LEGAL AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE IQMS
4.11 Challenges of implementing EU education principles in developing countries
Chapter Four: Education and Economic Development 149
- Balance between the governmental responsibility for setting of teaching standards and the necessity to create ownership and professional autonomy for teachers
- How to include aspects of teacher quality which are difficult to measure such as personality, personal traits etc.
Chapter Four: Education and Economic Development 150
In its report “Establishing an Action Programme in the Field of Lifelong Learning” the Council in November 2006 stated that:
“…the motivation, skills and competences of teachers, trainers, other teaching staff and guidance and welfare services, as well as the quality of school leadership, are key factors in achieving high quality learning outcomes' and that 'The efforts of teaching staff should be supported by continuous professional development and by good cooperation with parents, pupil welfare services and the wider community.” (EU Council:2006)
Professional development is key to the achievement in improving learning outcomes – an important basic principle which applies to situations in both developed and developing countries. The report further states that:
“Changes in education and in society place new demands on the teaching profession. For example, as well as imparting basic knowledge, teachers are also increasingly called upon to help young people become fully autonomous learners by acquiring key skills, rather than memorising information; they are asked to develop more collaborative and constructive approaches to learning and expected to be facilitators and classroom managers rather than excathedra trainers.” (EU Council:2007)
These new roles require education in a range of teaching approaches and styles. Furthermore, classrooms now contain a more heterogeneous mix of young people from different backgrounds and with different levels of ability and disability. They are required to use the opportunities offered by new technologies and to respond to the demand for individualised learning; and they may also have to take on “additional decision-taking or managerial tasks consequent upon increased school autonomy”. (EU Council 2007)
The new technologies referred to in the above paragraph are particularly difficult to introduce in systems in the Third World in light of the infrastructure and general lack of resources in these countries.
The report further emphasises the importance of continuous professional development with high quality initial teacher education flowing into a coherent process of keeping teachers up to date with the latest skills required in the knowledge based society. The requirement of teacher responsibility through
Chapter Four: Education and Economic Development 151
a process of reflective practise, research and systematic engagement in their continuous professional development places much of the onus on the educators themselves to improve their performance. The report suggests that systems of education and training should be designed to provide necessary opportunities for this to take place.
The situation of teacher development in African countries is hampered by much of the effort being placed in barely coping with the day-to day task of imparting knowledge to overenrolled classes and lack of classroom space - let alone acquiring new knowledge, trying to assess their own performance or take responsibility of doing further research into identifying their areas of weakness.
As factor or efficiency driven economies, the educational needs of developing countries cannot possibly be on the same scale as those of the developed world. The developed world has passed the stage where only basic education is sufficient for their needs, and have been required to shift their focus to more advanced teaching techniques.
Even without the obvious difference in educational focus between the different economies, indications are that even within the more industrialised parts of the world, educational systems are not all necessarily functioning at optimum level.
An example of this is a survey conducted by the OECD (“Teachers Matter” 2005) which states that almost all countries report shortfalls in teaching skills and difficulties in updating teachers’ skills.
Shortages relate especially to a lack of competence to deal with new developments in education (including individualised learning, preparing pupils for autonomous learning, dealing with heterogeneous classrooms, preparing learners to make the most of the ICT known as Information Communication Technology).
In many EU Member States there is little systematic coordination between different elements of teacher education, leading to a lack of coherence and continuity, especially between a teacher's initial professional education and subsequent induction, in-service training and professional development; nor are these processes often linked to school development and improvement, or to educational research.
Incentives for teachers to carry on updating their skills throughout their professional lives are weak.
The relevance of this finding is important to the study as incentives in the European Union are considered weak, it is noted that in South Africa incentives are totally absent.
Chapter Four: Education and Economic Development 152
Despite all the good intentions of the European Union and their efforts and policy formulation with regard to teacher development, investment in the continuous training and development of the teaching workforce is low across the European Union and the amount of in-service training available to practicing teachers is limited. (European Union’s 2007 report: Improving the Quality of Teacher Education).
The report showed that in-service training for teachers is compulsory in only eleven EU Member States and teachers are not explicitly obliged to undertake it in all of these states. Where in-service training programmes are present, training generally amounts to less than 20 hours per year. There is no Member State in which the minimum compulsory training exceeds five days per year, and in most countries only three days of training per year is compulsory. Furthermore, the fact that in-service training may be compulsory says little about actual participation rates.
As regards new teachers, only half of the countries in Europe offer new teachers any systematic kind of support (e.g. induction, training, mentoring) in their first years of teaching.
Explicit frameworks to assist teachers who experience difficulties in performing their duties adequately exist in only one third of countries.
The situation is considerably worse in African countries and the managing of non-performance and incapacity is a concept that is relatively foreign. Since the challenges facing the teaching profession are, in essence, common across the European Union, it is possible to arrive at a shared analysis of the issues and a shared vision of the kinds of skills that teachers require. (European Union’s 2007 report:
Improving the Quality of Teacher Education) These requirements are briefly mentioned in the following section.