate
facilities and resource persons, for achieving this target.
It is timely to restructure the teacher training courses conducted by
universities and other institutions. To improve the quality of education
and the quality of teachers, the quality of teacher education must,
essentially, be improved.
In addition to the traditional training programmes distant training
programmes are also conducted by several institutions. Students who are
undergoing training on the job under this distance training programme
are not sufficiently monitored and supervised. It is, therefore, very
essential to have programmes introduced and initiated by the Ministry of
Education to correct deficiencies and overcome problems currently
prevailing in the teacher education programmes.
Another important policy measure that has been introduced to obtain
regular and systematic feedback on the performance of various aspects of
the education system is the strengthening of education research,
monitoring and evaluation.
Establishment of a research centre, National Education Research and
Evaluation Centre (NEREC) attached to the Faculty of Education,
University of Colombo is one of the key initiatives to develop education
research. Studies on teacher recruitment, teacher deployment and teacher
education can be undertaken by the NEREC in view of keeping standards in
teacher education.
The World Bank in its report (February, 2005) has suggested to
establish a 'Teacher Education Board' for planning, coordinating and
quality assurance of the teacher education system (p. 65). We hope that
this suggestion is an important one, because the quality of education
lies mainly on the quality improvement of teacher education.
Establishment of a national board of this type on professional
development that focuses on identifying the time, resources, and
opportunities for professional development will help to improve the
motivation and performance of teachers. Also, this would help to bring
together a broad-based group of practitioners, policy makers, and
scholars in professional development.
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