This followed Stanford’s announcement that the Teaching Council will no longer set professional standards for teacher training. The Ministry of Education will take over this responsibility.
Stanford also announced a shift in Council membership from a majority elected by the teaching profession to a majority appointed by the Minister.
On the face of it, the unions have a point. Standards for doctors, lawyers, architects and accountants are all set by professional bodies, not by ministries.
The Minister’s move is certainly unusual. It brings standards for teacher training under political, rather than professional, control.
The dilemma is that the existing teaching standards do not reliably certify teacher competence. There is little prospect of the Teaching Council addressing that issue under the present arrangements.
Last year, the Education Review Office reported that only 40 percent of interviewed principals believe that new teachers are adequately prepared for the classroom. More than a third of new teachers themselves said they could not effectively manage classroom behaviour. A third of primary teachers said they were unprepared to teach science.
A recent OECD report paints an even worse picture. Nearly two-thirds of surveyed teacher graduates in New Zealand were not confident with the curriculum content they need to teach. Half were not confident in their teaching skills more generally.
Considering these manifest deficiencies, the Minister is clearly not prepared to let things continue as they are. Politicising teaching standards has its risks, however.
The standards could become a political football. Successive Ministers could use them to advance ideological objectives through the influence of the standards on teacher training programmes.
The New Zealand Initiative has proposed a different approach. Instead of just one registration body for teachers, the Education and Training Act could enable many. Each could set its own standards within legislated parameters.
Accountability is key to making this approach work. Publishing average measures of students’ educational progress for teachers registered under each set of standards would enable schools to identify which are most effective.
A downside is that this competitive system would take time to produce improvement. Minister Stanford is clearly not prepared to wait.
That is understandable. But in the longer term, a solution like that proposed by the Initiative could drive improvement, return the control of standards to the teaching profession, and protect teacher training from politicisation.
On the face of it, the unions have a point. Standards for doctors, lawyers, architects and accountants are all set by professional bodies, not by ministries.
The Minister’s move is certainly unusual. It brings standards for teacher training under political, rather than professional, control.
The dilemma is that the existing teaching standards do not reliably certify teacher competence. There is little prospect of the Teaching Council addressing that issue under the present arrangements.
Last year, the Education Review Office reported that only 40 percent of interviewed principals believe that new teachers are adequately prepared for the classroom. More than a third of new teachers themselves said they could not effectively manage classroom behaviour. A third of primary teachers said they were unprepared to teach science.
A recent OECD report paints an even worse picture. Nearly two-thirds of surveyed teacher graduates in New Zealand were not confident with the curriculum content they need to teach. Half were not confident in their teaching skills more generally.
Considering these manifest deficiencies, the Minister is clearly not prepared to let things continue as they are. Politicising teaching standards has its risks, however.
The standards could become a political football. Successive Ministers could use them to advance ideological objectives through the influence of the standards on teacher training programmes.
The New Zealand Initiative has proposed a different approach. Instead of just one registration body for teachers, the Education and Training Act could enable many. Each could set its own standards within legislated parameters.
Accountability is key to making this approach work. Publishing average measures of students’ educational progress for teachers registered under each set of standards would enable schools to identify which are most effective.
A downside is that this competitive system would take time to produce improvement. Minister Stanford is clearly not prepared to wait.
That is understandable. But in the longer term, a solution like that proposed by the Initiative could drive improvement, return the control of standards to the teaching profession, and protect teacher training from politicisation.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
5 comments:
I'd like more details about this multi-rego-body proposal before commenting, but so far, not good. A 'competitive system' of registration begs the question that the standards easier to attain (i.e. lower standards) will attract the most practitioners (and their dollars). Other rego bodies would have to follow suit to some extent or lose their client base. This strikes me as driving the opposite of improvement.
If it gets teachers teaching English as their primary task with Maori stuff relegated to an hour per term, I'm for it.
Given all the time that's been directed at the ToW, you'd think that teachers would actually know something about it and how irrelevant it really should now be if it weren't for political meddling and warped ideology inserting it everywhere?
Anything that gets teachers focused back on the '3R' basics and 'sticking to the knitting' is all good by me. Palestine, gender identity, and Treaty politics are for the home, not school.
My concern is that these training ideas are for new teachers but we have an entire couple of generations of practising teachers who are seeped in what is Marxist /Progressive ideology . Developmental constructivism centered on the child in effect teaching themselves without teacher instruction.
They are with few current teachers who are not just clueless about the fundamentals of just 'teaching ' as we traditionally think of it but also lacking in knowledge of the basics in the curriculum especially at the primary level . Katherine Burbalsinghe the notable traditional teacher found at her Michaela Community ,school , she had to train the teachers herself because those already in the system were so entrenched in wrong ideas as to be useless.
I believe my mother set the example by tutoring individually , parents teaching their own reading failure children , in one brief session once a week. She had 100 students a week and achieved this using quality published workbooks , written by a panel of experienced teachers and academics. These workbooks had copious amounts of revision and consolidation. Pages poorly done by the student were repeated and sections and concepts forgotten were also repeated as required. Workbooks are sneered at and associated with 'busy work' however in the 1960s when the cohort of students then , went on to achieve the highest results internationally in reading achievement , these students all used SRA comprehension cards and a variety of class sets and workbooks some designed particularly for the less able. All consigned to landfills by Whole Language fanatics. In the 1980s there were the Addison maths workbooks used as homework books which parents bought . In Singapore schools have a book shop on school grounds where parents are directed by class teachers to buy workbooks for home use on topics in which their child is failing. Singapore may have half the budget of NZ in educational spending but I don't think that covers the billions spent by parents on workbooks with or without tutors.
The trouble with academics I have found is they frequently know research and theory well but less on instructional materials and methods.They also omit the resource of a child's parents/ extended family including grandparents and even older siblings and friends .
I am disgusted at the lack of materials made available now for parents in cooperatively teaching the child along with the teacher , at primary level. In the 1930s to 40s in NZ , parents owned all the instructional materials at elementary levels and were participating considerably more in the teaching of their own child The children from completely dysfunctional homes were the only ones needing extra school help.
The current primary maths workbooks don't go home and the Ministry's suggestions for parents ' maths activities are frankly pathetic in being nonspecific and too time consuming. Rote learning times tables is not mentioned but just playing games . All Chinese preschooler achieve counting to 100 and doing simple adding sums by their fifth birthday. Why not NZ children?
My mother taught hundreds of three and four year olds to read as preschoolers, including handicapped ones. This is what used to happen in the past because the syllabus was parent friendly , while the current syllabus is just tokenism towards parents.
Parents and quality workbooks need seriously to be considered We have a crisis in teaching . The rot has been tolerated for too long.
Nothing beats subject knowledge. 95% of teacher training should be subject knowledge. 3% cultural competencies. 1% babysitting skills. 1% theory
Post a Comment
Thank you for joining the discussion. Breaking Views welcomes respectful contributions that enrich the debate. Please ensure your comments are not defamatory, derogatory or disruptive. We appreciate your cooperation.