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Lifelong Learning in the Twenty-First Century:
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Cover photographs: ILO/G. Cabrera; UNESCO/Vidal;
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Beyond questions of financing and organization, the heart of redesigning systems for lifelong learning without doubt resides in clearly defining the profiles, roles and responsibilities, and conditions of work of the people that will teach in, manage and support the system’s operation. A range of questions will need to be addressed at many decision-making levels, among which: the initial education, continual training, qualifications and competencies of staff; recruitment, professional and career development; remuneration levels and packages; teaching and learning conditions; and the school or learning site infrastructure. The policy options chosen with regard to these parameters will critically determine the relative success and time frame within which lifelong learning becomes more than a dream for many citizens.
As already alluded to in Chapter 1, there is a growing consensus that the ways in which we will learn in this new century will be significantly different from those that prevailed in the last one. To move steadily towards the concept of a learning society, more innovation, resourcefulness and flexibility are expected in the way formal education and training programmes are organized so as to maximize learning access and outcomes. Schools, training institutions and workplaces will need to become learning communities in their own right – places of broad-based knowledge sharing and socialization which fosters living and working together; above all, places where individuals learn how to learn. The creation of such an environment will in turn require sometimes significant adaptations in the roles and responsibilities of those entrusted with organizing learning opportunities.
In its previous review of the changing nature of work in education, the ILO (1996a) noted that central and even regional administrative staff work has changed significantly as a result of decentralization policies. Administrative tasks have been reduced in favour of more policy, standard-setting, research and information support activities. As national priorities and policies have changed, more responsibilities have accrued to managing disbursal of funds to lower levels of education or directly to schools, to different levels of education or institutions within them, and to specific target populations (disadvantaged, minority groups). Transferring many decisions down the line has minimized some aspects of authority, but increased advisory and coordination roles which maximize a global view of the education system, its problems, and conditions for success in meeting objectives. In some countries administrative functions have been pruned so as to redirect resources to teaching. Changes have not, of course, been uniform across the world. Central administrative authority – and roles that go with it – over matters such as curricula and employment of teaching has been preserved in many countries; generally speaking, however, devolution and decentralization in the 1990s profoundly marked administrative power.
There is every reason to believe that these trends will continue into the new century. The increased emphasis on establishing and monitoring compliance with centrally established standards for curricula and educational outputs means that educational administrators in a range of countries are required to augment their capacity to establish new policy directions at the behest of politicians or the public, create and monitor performance criteria of whole systems, manage reporting and feedback between the principal actors – schools, teachers, and supporting institutions – and make adjustments in the system’s functioning. As a consequence, the forecasting (planning), advisory and communication responsibilities of administrators have increased substantially, driven by the pressures placed on education and training to resolve a whole host of societal problems and prepare people for the future. The subjects of forward or strategic planning in European education administrations include lifelong learning and adult education, development of knowledge, intellectual and future-oriented skills, and access to education and training for all (EURYDICE, 1999b).
The same ILO review also noted alterations in the expectations and roles of educational personnel such as school inspectors. Traditionally balanced between the conflicting demands that they be both advisers and controllers of teachers, inspectors in some countries are viewing their main role shift towards institutional and systemic concerns: whole school inspection, use of research outputs and training and development of teamwork with principals. In general, they are expected to provide a kind of monitoring and reporting glue for systems in the throes of rapid, profound change. This polyvalent role for inspectors has also been noted in many low-income countries (ADEA, 1995; ILO, 1996a).
Higher education leaders and management will also be confronted with new challenges requiring fresh or better skills in the future. Presidents, rectors and vice-chancellors are already being asked to manage a great deal of managerial, financial and educational change affecting traditional institutional missions. Responsibilities will accentuate the need for providing a strategic vision for their institutions, fund-raising among businesses, alumni and public or private donors to replace reduced general public revenues, and encouraging a greater sense of innovation and outreach through institutional policies and incentives. Institutional managers (deans, department heads) will be involved in these decisions to some extent; however, their main responsibility will be to ensure that changes in systemic or institutional policies are effectively implemented by staff and students. Team-building and reinvigorating collegial decision-making, encouraging staff professional development, being aware of and capitalizing on opportunities to develop financial and subject partnerships with external organizations, sensitivity to the needs of more diverse student populations, and fostering community service outreach are all likely to be important future responsibilities (Fielden, 1998; UNESCO, 1998c).
The diversification of roles and responsibilities, and attendant pressures on the “line managers” in schools and training sites, has been growing for years as education and school reform movements have altered the nature of work. Arguably the most profound changes have occurred in the out-of-school obligations of principals: in the planning and organizational interface with various levels of educational authority, especially local or school boards; in independent fund-raising efforts among parents and community to make up gaps in decentralized funding arrangements; and in broader public relations activities. As a result, much time has been diverted from what is often viewed as the principals’ core task: providing the leadership for innovation and excellence in schools and learning institutions. Countries have been obliged to rethink the responsibilities of school heads to lighten the burden and devote more time again to core tasks (Blanchet, Wiener and Isambert, 1999).
The role of school leader involves nurturing several key factors for success within the learning site: teamwork and collaboration among staff; responsiveness to students’ concerns and aspirations, as well as those of their parents; and forward-looking planning and implementation of a host of administrative details – staff recruitment and/or initiation, building construction and equipment orders, and general organization of the school. This comprehensive set of responsibilities linked to learning is naturally most extensive in those countries where school autonomy is the greatest – irrespective of whether they are responsive to local authorities or school boards. Principals in North America, Europe and the Pacific region are well advanced along this road, but the trends are widespread. In a number of countries, Sweden being a prime example, it is the school head’s responsibility to define and ensure the application of a school’s strategic vision in relation to other components of the educational system. In other countries, analogous responsibilities flow from school heads’ position as leader in a system which emphasizes collegiate responsibility of all teaching staff for educational outcomes – as in Germany. Poland now extends wide authority to principals in school personnel policy, budget decisions, pedagogical supervision of teachers, and organization of teaching timetables (EURYDICE, 1996b and 1997a; IBE, 1999). In the United States, the key role of principals in promoting collaborative planning, teaching and use of resources between teachers and librarians has been highlighted (Haycock, 1999a). A premium has been placed on the principal’s front-line responsibility to meet these expectations of strategic leadership which translate into the capacity for “self-managing schools” (Caldwell and Spinks, 1992).
The greater autonomy of schools to organize their educational activities is accompanied by the extension of a school head’s responsibilities to assess teachers and as far as possible organize or provide the necessary conditions (finding replacements, reorganizing timetables) for in-service training and professional development of teachers. Already one or both of these responsibilities falls to heads in several European and other OECD countries. In Denmark, the school head establishes the in-service policy, allocates resources and makes decisions on course distribution among teachers. In New Zealand principals are required to assess their new teachers and recommend to the Teacher Registration Board if full registration is warranted, even though in practice, teacher shortages imply that almost all will be recommended (EURYDICE, 1996b and 1997a; IBE, 1999).
Such roles are likely to grow parallel to decentralization trends in very diverse systems, even highly centralized ones, as principals’ leadership roles expand to ensure a dynamic learning environment. In small Caribbean countries such as Grenada and Saint Lucia, principals are responsible for the daily organization, conduct, activities and administration of the school. Asian countries such as Malaysia emphasize both professional and administrative leadership in schools, where management responsibilities are also shared with school boards and parent-teacher associations. The Philippines policy of “empowering” school principals (box 2.1) provides a good example of extended roles in a geographically large Asian country.
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Box 2.1.
The move towards decentralization in the Philippines has relied on a policy of empowering school principals by giving them more administrative authority and corresponding accountability for improving teaching competences and pupil achievement. Principals are expected to develop curricula innovation within a nationally given framework, manage school operating funds to which they may add on funds raised through PTAs and community associations, design school improvement programmes in cooperation with parents and communities, and participate in the selection, recruitment and promotion of teachers. Source: IBE, 1999. |
Teachers occupy – and will continue to occupy in the foreseeable future – the central role of educational leader in determining learning outcomes. In view of the fact that schooling is a foundation for subsequent learning, teachers’ roles (and those of schools), will remain multifaceted: providing of basic literacy, numeracy and initial learning skills in early childhood and primary levels; imparting steadily higher levels of knowledge, competences and learning abilities, along with life skills, in secondary and eventually higher education; and, at all levels, serving as a socializing institution or agent, passing on cultural, political and moral values according to prevailing community standards, while sometimes challenging these values.
Educational analysis in recent years has begun to come back to the idea that teachers and the way they perform their work are at the core of any successful strategy for educational reform. Longstanding international standards on the importance of a high material and social status for teachers as a critical variable for quality education (Recommendation, 1966; CEART, 1989), are underpinned by more recent policy papers or statements which insist on the need to place teachers “at the heart of the process” (OECD, 1998b). These papers also note that classroom reform in the final analysis rests on the “capacity and willingness of teachers to implement it” (Connell, 1998), and have called for “upgrading of their status” if lifelong learning is to fulfill its central function in future societies (Delors, 1996). The International Conference on Education in 1996 adopted a Declaration for member States of UNESCO recognizing “the importance that the contribution of teachers brings to the renewal of education through their ideas, methods and practices” (ICE, 1996). More recently, the Köln Charter on Aims and Ambitions for Lifelong Learning, adopted by the G-8 in June 1999, declared: “Teachers are the most vital resource in promoting modernization and higher standards; their recruitment, training, deployment and appropriate incentives are critical to any successful education system” (G-8, 1999).
Transforming what appears to be a policy consensus into specific reforms that create a truly professional teaching corps of high quality people, capable of delivering a quality service, is a much more significant challenge than adopting a declaration or report. Yet, in the process of redefining the requirements for lifelong learning systems, a window of opportunity is available to national authorities to accomplish precisely that goal. An alternative model of teaching to that which appeared to drive the “teacher proof” policies of the 1960s-70s, or the cost-conscious structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s-90s – a teacher was essentially a production worker, with little autonomy and possibility for creativity, heavily managed through various control mechanisms – is clearly on the agenda. Indeed, many advanced educational systems have begun to put into practice reforms in this direction.
The operative concept is professionalization The implications for teachers’ work include a greater sense of “managerial” (professional) responsibility for curricula development and change, teaching approaches, work organization and learning outcomes. Motivation to perform at the highest possible standards of professional conduct, defined together by teachers and other stakeholders, should become an intrinsic by-product of this orientation. So should willingness and capacity to respond to changes in the learning environment, be they in the form of technological innovation, shifts in the age, socio-economic, or ethnic composition of learners, or new expectations of learning outcomes as the political, cultural or economic – enterprise and employment – environment changes over time (ILO, 1996b; CEART, 1998). In concrete terms, how might such a scenario play out?
In the area of curricula development, augmented teacher responsibility would imply greater autonomy in the creation, adaptation, and use of core curricula and related teaching materials. There would need to be a return of sorts to the principles of academic freedom for teachers embodied in the internationally recognized ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, 1966 (section VIII, “The rights and responsibilities of teachers”), still considered valid today as a holistic expression of good teacher-related practices.
These recommendations are far from being current practice, yet they encompass important notions of teacher autonomy in the classroom within a framework for standards and content direction at national or local level to which teachers are responsible. Collaborative effort between educational authorities and teachers, and the potentially positive role that teachers’ organizations can play in such efforts, constitute other relevant concepts for policy within these recommendations.
Closely linked to this question of autonomy (and responsibility to a larger framework) is that of the teachers’ role in research, reflection and innovation. Examining (researching) pedagogical practice in classes and schools, transforming the knowledge gained into innovative changes in content or methodology which will improve learning outcomes, and networking this information to other practitioners are crucial if a real learning community is to emerge in schools and training sites. Some observers have noted the increasing potential for such roles afforded by information technology which allows individual teachers to network with other teachers and with teaching resources available electronically at minimal cost (OECD, 1999). Achieving more widespread implication of teachers in such practices, to the point that it becomes an accepted part of a teacher’s job responsibilities, will require training in research techniques which are adapted to the school or site environment, incentives to innovate and time. Along with proper work organization, these factors are essential to establishing professional practice as a “privileged space of learning” for change (Torres, 1999).
Notwithstanding the importance of these functions, the hub of teachers’ work remains teaching, and it is here that substantial new roles need to be implemented on a large scale. Divergences from the classic “one teacher in front of a class of pupils” model which dominated the “industrial” school approaches rooted in the nineteenth century have been on the agenda for some time in many OECD countries. In the policy documents presented to international education gatherings, there is increasing evidence of the concern over stultifying teaching methods such as rote learning and blackboard copying which still prevail in a host of countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia (IBE, 1999). Hand wringing of educational specialists aside, there has been remarkably little change in the predominant way teachers carry out their work in the vast majority of school settings, be they rich or poor countries.
Altering teaching practices so as to improve learning outcomes has focused on two areas: identifying what makes a good teacher in terms of quality student learning; and defining modifications to the traditional classroom model so as to replicate good teacher practices on a mass scale. The two are not necessarily synonymous – many good teachers work in relative isolation – but they increasingly diverge.
In the first area, one recent summary of research on effective teaching identified the following elements as among the most important: a supportive classroom environment based on a caring relationship between teachers and students; concentration by teachers on managing learning rather than exercising strict discipline; a cohesive curriculum, coherently presented rather than as isolated bits of information; thought-provoking exchanges between teachers and students to encourage inquisitiveness; practical application of skills; teaching “strategically” which integrates knowledge, comprehension and learning skills; higher order cooperative learning (group, project and peer assistance work); and high goal and achievement expectations of teachers (Brophy, 1998). These dimensions incorporate the principal concepts proposed for high-income countries earlier in the decade (OECD, 1994), notably curriculum content knowledge, pedagogic skill, reflection, empathy toward others, both students and co-workers, and managerial competence and they have been advocated in one form or another in almost all countries (Delors, 1996; UNESCO, 1998b).
In the second field, research, policy and practice has focused on approaches such as innovative single-teacher practices in deprived urban, rural or isolated areas, more collaborative forms of teaching, especially team teaching, use of auxiliary personnel or volunteers, and greater reliance on new information or information and communication technologies (ICT) in learning contexts.
Innovative single-teacher practices have been tried in many settings, but their widespread application forms one of most difficult challenges in rural and isolated areas and in deprived urban zones. In fact, the “real teacher” working in a developing country school springs from a background and faces conditions that are far removed from those of the “ideal teacher” portrayed above (Torres, 1999). The pressures on teachers in those environments not to innovate are great. They are either alone with little or no professional support, not infrequently with very large classes, facing difficult challenges in terms of student populations with insufficient means, or a combination of these obstacles. Delivery of a very basic and standardized curriculum becomes a priority which crowds out innovation.
Innovative practices in rural areas of certain countries have tried to break this rigid mould with more flexible scheduling, training and attempts to “empower” teachers with greater autonomy, respect for children’s differentiated learning abilities, and a concentration on life skills curricula which relate more directly to rural experiences. Programmes combining one or more of these elements include the Bangladesh Rural Action Committee (BRAC) schools which have spread extensively since the 1980s in that country, teacher empowerment programmes in some states of India, integrated school development projects in Tunisia, the Complementary Opportunities for Primary Education (COPE) programme in Uganda, Democratic Education Workshops in Chile and Escuela Nueva schools in Colombia, just to name a few (UNICEF, 1999). The innovations have sometimes met with mixed success (box 2.2).
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Box 2.2.
A central concept of the Escuela Nuevo schools of Colombia involved freeing teachers from the constant responsibility of classroom instruction through a mixture of group work, use of instructional guides, pupils’ self-evaluation and school governance and stronger relations with parents and community. Teachers were encouraged through in-service training to assume new roles as facilitators and guides for self-directed pupil learning individually or in groups rather than transmitters of knowledge, as developers of new or adapted teaching materials, as managers of resources such as libraries and learning centres, and as community leaders. Initial evaluations of the programme tended to show significant learning successes in Spanish and mathematics as compared to more traditional schools, though later evaluations reportedly concluded that teacher practices and pupils’ learning outcomes had not significantly changed in comparison to traditional rural schools. In this respect, McGinn (1998) has concluded that after its initial pilot phase, expansion on a mass scale diluted the essential element of the approach which was to encourage innovation originating from the teachers themselves, based on their own practices and supported by central planners tolerant of diversity, rather than imposing a supposedly successful model on large numbers of teachers who were not organically involved in developing the ideas. Source: McGinn, 1998. |
Collaborative forms of teaching emphasize different methods, skills, and therefore sometimes roles, than those found in a traditional “one teacher per class” approach. Whatever form teaching takes – information networking among all teachers of a particular age group, team teaching of two or more classes, or networks of specialists working across groups of classes – curricula and timetable planning, as well as coordination of teaching methods, become more important to maximize the benefits brought to bear by each teaching professional. As has been pointed out by some analyses (OECD, 1998b), far from threatening professional autonomy and subject specialization, collaborative teaching might actually enhance these aspects, by allowing each individual to bring her or his content and methodological strengths to bear and reducing isolation in the classroom, not to mention the opportunities for combining learning formulas such as whole class teaching, small group learning, project work, and individualized study.
The greatest uncertainty and difficulty in adopting new methods or roles may come from highly specialized subject teachers in upper secondary schools, and even more in higher education, for whom a dilution of their competences is anathema. Yet even here, a multidisciplinary approach might prove necessary and beneficial; for instance a geography teacher and an economics teacher would be able to reinforce the interdependencies of their respective disciplines in the study of dynamic national or international settings, without losing sight of the richness of both fields. Adopting such approaches most certainly requires a rearrangement of working time and the elements – planning, coordination, development of materials, teaching – that compose a teacher’s day, a subject which is explored more in Chapter 3.
The concerns for quality teaching in schools have not escaped the world of higher education. As accountability to students, parents and taxpayers who fund the bills grows, higher education institutions and teachers have been increasingly pressured to modify the conception and the incentive structures of work to emphasize new roles. Among these are: high-quality teaching in addition to that of research, based on skills and knowledge of student learning, assessment and use of information technology; the ability to handle a growing proportion of part-time and “mature” students; use of both distance learning and face-to-face instruction; and the provision of services to local communities, industry, commerce, public services, or even regionally based entities in collaboration with other service providers. Quality concerns are influenced not only by public accountability drives but by technological progress, institutional management and finance changes, and alterations in the external economic environment, especially labour market demands from employers and students (Fielden, 1998; UNESCO, 1997a and 1998c).
In line with greater professionalization, and where necessary specialization, the use of auxiliary staff with teaching aid and support functions may become a crucial factor in future learning situations. One of the difficulties with the trend towards accountability in general – and with meeting centrally imposed standards in particular – is the increased amount of time that individual teachers must spend on non-teaching activities (record-keeping, reports to external assessors, etc.). Previous ILO reports (ILO, 1991a and 1996a) have noted this changing nature of work in schools and its intensity, the burdens (even stress) on teachers and the distractions from the core function of teaching/learning that they create. Combined with the evident need to rethink the roles and responsibilities of teachers while remaining on focus as to their principal task, more extensive and creative use of non-teachers needs to be examined, beginning with those who can provide critical support to teachers’ work.
Two categories may be distinguished: trained auxiliary staff; and volunteers, largely parents, but perhaps also retired teachers, who wish to contribute their experience and skills to improve learning opportunities. In the first case, the use of ancillary staff to take over non-teaching duties or provide valuable education-related support has long been a feature of school systems which could afford them, recognized as essential in international standards, and increasingly considered more of a fundamental element in school success than a luxury (Delors, 1996; Recommendation, 1966). The use of trained para-professionals or teaching assistants to assist directly teaching and learning has also been growing in some countries, such as the United Kingdom (DfEE, 1998b) and the United States. They perform tasks such as monitoring group work or assisting individual learning, notably in the foundation skills of reading, writing and numeracy. Effective use of such staff to maximize certified teachers’ time for other learning-related tasks requires in turn greater teamwork between the teacher as full-fledged professional (the manager in this context) and the para-professional (box 2.3).
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Box 2.3.
Recent research carried out in several states of the United States supports the positive benefits of para-professionals in teaching roles. Optimal effectiveness can be obtained by respecting a number of conditions, among which:
Source: AFT, 1999. |
Planning time, coordination and communication skills necessarily increase. This shift in roles can prove “cost effective” – although, in value added terms, as more professional time can be applied to different individual or whole class learning obstacles and/or used to enrich the diversity of pedagogical approaches such as group work or self-directed learning.
The second approach to teaching assistance – use of parents or other volunteers – is both more limited and more contested from the professionals’ point of view. Research in Europe (1997b) and other OECD countries suggests that parents’ roles are still largely confined to school governance and assistance in homework. Those experiences which have direct links to teaching and learning have been largely confined to primary schools, involve mothers, and generally focus on reading schemes in the context of programmes targeted at disadvantaged pupils or building bridges to the local community (OECD, 1997b).
More extensive parental involvement, or involvement of professionals from various occupations, and perhaps retirees, including teachers, contain the potential for enriching learning content and processes, breaking the orthodox classroom mould almost as effectively as trained para-professionals. The greater participation of parents in all aspects of schooling has been growing worldwide, and there is considerable attractiveness in the idea of an extra pair of hands or hands-on knowledge from the world of work in the classroom. Disadvantaged students in schools located in deprived communities also potentially benefit from a greater implication of parents, employers or other professionals in bridging the gap between the somewhat hermitic environment of schools and the communities and workplaces they serve. Surveys in some provinces of Canada and in Denmark have indicated widespread support for volunteer assistance to teachers in small group and remedial teaching, library resource work, clerical and special education tasks because it enhanced instruction and school life quality (OECD, 1997b).
The enthusiasm should be tempered by awareness of the potential risks if such assistance undermines the professional’s sense of responsibility (and their training), or creates confusion in the learning situation either from a lack of coordination or the inability of the volunteer to communicate effectively with learners. It would do a grave disservice to arguments for greater teacher professionalization and autonomy if old mythologies that “anyone who ‘knows’ a subject can teach it” were to become widely accepted as the basis for widespread use of untrained persons in classrooms. Such a notion can easily produce failure when applied in schools (CEART, 1989). One of the safeguards against such a risk may come from within: the much greater regard for the professional competence of teachers that parents and employers take away from their school experiences (OECD, 1997b).
Reinforcing the idea of professional competency, research in different parts of the United States points to teacher expertise, including teachers’ preparation and experience levels, as the “single most important measurable cause of increased student learning”, with differences in achievement levels, especially between white and African-American students, heavily dependent on variations in teachers’ qualifications and experience. The importance of skilful teaching which is developmentally, cognitively, and culturally appropriate, facilitates student success (Darling-Hammond and Falk, 1997). In rural and isolated areas of many developing countries, where illiteracy is high, it is not at all certain that there are volunteers who are capable of assisting in reading, writing or numeracy, though they may be very competent in enriching the kinds of life skills education so vital to such settings. There are thus equity questions involved in widespread use of untrained persons in learning situations – not to mention ethical and safety issues – unless stringent recruitment criteria and disciplinary measures are systematically and rigorously applied to volunteers in learning situations, particularly to avoid abuse of small children and girls.
In sum, greater recourse to voluntary assistance at formal learning sites must avoid de-professionalization of teachers’ work which would place teachers and principals in defensive positions with regard to greater parental involvement and support for learning initiatives when this is increasingly needed. This has also been the conclusion of OECD (1997b) research on the subject, which argues for well-planned initiatives in this area to enhance teaching and learning resources. A starting point would be more training for principals, teachers and parents on how to work together while respecting each other’s roles, and developing better communication which might be inhibited by class or ethnic differences. Examples of joint training workshops set up by parents’ associations and of in-service teacher training courses in Ireland and Spain, evening curricula courses on maths and information technology in the United Kingdom (England and Wales), and programmes by teacher training institutes for both teachers and parents in some German Länder have been cited as models. Support from school leadership and educational authorities for principals and teachers to plan positively for and help organize parent and external professional involvement, rather than trying to use parent politics to try and curb teachers’ responsibility, is another key element. Various methods of improving communication and interaction run the gamut from use of electronic newsletters in Canada, school councils in France, class parents’ meetings in Germany, and parent volunteer centres in some districts of the United States, to more traditional homework notebooks and school newsletters in most OECD countries (EURYDICE, 1997b; OECD, 1997b). Such initiatives sharpen role definitions, enhance professionals’ responsibilities, and reinforce the probability that parent-teacher-principal collaboration will succeed.
Another area which may require rethinking roles lies in the assessment of students’ work and their progress or failures. Traditionally in most systems, a teacher assesses and corrects where necessary homework assignments, project work, and exams on an individual basis. The benefits derived from more involvement in applied research on what works and what does not, overall learning outcomes – success and failure, individual or collective – and collaborative teaching arrangements will probably call for different approaches such as team-based assessments of types of work or of individual learners, especially those falling behind, networking of information on problem cases; computer-based assessment and other means. Analysts have pointed out the crucial role to be played by teachers using assessment strategies to meet new content and performance standards, and the increased knowledge and skills required to meet these role expectations (Darling-Hammond and Falk, 1997).
Just as roles and responsibilities for managers and teaching personnel will almost certainly evolve in years to come, it is likely that support staff will be required to fulfil different functions, as well as to adapt their skills and performances to new exigencies. In line with notions of teamwork based on collaborative forms of teaching, some strategies call for the creation of teams to which specialist staff such as school psychologists, guidance counsellors, librarians, etc., would be attached so as to further the integration of teaching/learning methodologies, assessment and support services.
If teacher-led research on pedagogical practices and collaborative teaching becomes more generalized, the role of school librarian in a modern OECD member school, for example, will need to change accordingly, so as to better integrate teaching, research and curriculum development in a team approach to the new demands: curriculum requirements of teachers and varied student use (flexible hours) on an individual or small group basis. This will in turn imply enhanced communication skills and planning for flexibility (Haycock, 1999b). Without downgrading the place of printed materials, which have proved remarkably resilient in the face of competition from information technology, sources may become increasingly electronically based, and a librarian expected to take an active part in making available the latest books, materials and Internet site access to support the work going on in the classroom or other learning site. Continual professional development to stay abreast of content and research techniques in an increasingly electronic information age will be imperative.
Other staff roles will likely change as well. School guidance counsellors in modern schools now combine educational, career guidance and personal/social roles towards students and are accountable for knowledge of many regulations and standards, ranging from child abuse to university entrance requirements. Analysts have pointed to even more changes affecting a school’s “climate” on matters such as potential violence, racial or ethnic tensions, crisis management and other issues to secure maximum institutional well-being in line with school objectives. Again, new roles rely heavily on a collaborative approach with teachers and school leadership (Niebuhr, et al., 1999).
The steady rise in the use of information technology in learning, and its unused or underutilized potential, has provoked much debate on the actual and future roles of educational personnel, particularly teachers and teaching support specialists. As is widely known, the breathtaking predictions of massive, if not universal, application of electronic hardware some ten or 15 years ago have proven overly optimistic at best. Barriers to greater use in the form of training and workload considerations have been cited before in ILO reports (1991a and 1996a). In developed countries where the widespread installation of computers, multimedia facilities and high-speed communications access to electronic networks is the most advanced, the chief barrier to universal application remains the disequilibrium between investment in hardware and software resources, on the one hand, and the training and workplace arrangements for teachers to make full use of them, on the other. A range of research in OECD countries points to what is termed the “low computer literacy” of educators generally, their lack of essential training and appreciation – even defensive rejection – of the information technology’s learning potential. Significantly, in some countries such as Sweden and the United Kingdom, surveys of principals and heads of departments confirm the pessimism with regard to the substantial impact of information technology on teaching/learning; meanwhile the belief persists about its significance in relation to such things as independent work, problem solving, and preparation for working life (OECD, 1998b).
The gap between expectation and reality is far from being confined to primary and secondary schools. One study in the United States (Ndahi, 1999) found that more than half of industrial and technical teachers in higher education institutions used one or more distance learning technologies (compressed video, satellite, fibre optics, videotape, microwave, or computer-based technology) to teach between one and three courses per semester. Yet, over one-third – representing a large percentage of teachers in a country and a sector of education which is among the most advanced in terms of access to new technology – did not think that they would use the available technology in the future (box2.4).
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Box.2.4.
One recent study of the inroads in application of information technology among industrial and technical teachers in higher education institutions in the United States provides indications of the obstacles and the incentives which will be needed to overcome them. Usage was reported highest among relatively older and established faculty with experience, doctoral degrees and tenure, suggesting that stability in the profession and the institutions was an important factor. Among the obstacles to greater utilization were equipment failures, lack of adequate training, and unclear institutional information or policies on technology. Faculty members cited some key aspects related to the teaching function itself as inhibiting factors: the lack of teaching skills before trying to use distance learning methodologies, which only enhanced insecurities; and failure to adjust workloads to allow for adequate planning and coordination. The fact that teaching distance classes did not count much for promotion, salary increases or tenure, and the lack of support even when such teaching was mandatory, served to discourage faculty in some institutions. Paradoxically, many institutional managers reported that they addressed these issues, including professional development, rearrangement of working time and material awards. Source: Ndahi, 1999. |
Despite these obstacles, there remains a firm conviction among those writing about and planning for change that usage is growing, will eventually be universal (in some countries it already approaches this level), and that roles of teachers and pedagogical support professionals will change in line with the evolution of teaching and learning practices noted above. A key to furthering this process lies in more sophisticated assessments of why all teachers are not as quick to adopt new technology in teaching practice, and the adjustments needed in training and implementing information technology programmes to produce change.
Research on innovations in science, mathematics and technology in developed countries (Olson, James and Lang, 1999) has pointed to the need to think through the uncertainties, insecurities and even fears of teachers over significant new roles and responsibilities which depart from deep-seated training and pedagogical practice, and which challenge their own concepts of professionalism. Understanding the reluctance to change or the lack of training to do so then becomes the starting point for a greater involvement of teachers in planning, implementing and evaluating the kinds of innovations that will enhance classroom quality. Greater use of information technology is particularly sensitive to this process, since its use often involves collaboration with other teachers, curricula specialists, computer technicians, even private providers of educational software, in the planning, scheduling and use of computers, Internet resources, or other media. As noted above, it also calls for a greater reflection on how teaching and learning practices are carried out.
The diversity in information resources and the facility with which many students handle computers and navigate the World Wide Web for these resources makes it increasingly unlikely that teachers who have not undergone extensive initial and constant retraining on these subjects will be able to consider themselves the ultimate authority on a subject. They can, however, assume the role of a lifelong learning model for students, demonstrating that they have learning skills, respect knowledge and its context and share information on how to find and utilize sources, thus conveying their ability to think critically about available information rather than remaining defensive about their technical shortcomings. One writer has described the need for teachers to be “skilled generalists”, breaking down the walls created by subject specialization and over-reliance on the marvels of technology (Burniske, 1999). To ensure the transition to this kind of profile will require some important changes in other parameters of teaching conditions.
In a large number of developing countries, the gulf between need and utilization is no doubt even larger, given the constraints on investment even in hardware and software, much less the training of teachers and workplace considerations to ensure its use. Nevertheless, indications of greater use and expectations of new roles for teachers are growing with the idea of using information technology to overcome historical distance and resource obstacles and to form more open learning environments. Innovative projects using varied forms of information technology have been launched in countries as diverse as Chile, Costa Rica (which claimed to reach 30 per cent of primary and 25 per cent of secondary schools in 1997), Jamaica, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, and Papua New Guinea (IBE, 1999; UNESCO/UNICEF, 1997).
Many of the changes noted or advocated above depend in the first place on the resources devoted to strong initial education or training programmes for staff, and confirmed by a lifelong learning system for administrators, educators and support personnel in which they themselves are enthusiastic and active participants. More flexible organization, innovative practices and diversified functions cannot be assumed without system-wide and individual investments of time, money and motivation to ensure lifelong learning for educators. As ILO constituents have previously noted, the ambitious objectives established for teacher preparation, recruitment, professional and career development alone require not only that governments accord a high priority to investments in these areas, but that existing strategies for investments be improved, and “high quality, cost-effective, alternative approaches” explored: distance education and information technology options; networking within and among educational systems; and shared public-private resources (ILO, 1996c).
Despite changing roles and increasing specialization, it is not clear that training and professional development of educational administrators have kept pace. A major effort is needed in many developing countries especially to invest in initial and in continual training of those people hired to provide quality educational administration and support functions. Reports from countries such as Ethiopia blame a system of promoting teachers to technical positions in planning, budgeting, and data gathering for which they have no training for the lack of critical technical support in district education offices (IBE, 1999).
It is increasingly acknowledged that initial education or training of school heads assumes a crucial place in the pantheon of training policy options facing educational and political authorities. For the most part school heads still emerge from the ranks of teachers with between five to ten years’ experience, the classic promotional avenue in education. The shift from teaching to a mix of teaching and administration, or the highly diversified roles and responsibilities these front-line managers must take on, is not an easy one, even with years of experience. Recognizing this, many European and North American countries require previous management experience as deputy heads or provisional appointment before confirmation (Iceland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom), or university-level education. Many local school boards in Canada require principals to hold a master’s degree in educational administration, leadership or curricula (IBE, 1999).
Most European countries now offer some form of training for new school heads. Up to the mid-1990s, such training was neither widespread nor compulsory. Increasingly, however, training of school heads is required and combines theoretical and practical training of up to several weeks or months, as in France which has a system alternating course work and placements in companies, ministry offices and schools (EURYDICE, 1996b and 1997a). The Czech Republic programme to upgrade competencies since 1996 has, among other features, a compulsory training period on average of two years for prospective heads. Based on successful completion of a qualifying exam, applicants undergo management, pedagogical and psychological training at a mixture of educational sites (IBE, 1999).
The prognosis for reinforcing the trend seems brighter at the end of the decade, prompted by systemic reforms on many school-related issues. New career structures in the United Kingdom are intended to be supported by a mandatory national training standard (NPQH) as from 2002, induction procedures for new heads, and continual training to update skills of experienced leaders. A National College for School Leadership is planned in cooperation with public and private management (DfEE, 1998b). The challenge of nurturing high-quality principals in the United States has been taken up in some local districts of the United States through specially designed leadership training programmes (box 2.5).
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Box 2.5.
To counter the growing shortage of quality candidates prepared to move from teaching to principal positions, the city of Philadelphia launched the Leadership in Education Apprentice Design (LEAD) programme. Emphasis is placed on instruction in six week internships under exemplary principals, an applied research requirement and a performance-based assessment of the candidates’ leadership skills. Assistant principals are invited to join the assessment centre, and new principals may take part in monthly seminars. Complementing this programme, a coalition of more than 30 private enterprises has joined together to set up an Academy for Leadership and Learning to improve local leadership training. In New York State, a more modest programme of half-day seminars organized by the School Administrator’s Association, “Look Before You Leap” is aimed at promising teacher candidates for principal positions, and proposals have been made to provide financial incentives to school districts who hire interns in administrative jobs. Source: Olson, 1999. |
The general lack of systematic initial training and recruitment criteria for principals which has prevailed in many low-income African countries (ADEA, 1995) appears to be shifting towards a conscious effort to organize such training, and even to render it mandatory for newly appointed principals. Efforts such as Lesotho’s in-service programme for primary-school managers and administrators, the Nigerian National Institute of Educational Administration and Planning’s in-service training of principals and inspectors, and Swaziland’s national training programme for school principals (expected for all newly appointed principals), emphasize mastery of many of the intricacies of modern principals’ work: educational planning; financial and personnel management; organizational development; and instructional leadership (IBE, 1999).
In Asia, Malaysia has pioneered leadership and management skills development through the “Excellent Schools” and “Excellent Heads” programmes designed to stimulate creativity and excellence in school leaders. Initial and continual training of planners, administrators, supervisors and principals in other countries is furnished through more traditional, national-level institutions such as the Academy of Educational Planning and Management of Pakistan, Jordan’s Learning Difficulties Center of Princess Sarvat College, and the United Arab Emirates’ school administration development programme in cooperation with UAE University (IBE, 1999).
Latin American and Caribbean countries are not exceptions to trends elsewhere. Decentralized school management in Belize has prompted educational leadership and administration programmes for prospective principals, backed up by support from supervisors and regular workshops. A combination of national-level training courses of several months duration and longer courses overseas may also be employed as in Trinidad and Tobago (IBE, 1999).
Initial teacher education has steadily moved to higher levels over the years, even as the divergences between qualification requirements and the actual levels of teachers who were hired grew in the 1990s, notably in developing countries. Structural adjustment criticisms of the trend persist on grounds that long initial formative periods are neither cost-effective nor educationally productive (for instance, ADEA, 1995 and Mingat and Tan, 1998 in French-speaking African countries). Significant reductions in numbers of teacher education institutions and length have been a by-product of this thinking in certain countries such as Senegal (UNESCO/ILO, 1997). Yet, the importance of initial teacher education in creating a firm foundation on which to build competences oriented towards new teaching content and practice, and to preserve the status of teaching as a profession, have been constantly reaffirmed (Connell, 1998; Delors, 1996; CEART, 1998). ILO constituents recommended a continuation towards first-degree university level as the minimum standard of entry into the profession (ILO, 1996c).
Worldwide trends in this direction are unmistakable, led foremost by the developed countries. In member countries of the European Union, and in the majority of Central and Eastern European countries seeking membership in the EU, there is a nearly uniform trend towards higher education of prospective teachers. This is divided roughly equally between university and non-university education among countries in both groups up to primary level teachers; education is overwhelmingly university-based for lower secondary-level teachers and universal for those going into upper secondary. It ranges in duration from three to five years for pre-primary and primary teachers, and from four to as much as seven years for secondary candidates in some countries. The trends are logically more pronounced at the upper levels of education, but higher education formation of new teachers is practically the norm now even at pre-primary levels (EURYDICE, 1999a).
These trends are not significantly different in the majority of developing countries. Whereas some still maintain special primary teacher training colleges, the predominant trend in every region is for secondary-level teachers to be educated at tertiary level (UNESCO, 1998b). Nevertheless, in countries still responding to structural adjustment programmes and budgetary constraints, initial teacher education has been transformed into short “crash” courses in which the recognized shortcomings of such education are expected to be overcome through the provision of in-service or other forms of continual training (Connell, 1998; ILO, 1996b). Recently initiated schemes in French-speaking countries of West Africa notably reinforce this trend (box 2.6).
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Box 2.6.
Beginning in 1995, the Government of Senegal launched a new programme to increase recruitment of teachers for many remote rural areas where school enrolment ratios lagged considerably behind national averages. The programme operated in the context of severe budgetary constraints on additional spending to train and hire teachers properly. Secondary-school graduates or university-level young people who volunteered to enter the programme received very short (four months) initial training to teach. They were then assigned to primary schools with “stipends” equivalent to 50 per cent of a regularly recruited teacher’s salary. Equity considerations were advanced to defend these exceptional measures as the only way to eventually reach universal primary enrolment in accordance with the Education for All Goals established in 1990, and especially to increase girls’ participation. The training modules included language and adult education adapted to the rural milieus, and the initial short training. A World Bank commissioned evaluation of the first phase reportedly found satisfactory results with this approach compared to a control group of teachers trained according to the usual standards. Reservations about the plan were raised by the Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts (CEART) because of its fundamental challenge to the standards and the interests of quality education advocated in the 1966 Recommendation. At last report, however, the programme was continuing. Sources: CEART, 1998, Annex 2; ADEA, 1995. |
Despite strong arguments for their use on educational access grounds, such plans fundamentally challenge concepts of a strong system of initial teacher education based on knowledge of subject content, innovative teaching practices and a spirit of inquiry which are increasingly advocated as the way forward around the world in relation to expected new teacher roles. Their basic concern with cutting teacher education costs (and related salaries) on the premise that this will have little or no effect on educational options has been characterized as a “Taylorist” approach to teacher education (ILO, 1996b) at a time when quite different approaches to learning and work organization prevail in many economic sectors. Given conditions of limited resources and unmet needs, more extensive evaluations are needed to determine if in fact the foundations of basic literacy and numeracy, and an appreciation of the need to continue learning in a lifelong perspective, can effectively be built on truncated teacher training programmes.
Within this generalized trend towards higher education levels for prospective teachers, attention has focused in recent years on the need to reform the content, approaches and learning sites of teacher education programmes. Initial education has been criticized for poor preparation of teaching personnel to understand and master diverse teaching strategies and new roles, to adopt and spread to students an interest in lifelong learning, to instil a disposition towards creativity, innovation and change in their practice, and to respect professional ethics (ICE, 1996). The criticism has often centred around: a perceived divide between university-based “theoretical” teacher education and the “practical” needs of dynamic classrooms; the persistence of thinking in most programmes that subject content and teaching methods should be treated as separate domains; and the replication by teacher training programmes of authoritarian, “transmission-oriented” models of teaching (Connell, 1998; Torres, 1999).
One response has been to move away from university-based teacher education to a more diversified range of providers including teacher training colleges and closer links to schools. The legislation which created the Teacher Training Agency to manage funding of teacher education in the United Kingdom (England and Wales) is but one example of this decentralization movement. Some policy-makers have commended these changes for their boost to quality and relevance, whereas others have condemned them as a further “deskilling” of teacher professionals (Steiner-Khamsi, 1999).
Alterations are also being sought through credentialing of teacher educators at higher levels of formal education, establishing obligatory training courses, and specifying criteria for employment as teacher educators. New competency requirements are entering into the picture, such as the ability to supervise and assess more effectively student practice teaching and research work through new methodologies or technologies (ILO, 1996b; OECD, 1994).
The spreading accessibility of teaching resources on the Internet will further challenge teacher educators in a range of areas: incorporating resource guides on use (and misuse) of electronic information, assisting prospective teachers to organize their access to it; inculcating a feel for and techniques to support collaborative forms of teaching; and adopting teacher education assessment measures which show competency developments. The systemic, even compulsory nature of education on best practice to integrate information technology in teaching is becoming the rule in many OECD countries, such as the Netherlands (a ratio of one computer per three teacher trainees is now the norm) and the United Kingdom (training for newly qualified teachers status by 2001 will include a mandatory component on information and communications technology) (DfEE, 1999a; IBE, 1999).
In sum, teacher educators will be asked to assume many of the same kinds of roles and responsibilities as the people they are educating, their mission essential to any successful shift towards a new teaching and learning paradigm. The ILO’s own consensus of the values and objectives essential to this mission, many of which appeared in different form in the ILO/UNESCO Recommendation, are summarized in box 2.7.
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Box 2.7.
At the ILO’s previous education sector meeting in 1996, a tripartite consensus emerged among governments, private employers’ and workers’ (teachers’) representatives over the desired content and processes of teacher preparation and professional development:
Source: ILO, 1996c. |
One increasingly needed aspect of initial teacher education is the ability to understand and communicate with the local environment. Teachers who are preparing for their first assignment in a remote, rural or disadvantaged urban area which is not their place of origin, and those expected to instruct learners of a largely different or very diverse ethnic or socio-economic background, have a particular need to understand the environment and to have the tools to cope with such experiences. Evidence from regional and international surveys (ADEA, 1995; UNESCO, 1998b) does not suggest, however, that this question has been adequately addressed by teacher education programmes. The matter is even more on the agenda in view of the increasing quest for active parental or community involvement in the learning environment, and the need for effective communication between teachers and parents.
Some rethinking may also be necessary as to the practical or professional training components of initial teacher education programmes prior to completion of a degree programme or certification. Advocates urge greater recourse to methods of observation, discussion, and participation, combining experiences (and reflection on these experiences) in regular teaching situations with increased opportunities for educational experimentation and pedagogical research as part of the broader pre-service education. More extended periods of time in schools to develop competences and closer cooperation with mentors have begun to appear in some countries (ICE, 1996; OECD, 1994). Similarly, what has been termed “apprenticeship” programmes are not infrequently used in some developing countries to compensate for under-qualification and/or teaching in shortage areas; mentors or tutors are assigned to supervise and guide non-qualified teachers (ILO, 1996b).
There is an emerging international consensus that the initial investment in preparation of educational personnel for their tasks must be sustained by further or continuing education throughout working careers and that, in so doing, a strong link must be established from the start between initial and further education, with the two visualized as a single process (CEART, 1998; ICE, 1996; Torres, 1999). What is still often termed “in-service training” has grown from ad hoc, voluntary initiatives not infrequently run by teachers’ associations into formerly organized, comprehensive, and sometimes mandatory programmes in many countries. They address occasionally single, sometimes multiple, objectives including widespread deficiencies in initial teacher education in some cases, new subjects/curricula, teaching and technological challenges in others, and reinforcement of government policy objectives (for instance school improvement and accountability) in many countries (OECD, 1998b; UNESCO, 1998b).
At the same time, in most countries continual training opportunities remain under-resourced and consequently not accessible to large numbers, much less to all. In some of the best-funded systems in the world, continual training budgets are relatively limited. A survey of European Union members in the early to mid-1990s (EURYDICE, 1995) revealed that the amount of the national education budget devoted to continual training exceeded 1 per cent in only a small number of countries, and only one country (Norway) reached 2 per cent. These figures may understate overall resources because of methodological discrepancies and the increasing devolution of training resources and efforts to local or school level, but they provide an indication of the relative importance attached to these kinds of investments. More recent estimates in a few countries indicate perhaps a slightly greater investment: in Ireland it represents 0.7 per cent of teachers’ pay; in Luxembourg 2 per cent of the education budget (a considerable increase over the EURYDICE’s earlier estimates); and in the United Kingdom (England and Wales) just under 2 per cent of the schools’ budget. Yet the figures remain low in others: for instance some Länder of Germany devote 0.2 per cent of the education budget to continual training, in part because released teachers are not covered (OECD, 1998b).
Consequently, despite the need, and legislative or administrative texts which often spell out training as a right, large numbers of teachers cannot avail themselves of such possibilities. With decentralization, many European countries in the EURYDICE survey were unable to gauge how many teachers benefited from training possibilities, but those that did rarely reported an effective participation rate above 40 per cent, rising to significant levels only in those countries where it was directly tied to career advancement. In France, an estimated 45 per cent of primary-school teachers and 60 per cent of secondary-school teachers attended some in-service training in 1997-98 (Cédelle, 1999).
Funding is not the only obstacle. Programmes are not always adapted in content, timing or structure to the needs of educators and education. Depending on the solution for replacement teachers during school hours – sometimes substitutes are provided, sometimes this is the responsibility of other teachers in a school – teachers and principals may be faced with difficult choices over who should participate, when and for how long. Questions have been raised about the amount of time that in-service training should be devoted to simply keeping abreast of administrative requirements related to reforms rather than real professional improvement (OECD, 1998b). And in a profession which counts women in the majority of teachers in primary and increasingly in secondary schools, in-service programmes have been remarkably insensitive over time to the constraints imposed by family responsibilities. These issues are beginning to be addressed but the outcomes are far from certain. The Government of the United Kingdom announced plans in 1998 to establish a contractual duty for teachers to update skills, to schedule more out-of-school training hours, and to pay teachers when these were part of regulated duty hours (DfEE, 1998b); however, the immediate impact on teachers generally and women teachers especially is not yet known.
Among low-income countries, the chronic dearth of financial means and a top-down approach which often does not reflect teachers’ input on real needs weigh even more heavily on in-service training. Countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in Africa noted in a mid-1990s survey that despite the expanded need to remedy deficiencies in teacher competences to respond to a multitude of pedagogical innovations, it was increasingly difficult to provide financial incentives, secure replacement teachers and organize in-service training. Improvizations which are far from being systematic include courses organized by some inspectors or pedagogical instructors on Saturday mornings, and the creation in the early 1990s of senior teachers (instituteurs principaux) responsible for pedagogical supervision in their dual capacity as school directors (ADEA, 1995).
In response to these obstacles and new challenges, the mix of learning sites and the strategic objectives are being altered in both high- and low-income countries. A movement towards policies defined as a convergence of “centralized goal-steering and localized accountability” (ILO, 1996b) has shifted funding and responsibilities for organized in-service education away from the virtual monopoly of university education departments in high-income countries, and teacher training institutes in low-income countries, to a more diversified educational base which includes non-university institutes, national and/or local authorities, teacher-led resource centres, businesses, distance learning and – increasingly – schools. This is not a universal trend. France has decided to fully integrate initial education and continual training through the principal teacher training institutions (IUFM) (Cédelle, 1999).
School-based learning in particular has been advanced partly out of access and cost concerns, and for this reason has been criticized as another example of the State devolving responsibility to local levels purely for financial reasons. Still, it is increasingly advocated on grounds that focusing learning around actual classroom and school practice offers greater opportunities to integrate teachers’ education with school improvement efforts, networking and autonomous control (ownership) among educators, and ultimately the creation of schools as fully integrated learning environments (ICE, 1996; OECD, 1998b). The “Learning Action Cells” in the Philippines school-based in-service programme provides one example.
Other countries use broad-based workshops and specially-designed programmes outside of schools, but with emphasis on learning and attitudes of teachers themselves: multi-school, “sub-cluster” training in Bangladesh; general workshops for skills upgrading (Talleres de Actualización) using in part self-directed didactical guides for teachers from early childhood to secondary education in Mexico; and a Peer In-Service Approach (PISA) based on identified good teachers training others in Nigeria. A focus on developing more open attitudes towards teaching and learning through counselling and in-service programmes characterizes Estonia’s “Institute of the Open Mind” (Avatud Meele Institute) (IBE, 1999; UNESCO, 1997b).
Distance learning is considered particularly attractive for cost-benefit reasons and the need to reach teachers in rural and isolated areas. As with any distance learning approach, design is important to compensate for the reduced personal contact between trainer and student. Some countries rely heavily on these approaches to improve teachers’ professional competence, among which: the multimedia certificate in guidance programme of India (CIG); the Radio In-Service Training Program in Indonesia; and the distance learning methodology of the Teacher Improvement Institute (IAP) in Mozambique (IBE, 1999; UNESCO, 1997b).
Increasingly we may see a form of autonomously driven distance learning as teachers (and other personnel) take the initiative to develop their own professional competences through Internet-based networks. These resources are growing exponentially, offered through a range of providers: (a) international, such as the Commonwealth Institute and European SchoolNet; (b) national, in the form of public networks and virtual resource centres such as Canada SchoolNet, EDUCNET in France, SchoolNet South Africa, the National Grid for Learning, and the Scottish Virtual Teachers’ Centre in the United Kingdom; and (c) a host of private online programmes of various media and software firms. More than 70 ministries of education maintain official Websites, while more than 50 teachers’ unions around the world are also accessible through the Internet.
The strong argument for relocating much of continual training to the point at which it can have the most impact, weakens in proportion to decisions by educational authorities that place in-service or other continual training opportunities low down on the list of investment priorities. In the past this has been a criticism of decentralization’s impact on training opportunities in countries such as Sweden, and in a large number of developing countries which operate under structural adjustment programmes (ILO, 1996a and 1996b). On the other hand, where funding is assured, proximity and lower costs may encourage greater participation. Though “open-day” and school-based workshops are not compulsory in Swaziland, an estimated 40 to 80 per cent of teachers participate depending on subject matter (IBE, 1999). As a safety net, and to meet the diverse needs that might arise in the future which cannot always be dealt with at school or local level, a policy mix of centralized and decentralized training is recommended (CEART, 1998).
The use of networking strategies provides additional backup in some regions, pooling resources to provide in-service training of a general or specialized nature. This approach is employed for example by the South-East Asian Ministers of Education Organization, in the Caribbean through the University of the West Indies and in the Pacific via the University of the South Pacific (ILO, 1996c; ILO/UNESCO, 1998).
The significance and attention focused on continual training for school leadership and support staff is also moving higher up in the policy agenda. Without a strong continual training programme, the magnitude of responsibilities and new roles demanded of principals and school heads outlined above cannot be adequately met by those whose initial training did not prepare them for new school organization. The spread of school-based management has added urgency to this question. Reflecting the diversity in educational systems, the offerings are a mixture of central institutional course work and school-based leadership training. Centrally provided workshops are the norm in Japan. In-service training programmes in almost all German Länder include provisions for school heads on external relations, personnel management, and school law, compensating for a lack of initial training specifically for the responsibilities of principal or school inspector. Some countries such as Norway have recognized the need to focus school, local and regional efforts on familiarizing school leadership with new roles. An integrated approach through its “LUIS” programme combines recruitment of prospective leaders with initial and continual training. A similar approach is present in Malaysia’s systematic training programme for educational managers at all levels (IBE, 1999; ILO, 1996c).
Information so far has been too scanty to indicate that such training is either systemic or continual throughout careers in many countries. It seems in fact to be more ad hoc and non-compulsory in nature and this effect on schools is keenly felt. Examples include the poor teaching quality in Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania, associated in part with inadequate supervision by inexperienced school heads and limited inspection support, and the absence of proper induction and in-service training for supervisors in Asian countries. In a similar vein, Brazil estimated in 1993 that three-quarters of primary school heads (predominantly women) did not have a degree in school administration, while just over half had participated in some training course in the last five years (de Grauwe, 1998; IBE, 1999).
In African and Caribbean countries, the last decade has seen some still modest efforts to introduce or upgrade continual training programmes for school heads. Short, in-service workshops are the predominant approach, although longer course work is sometimes offered, but limited in scope by lack of funds. New programmes with international support include development and widespread use of resource materials for school heads in English-speaking southern Africa and “Better Schools” learning modules in the Caribbean (ADEA, 1995; Commonwealth, 1996; IBE, 1999).
A lifelong learning perspective for educational personnel requires that a number of conditions be met: adequate resourcing, both for provision of instruction and release time for staff; multiple pathways and organizational forms which account for diverse needs at different points of careers and the constraints of family and professional life; proper evaluation methods to ensure that the instruction is reaching its goals; and not least, active and continuing participation of educational personnel themselves. There is a strong case for assuming that a greater professionalization of teaching and related educational work will impel individuals to seek out and invest in the professional development opportunities so as to improve their performance and work satisfaction. The often overlooked aspects of linkages to career development as an additional incentive should also figure into the equations. It is in the context of a holistic approach to professional and career development that the ILO has throughout this decade affirmed that these issues should be defined as a continuum, embracing recruitment, preparation, credentialing, induction and career-long development (ILO, 1991b; ILO, 1996c).
Strong professional development approaches often rely on a multifaceted strategy and partnerships which focus the strengths of interested parties on common objectives. Many examples of this approach emerge from recent work in OECD and other countries. In some cases, resources of specialist staff and centres such as museums or interactive science centres are mobilized for the benefit of schools and teachers. Respect for the full involvement of teachers in deciding on what kinds of professional support are needed, local initiative, and flexibility to adopt approaches to a school’s needs within any centrally defined framework appear to be key concepts for successful partnerships. Features of support in Australia (Tasmania) have included parents’ involvement in workshops to learn about and back school-based curriculum development, as well as support to experienced teachers who guide the process in cooperation with school leadership and educational authorities. Two approaches to professional support for innovative teaching in Germany and Chile rely on multiple components of a partnership strategy (box 2.8). Thailand’s Teacher Education Reform Office (TERO) since 1997 has incorporated national teacher awards, reforms in initial teacher education and more incentives for in-service training, and school visits by leading Thai professionals in its master plan for teacher reform (IBE, 1999).
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Box 2.8.
The Practising Basic Integrated Science in Germany (PING) project arose from the need to attract more student interest and teachers’ ability to teach science in comprehensive secondary schools as an essential subject of a modern society. Supported by the national institute for science education (IPN), it featured:
Sources: James, 1999; Olson, James and Lang, 1999. In Chile a reportedly successful professional development programme from secondary education reform involves a combination of strategies to improve teaching professionalism. Pedagogical practice is targeted through widespread in-service training, more selective study visits abroad for some teachers, and revamping of university-based teacher training through competitive projects. Incentives towards greater autonomy in deciding on best practices have been created through teacher-developed school improvement projects supported by their institutions and funded by the Government on a competitive basis. Source: Lemaitre, 1998. |
Partnerships with industry and other employers to upgrade professional skills are growing in some parts of the world. Projects to upgrade teachers sponsored by employers in the United States include providing summer jobs for familiarization and updating in new technology or research and seminars or workshops on current practices and equipment. Companies also sponsor mathematics and science teachers at university programmes.
Among the issues in deciding on a professional development strategy is the extent of expertise and control of higher-level authorities or specialists as opposed to reliance on principals’ and teachers’ own initiatives, thereby reinforcing autonomy, responsibility and ownership from within the profession. Teaching resource centres which have sprung up in many African and Asian countries in recognition of the underdeveloped nature of professional development opportunities lean towards internal control, attempting to maximize knowledge networking and scarce resources among teachers: use of more experienced teachers in Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania to staff these centres; teaching “zones” for distribution of learning materials in Swaziland; and use of weekly school cluster meetings in Nepal (IBE, 1999). Experiences from some countries suggest that where the concepts of control and efficiency advocated by educational authorities prevail over those of teacher self-reliance and initiative, key motivational building blocks encouraging teachers to develop greater professional responsibility will likely suffer (box 2.9). The process is analogous to a similar criticism made of experiences in Colombia’s Escuela Nueva schools. A strong argument can be made, however, for a dual approach which leaves some initiatives in the hands of local teachers (and other stakeholders) networked through physical or electronic resource centres, complemented by more sophisticated support services provided at district or regional levels by teacher training institutions and educational authorities (Hoppers, 1998).
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Box 2.9.
In one comparative survey of Teacher Resource Centres (TRCs) in three southern African countries – Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe – it has been argued that the initial promise such centres held out for building a greater sense of self-reliance, local teacher initiative and practical training of large numbers of under-qualified staff in order to improve schools dissipated over time, as the centres variously came under greater central or even local authority control. This movement mixed elements of control by authorities with a genuine desire to improve training quality, cost-effectiveness and results, but the upshot was that meaningful teacher input to the centres’ programme and directions faded along with greater networking possibilities. In many instances the clusters of schools served by resource centres have become transmission belts for curricula and methods decided at intermediate (regional) levels rather than expressions of teachers’ autonomy and self-reliance. The resulting loss of motivation to be self-reliant, and the sense of ownership for school-based improvement, has been an inevitable, and regrettable casualty. Source: Hoppers, 1998. |
The importance of adequate career development has not always figured prominently in the formulas for improving education staff’s work. Trends over the last decade suggest that this often neglected subject is undergoing a rehabilitation which recognizes that the traditionally “flat” and undiversified career structure of teachers and other categories, reposing largely on a linear, seniority-based set of criteria, requires reform. The indications come from revisions in career structures either implemented or on the drawing boards of many member States. Basic features of reform include:
The emerging career structure in the United Kingdom illustrates many of these points; it is designed to provide enhanced awards for good performances, improved career prospects, greater opportunities for skills and knowledge upgrades, and a better working environment (box 2.10). Other recent examples include the creation of new positions for senior assistant master/mistresses in Guyana (IBE, 1999). Attempts to introduce a career structure in Argentina with many of the features of the United Kingdom have not been successful in part due to strong teachers’ union opposition (Vegas, Pritchett and Experton, 1999).
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Box 2.10.
The Government of the United Kingdom’s plans for a revamped career structure for head teachers, deputies and teachers, first announced in 1998, and scheduled to be implemented in 2000, are built on an integrated approach to professional and career development as a key to its standards-based strategy for better schools and learning. The plans are the subject of wide consultation among teachers and their unions, representatives of governing bodies and local authorities and other interested agencies. At its heart is a career ladder which proposes two levels, and pay ranges, for teachers with a “performance threshold” between the first and second levels. Annual appraisals based on a performance management framework are designed to assess teachers’ performance against objectives agreed in advance with school or department heads. After advancing by steps through the first level, teachers would have the right to apply for a nationally based assessment in order to cross the threshold to the second level; the assessment would combine internal and external elements measured against new national standards and focused on strong classroom performance. In addition to higher pay, teachers at the second level would have new professional expectations and depending on assessments, have access to new job categories such as the Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) whose additional responsibilities could include initial and continual training of other teachers, mentoring, appraisal, producing and disseminating teaching materials and outreach work to other schools. Up to an estimated 5 per cent of teachers would be recruited initially or while in service via a “fast track” promotional scheme based on selection processes to target high performers, tailored training opportunities, excellent performance assessments and a willingness to accept contracts implying a longer work year and greater mobility. These could lead to earlier promotions to head positions. Planned support for teachers’ work and careers include new management arrangements, more professionals working in schools, school exchanges, information technology fellowships and free access to the National Grid for Learning. Source: DfEE, 1998b, 1999a and 1999b. |
Diversified career structures would be significantly bolstered by opening gateways to the working world outside education. More fluid access to short- or medium-term employment in public or private sector jobs requiring similar qualifications and with equivalent, but different job content, could enrich school leadership, teaching and other education sector jobs. Similar opportunities in reverse – fast-track training and certification policies for mid-career professionals to join teaching, provided they meet quality standards (ILO, 1991a and 1991b) – have been instituted in some countries over the last decade. Taken together, these new mobility plans have great potential for reinforcing the mutual understanding between education and the world of work that many observers feel is fundamental for building lifelong learning systems. To be effective, however, some issues have to be addressed: financial implications, including release time for serving teachers; adaptations in strictly linear career structures to avoid penalties and to reward such experiences; and guarantees against large-scale loss of staff to more lucrative jobs elsewhere. To date, there is little evidence that such options are widely utilized in education.
Given their strategic place in ensuring effective schools, and consequently learning opportunities, assessment of school heads’ administrative skills and leadership on educational issues also assume a major place in professional and career development schemes. Almost all European countries provide for some kind of assessment by the employing authority or by inspectors, but surprisingly in its mid-1990s survey, EURYDICE (1996) found that in nearly half of them, appraisals were not regular at one or more levels. School governing bodies in the United Kingdom (England and Wales) now must appraise the school head’s performance annually (with the assistance of an external adviser scheduled as from September 2000) based on performance objectives agreed with the head at the beginning of the review cycle, or established by the governing body (DfEE, 1999a and 1999b).
Criteria and procedures for effective and fair teacher appraisal are the subject of equally heated debate in the context of changing career structures of teachers. It has long been recommended as a means of providing the necessary feedback to improve professional performance without diminishing the “freedom, initiative and responsibility of teachers” (Recommendation, 1966). Much writing on the subject continues to insist on the professional development objective inherent in a “participatory” approach over the “managerial” approach driven by accountability and performance concerns. Key elements considered desirable include objectivity, a non-mechanistic outlook, inclusion of peer assessment where appropriate, and a holistic approach whereby the entire school environment is assessed. Teachers’ involvement, as individuals or through their unions, in defining the content and procedures of appraisal systems is often a crucial factor in their acceptance and effectiveness (ILO, 1991a and 1999b). Peer review programmes, especially for new entrants, are reportedly increasing in the United States, often negotiated by teacher unions with management as part of professional improvement efforts. Many key appraisal elements were endorsed by teachers and administrators in an ILO/UNESCO Pacific seminar (1998): clear, predetermined and negotiated criteria; time for the process; input and feedback between appraiser and appraisee; an appeals process; and a process which is formative as well as summative.
Faculty appraisal and professional development issues are at the heart of careers, new roles, and the quality of teaching in higher education. Well-developed procedures of peer review and publications in journals function to monitor quality of research in many disciplines. However, questions of higher education teaching staff appraised to ensure quality instruction, and even more their initial and continuing pedagogical training, remain major development areas for both management and faculty alike. It is widely accepted that historical undertraining of staff in teaching pedagogy has led to over-reliance on standard lecture formats which are increasingly challenged by students and by new technologies. Especially as the learner population diversifies, with more part-time, off-campus students, recourse to innovations such as teletutorials and interactive telecasting, and greater use of individual, group project and seminar work, are on the agenda. Professional development and support units have emerged in a number of European and OECD countries to remedy this, along with grants programmes to foster innovation, and more openness in teaching appraisal schemes which feature student feedback (Fielden, 1998; OECD, 1998c).
One issue in the design of new teaching careers concerns the place to be attributed to permanency. Tenure in teaching has long been considered a staple of life in education, to be safeguarded “even when changes in the organization of or within a school system are made” (Recommendation, 1966). It is traditionally framed by three factors: tenure is granted at the beginning of a teaching career only after a probationary period has been satisfactorily completed to determine if individuals are suitable for teaching; tenure may be terminated in the course of a career by serious breaches of professional or ethical conduct; and it is subject to the necessary funding to ensure continuation. There is no evidence to indicate that the first two conditions have substantially altered in recent years, though the route to permanency in teaching remains varied. Examples from a few countries illustrate this diversity: in Italy tenure is obtained on successful completion of an examination (concorso); in the Philippines it is granted only after a teacher induction programme has been successfully completed which includes skills certification based on practice; and in Thailand teachers obtain tenure after a six months’ probation and successful evaluation by a committee composed of the immediate supervisor and two senior teachers (IBE, 1999).
Respect for the concept of tenure is eroding, however, in higher education under the pressures of cost constraints, with more emphasis being placed on efficiency as well as on accountability. Tenure or its functional equivalent, for example public or civil service employment in some countries, is advocated in international standards as a traditional safeguard of academic freedom, but also on grounds of individual responsibility and retention of talented higher-teaching and research personnel (UNESCO, 1997a). The “casualization” of tertiary employment is nevertheless on the increase, driven by institutional management concerns for more flexibility in the face of less secure financing arrangements, the need to respond to a learner population increasingly diversified by age, background and expectation, and perceptions that tenure stifles innovation. This is a particular concern for teaching, historically downplayed in favour of research as the basis for job security and promotions. Despite continued defence of the need for tenure by professional associations and academic unions, international trends point towards the decline in the overall number of tenured faculty in favour of more temporary staff.
The picture of women in management is evolving substantially at certain education levels and regions. The glass ceiling persists: the number of women in higher-level management jobs has traditionally been low, with a high degree of segmentation between certain “male” jobs (administrators and inspectors), and “female” jobs (counsellors and methods specialists). Yet, in the decade preceding 1995, substantial progress was made in the number of women moving into principal and deputy-principal jobs in regions such as North America, the Caribbean, Europe (east and west) and southern Africa. A positive relationship was noted between the continued growth in numbers of primary and secondary teachers and the increase in these women gaining promotion to school leadership positions. Sizeable imbalances remain in the numbers of women administrators in proportion to their place as academics, and higher education management and governance continue to be as segmented as other educational levels (men as academic deans and members of system-wide governing boards, women as student administration managers and members of department committees) (EURYDICE, 1997a; ILO, 1996a).
The trends towards more women managers are not overly surprising in an increasingly feminized profession, though they are very uneven across regions and levels of education, with much stronger tendencies to promote women teachers to these positions in primary schools, and little evidence of a major breakthrough in technical and higher education. The upward movements have matched similar international trends for women in other managerial and professional fields (ILO, 1997). Abiding barriers to equal opportunity and treatment in educational management and remedial measures adopted by countries and institutions to achieve gender equality have also been previously pointed out by the ILO (1996a).
Recent reports suggest that these trends continue, fuelled in part by the ever-increasing pool of women candidates. The latest figures for the United Kingdom (England and Wales) indicate that for the first time ever, women hold more than half of the primary school head positions, and more than a quarter of secondary jobs, with steadily declining numbers of men recruited as head teachers (TES, 1999). Women now comprise 42 per cent of primary and lower secondary principals in the United States, a doubling in ten years; two-thirds of those with five years’ or less experience are women (Doud and Keller, 1998).
Larger numbers of women leaders in schools affects definitions of roles and greater responsibilities of principals. A case-study in Trinidad and Tobago (Morris, 1999) observed that while still less than the percentage of teachers in schools, the percentage of women principals continued to climb in the 1990s, reaching 52 per cent of primary and 46 per cent of secondary-school principals in 1998. Of equal interest was the analysis of the character traits which made many of the women principals successful in their job (box2.11).
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Box 2.11.
A sampling of female secondary school principals in Trinidad and Tobago revealed a number of salient points about their impact on teachers and schools. Among the findings, women principals:
Source: Morris, 1999. |
The combination of care, commitment to teamwork and construction of collaborative relationships, together with women’s personal and professional experience, appear to converge with the roles and approaches advocated for the future of learning organizations. Comparing the situation with that in the United Kingdom, a similar study of female secondary principals in Singapore (Morriss, Low Tin Guat and Coleman, 1999), where women in 1997 already formed a slight majority in both primary and secondary schools (and over 60 per cent of those in deputy positions), tended to confirm the notion of women as espousing a participatory management style, collaborative work environment and supportive atmosphere for students and staff which worked in favour of effective schools.
New career prospects for women teachers will not just depend on the classic promotion path out of teaching into administration. The challenges looming in the form of recruitment, retention of qualified staff and motivation to perform new roles suggest that a variety of measures are necessary to ensure that career prospects for women are adequate to the task: flexible, non-linear career structures which permit women to move into and out of teaching for family or professional reasons without being penalized professionally; greater salary and career parity between part-time and full-time positions; incentives for voluntary job-sharing rather than bureaucratic obstacles; and a professional development framework which is sensitive to the prevalence of the double burden that women support at home and in the workplace.
The continuing feminization of teaching raises additional questions in a gender context: can and should this trend be reversed? In many of those countries where women teachers predominate, the same kinds of questions have been raised about gender imbalances and the lack of male role models in early childhood and primary education as for females at higher stages. To the extent that this is a policy concern, then a range of measures may need to be considered to recruit more men to teaching at lower levels: sensitization campaigns to influence career choices at an early stage; aggressive recruitment campaigns to get men into teacher training programmes; and “positive discrimination” in the form of material incentives and fast-track recruitment and promotional options to channel men to teaching and responsibility positions.
In those parts of the world where women still represent a minority, even at lower levels, the challenges are the more classic ones of finding the right mix of material and training incentives to increase substantially the percentage of women in teaching, but also their distribution among teaching posts in rural and disadvantaged areas. A major obstacle to gender equity in education, as well as to efficient deployment of qualified teachers to non-urban areas, remains the cultural, career and material barriers to women in many developing countries being recruited or transferred to rural areas (Gaynor, 1997).
An integrated strategy for changing the learning environment, accompanied by different roles and responsibilities of educators, will almost certainly require alterations in the remuneration packages and the way that educational work is organized both in schools and in the other components of lifelong learning. With due regard to their already preponderant place in recurrent expenditures on education, and therefore total available resources, salaries will need to be at levels sufficient to attract top quality candidates to education jobs, retain them over a reasonable career span, and be structured so as to motivate and reward innovative performance. It is increasingly acknowledged that a lifelong learning vision will also demand more flexibility in the way that schools and other learning opportunities are organized so as to permit maximum access from learners with very diversified profiles.
There are a number of key issues in the design of education remuneration packages. The most basic is to establish salary levels high enough to attract: better-than-average young people when they are making their career choice; more experienced professionals planning a career change; and eventually returnees, many of whom are women. This is not a new policy consideration, but assumes fresh importance in relation to the need to have creative and interested individuals working as lifelong educators. Another key issue is the extent to which educational personnel will be rewarded for their efforts beyond the satisfaction that accrues from high accomplishment, always a powerful factor, but not always sufficient to motivate performance nor retain quality educators who have in some countries very lucrative alternatives. A related issue concerns the design of incentive schemes to encourage staff to operate with a high level of participatory involvement in rethinking, redesigning and implementing improvements in learning which may substantially alter familiar work organization in schools and other learning sites.
The ILO’s previous survey (1996a) of salary levels for management personnel suggested that educational managers, including principals and deputies, experienced improvements in their real income levels across a broad range of high- and middle-income countries from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. With some exceptions, managers in low-income countries generally witnessed a decline in real income, probably a reflection of the deteriorating macroeconomic and fiscal picture, including reduced public spending, which affected everyone. The impact of gains or losses on the ability to recruit top staff and to maintain them in their positions in the face of competition with other professions or occupations is not known.
In some countries salaries paid to top administrators, while substantial, are considered the price necessary to recruit and maintain top candidates, particularly in highly competitive, decentralized systems. In 1998, school superintendents in the United States made on average US$101,000, a figure which may have well exceeded US$150,000 for some who managed large city school districts. Still, given their workloads (virtually every day of the year) and responsibilities, considered analogous to managing a medium or large private sector company, the payment of performance bonuses is growing. These range from 5 to 20 per cent of annual salary, and are tied to indicators such as improvements in student test scores, attendance and drop-out rates. Paradoxically, although most local school board members endorse performance bonuses to boost achievement, a majority of superintendents do not believe that they do. A key unresolved question is the criteria for making awards, considering that results such as student assessment gains are the accomplishment of many school staff (Lafee, 1999).
As much or even more than in the case of administrators, the premium placed on school leadership, the skills that principals possess, the responsibilities assumed and the competition for their services within and outside education create significant challenges for policy- and decision-makers in determining appropriate salary levels. These are in some respects, accentuated by long-term growth and prosperity in high-income, well-funded systems. Again, recent surveys in the United States purport to show that despite average salaries ranging from US$67,000+ for primary school principals to US$76,000+ for those in secondary schools, shortages of qualified candidates for principals’ positions already present in half of a random sample of school districts in 1998 are likely to continue if not worsen. The highly diversified job responsibilities of principals, created in part by decentralized governance structures, heavy workloads (see below) and a relatively small gap between entry-level principals’ jobs and those of veteran teachers are judged to be the main disincentives for teachers to move up the career ladder (Keller, 1999; Olson, 1999). Similar difficulties have been reported in European countries such as France and the United Kingdom (England and Wales).
Raising salaries to reflect the importance of a school head’s leadership role and the significantly greater responsibilities that they assume constitutes one policy solution. More reflection and policy are also going towards a diversified package which relies in part on performance-related pay. One in five primary and lower secondary-school principals in the United States reports participation in some form of merit pay plan (Doud and Keller, 1998). As with any such scheme, key questions concern the criteria and the means for measuring success (see below).
Teachers’ salaries reflect not only the relative attractiveness of being a teacher in material terms, they also impact significantly on the distribution of resources within an educational system, since they constitute variously between 60 per cent and 90+ per cent of public recurrent educational expenditures; they also determine the amounts going to other staff, notably school heads.
Salary data is available for many European and other OECD countries (see appendix) which illustrate the kinds of policy and negotiated choices made in these countries in relation to entry level and experienced teachers. One indicator is the minimum salary level compared to the countries’ per capita gross domestic product (GDP), permitting a very preliminary idea of the value attached to teachers’ status in relation to national income. On the one hand, countries which pay relatively low entry-level salaries presumably do so on the strength of the assumption that internal labour markets are not so competitive as to discourage young graduates from choosing teaching despite a salary which signals less than premium status in material terms. The gap at the beginning is expected to be compensated by other tangible and intangible factors which attract young people to choose teaching as their career, and would in any case be made up progressively over the years as individuals reached the top salary scales. On the other hand, a small minority of countries set out to attract quality entrants to teaching with relatively high initial salaries in relation to national income, and expectations that the comparatively flat salary structure will be offset by other tangible and intangible benefits in the course of a career so as not to occasion large-scale departures of experienced teachers. In both cases, and no doubt for reasons peculiar to each country’s culture and internal labour market, the respective policies have been judged to be successful up to the present in so far as – setting considerations of geographic and subject shortages aside – teacher recruitment has kept pace with enrolments in quantitative terms.
Based on the available information the salary structures in the majority of European countries appear to favour experience over new recruitments – at least in terms of salaries relative to national income. The exceptions fall into two categories: those who not only pay relatively low minimum salaries, but also hold maximum salaries to below the benchmark (Czech Republic, Iceland, Norway, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden); and those whose compensation levels at both the beginning and the end of a teacher’s career are above national income indicators (Cyprus, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain). Norway and Sweden have the “flattest” salary structures measured by the smallest difference between minimum and maximum salaries, confirming the picture presented four years ago by the ILO and others.
Irrespective of other variables, the relative attractiveness of higher salaries at the end of the career should in principle reward experience and avoid large numbers of teachers leaving education at mid-career or later, a factor to be considered in light of disincentives to continue teaching after some years in the classroom (difficult classroom conditions, stress and burn-out), and the pull of more interesting and higher paid jobs in other occupations. There are definite implications for policy in relation to maintaining a core group of experienced teachers in future learning systems, but this report does not dispose of sufficient information to determine the impact in either case on teacher recruitment or retention.
Some analysts writing about low-income countries, most prominently in French-speaking African countries, have argued that teachers’ salaries have long been too high in relation to GNP when compared to other countries. Compared with Asian countries of similar income levels, the relatively high levels of salaries in French-speaking African countries reportedly help to explain the lower levels of school-age participation rates in these countries. Indeed, as they have to cope with budgetary and spending restrictions, they hire fewer teachers. Further salary reductions are therefore considered feasible, based on two considerations: (1) the much lower salaries paid in private as opposed to public schools (supposedly 40 per cent or more less in the former); and (2) the fact that under the kinds of “volunteer” schemes noted above in Senegal, and in other countries such as Burkina Faso which have created dual track systems – new teachers enter with less qualifications and are paid less – the number of applicants far exceeds the available positions. It is argued that students in informal schools and those taught by less qualified teachers perform as well or better than those taught by more qualified teachers in formal public schools (Mingat and Tan, 1998).
Other observers contest this thesis. Carnoy and Welmond (1997) concur with the point that some African countries have tended to pay high salaries in relation to GNP and pupil-teacher ratios, but that others do not. They also suggest that most Latin American countries do not pay high salaries in relation to GNP, and that political choices by governments may favour higher salaries in some cases, but not at the expense of smaller classes.
Comparisons with average national wealth or average wages do not really indicate the degree of difficulty or facility by which educational authorities are able to recruit enough teachers, and especially those that are of the highest quality – the “best and the brightest”– for future learning systems. A detailed analysis of recruitment and retention patterns by country, geographic region within countries and educational level is necessary to ascertain who is taking up teaching, the numbers entering the profession and where they are affected geographically, by subject or by level of education, their qualifications, age, etc. One approach is through a common set of indicators which attempt to measure the potential impact of salaries on recruitment and retention needs by comparison with other professions with similar qualifications, public or private.
Disaggregated information from both European and Pacific countries reveals diverse difficulties, but also a common challenge: keeping salaries comparable with other jobs. In the Czech Republic, recent reports suggest a continuing exodus of teachers from the profession despite several salary increases, including a special salary scale adopted for top teachers which covered up to 8 per cent of teaching staff in 1998. This exodus is attributed in part to the lower rate of increases compared to other job categories. The haemorrhage is particularly noticeable in languages, maths, sciences, and information technology, areas which have become particularly attractive to banks and foreign companies as the market economy expands. Facing the same problem, New Zealand has identified the source of current teacher supply constraints as being competing labour market opportunities, especially for high calibre recruits; it is likely that this trend will continue as demographic pressures accelerate demand, and teacher attrition rates rise. The spectre of lower quality recruitment standards has been raised as a by-product (IBE, 1999).
Salary discrepancies may also make themselves felt within education, for example between regions or between public or private schools. The numbers of qualified teachers in urban private schools of Rwanda is considerably above those in public schools because private school salaries are reportedly much higher than the public service (IBE, 1999).
Some countries have adopted remedies to the threat posed to quality recruitment by low salaries compared to other professions. The simplest remedy is to establish a higher salary scale for teaching which clearly signals to prospective candidates the importance of the job. For example, Saudi Arabia’s salary structure reportedly provides for teaching and teaching-related jobs (principals and deputies, librarians, guidance counsellors) to receive 20-30 per cent more than corresponding government jobs. Others are trying to reduce historical discrepancies along the same lines: the 1997 Law on Education in Georgia specifies that the minimum teachers’ salary should not be less than the average civil servant salary, while Lithuania has steadily increased average education employees’ salaries compared to civil servants, going from 78 to 85 per cent in the period 1995-97. Average teachers’ pay remains at 74 per cent of average industrial earnings in Belarus, however, and the situation is even more unfavourable for newly trained teachers (IBE,1999).
Recent World Bank-sponsored studies in Latin America present a contrasting picture. A survey of 12 Latin American countries comes to the conclusion that teachers’ annual income is less than national counterparts having similar gender, qualifications, public/private association and union affiliation. This differential supposedly disappears when an hourly rate over the calendar year and the lower official hours of work of teachers are taken into consideration (an average of 35 compared to 50 for other workers). There is no indication that teachers’ hours of work outside of official contact hours are taken into consideration. Looking at the gender composition of the teaching force, which is heavily feminine, one of the study’s conclusions is that many women who are second income-earners choose teaching for the flexibility that it provides in relation to their family responsibilities. Overall, the study suggests that there is not a strong argument for national salary increases so as to recruit and retain better teachers; however, given the lower salaries in many rural compared to urban areas, greater incentives should be provided for the former (Liang, 1999). Separate research in Argentina which does recognize the need to take into account all the dimensions of a teachers’ workday nevertheless concludes that a national pay rise or even policy may not be the best way to attract and retain qualified teachers. Instead it proposes greater reliance on performance-related salary structures, including individual or school-based bonuses (Vegas, Pritchett and Experton, 1999).
Technical and vocational education teachers appear to be relatively underpaid in comparison to counterparts with similar qualifications, but the available information is, again, too limited to make a pronouncement across the board. A report on the status of vocational education and training teachers in Sweden suggested that both career and salary prospects were low (CEDEFOP, 1998). Recruiting and retaining qualified teachers/trainers in this field is particularly difficult in the face of stiff competition from private enterprise, even more so in developing countries.
Teachers within adult and non-formal education rarely receive the status of “teacher”, which is to say that the salary they receive may bear no resemblance to the salary paid to an “official” teacher. For example, in the United Kingdom, there are extremely few full-time adult educators for the simple reason that there are few full-time posts as adult educators. The salaries paid to these educators are generally low – ranging from £15 to £30 per hour of teaching for an average of three or four hours of teaching per week. In most contexts, adult education is a part-time activity, especially for the adult educators.
Looming on the horizon of redesigned educational systems, indeed already present in some, is the issue of merit or performance-related pay as a basis for remuneration structures of the future. Arguments currently underpinning moves towards “diversified” pay structures in education include the need to reward high performers to encourage quality service, and the sharing of benefits from better learning outcomes with the individuals and teams in schools which produce them. These claims are not limited to high-income countries. Although there are more fundamental problems in many poorer nations – a proper salary rate compared to national income and assurances that salaries will be paid on time tend to be first in line – countries such as Ethiopia have begun to think about or introduce salary reform packages to reward teachers on the basis of quality and performance, rather than strictly on formal qualifications and seniority (IBE, 1999).
A previous consideration of this issue by the ILO at the beginning of the decade led to a conclusion among the tripartite constituents that, given the subjective and destabilizing nature of performance-related pay in the teaching profession, and the narrow way in which it is defined, there was a need to formulate strategies which seek to establish “material incentives sufficiently broad to motivate all teachers”. Furthermore, it was felt that modern management techniques could help to provide the objective assessment criteria necessary for such a strategy (ILO, 1991b).
Governments in several nations have endeavoured to address this issue through performance-based reward schemes involving some form of appraisal that may lead across a new salary threshold. An example of such an approach is in the United Kingdom (England and Wales), with the release of the policy on new teaching careers in 1998 (see box 2.10). The Government’s rationale was clearly set out in its Green Paper: a recognition that the present pay and reward structure reflected a different era, and the need for “a new vision of a profession which offers better rewards and support in return for higher standards” (DfEE, 1998b).
There has been little support among the profession for this performance-based scheme. There is a consensus about the need for a stronger and more adequately remunerated profession but a parting of the ways when it comes to making the connection between rewards for staff and gains in student achievement (“higher standards”), which are subject to many complex factors – individual, home and school.
Another concept which has grown out of employee-participation programmes employed in the private sector is productivity-based “gain-sharing”. In gain-sharing, plans are established to measure labour productivity, and then increases in productivity in the whole company are connected to financial rewards. The intention is to foster creativity, problem-solving and teamwork as an incentive for employees to improve productivity. Achievement of goals is to some extent in the hands of the employees themselves. This form of worker participation is judged to be particularly relevant to the knowledge era where workers have the capacity to contribute and invest capital, in the form of knowledge, and reap the benefits. Information technology companies such as Microsoft, for example, provide employees with financial incentives in the form of stock options to retain their intellectual assets (Stewart, 1999). Gain-sharing has rarely been contemplated for educational personnel, but may not be inconsistent with core values in the profession.
New compensation arrangements for knowledge workers propose that job-based pay, experience-based pay, and individual merit and incentive pay should be replaced by skill- or competence-based pay, pay for knowledge or professional expertise, collective rewards for adding value to performance, gain-sharing, and team-based performance awards. There is a notion of aligning compensation as an organizational incentive with the strategic needs of the workplace (Odden and Kelley, 1997).
It is predicted that an approach along these lines will be adopted for many of the concepts for change outlined earlier in this report: transforming teaching into a much stronger profession; new understanding of what constitutes good teaching; actions by teachers to describe and assess what beginning and advanced teachers know and can do; and creation of incentives for teachers to learn these new teaching practices. The standards-based education reform movement, in which teachers play, or should play, a leading role, is identifying curriculum content and student performance standards that require a higher level of professional competence to implement. Moreover, these reforms include notions of school restructuring and site-based management, both of which demand that teachers play new and key roles in organizing and managing their work environments and require additional competencies for them to do so – as well as incentives for teachers to develop these competencies.
Looking at the emergence of new schemes for compensation across many workplaces, Odden and Kelley (1997) suggest that these could now apply to teachers; in fact these are already under way in several school districts in the United States. They have also been considered by the United Kingdom as part of the new career structure. A design framework for teacher compensation is proposed in box 3.1.
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Box 3.1.
Based on new compensation arrangements which are beginning to operate in some school districts, a new framework for compensation in education could be based around five key principles, each of which has multiple elements. 1. Process principles (ten elements): involvement of all key parties; broad agreement on the most valued education results; comprehensive evaluation systems; adequate funding; investments in ongoing professional development; no quotas; general conditions of work; management maturity; labour maturity; and persistence. 2. General technical design principles (three elements): fairness; comprehensibility; and incentive-behaviour compatibility. 3. Competency-based pay principles (two elements): clear, specific and measurable skill blocks; and an objective, sound and credible assessment system to determine skill attainment. 4. Contingency-based pay principles (two elements): identification of tasks critical to a system’s top education goals and its reform efforts; and selection of one or two tasks that both teachers and the district can readily implement. 5. Performance award principles (seven elements): provide awards only for a group (probably a whole school), not on an individual basis; be very clear about what performance is most valued; base the performance standards for each school on improvements over some historic base; provide an integrated and protected funding pool; provide awards that are valued by teachers; if the award is a salary award, provide it as a bonus, not as an addition to base pay; and provide teachers with professional control over the work environment. Source: Odden and Kelley, 1997. |
These principles may be applied across an entire nation or school system or individual school, indeed, any workplace for educational personnel. While there is ample opportunity for individual participation in this approach to gain-sharing, it is more likely that professional educators and other staff will have direct involvement through a collective bargaining or other “representational” basis, an issue explored in more detail in Chapter 4. For instance, joint union-management salary boards to oversee and make proposals for adjustments based on identified skill needs have been proposed in the framework of some performance-based systems (Kerchner, Koppich and Weeres, 1997).
In addition to their changing roles, the work of principals is affected by several variables: traditional obligations of principals or head teachers in relation to teaching duties; the size of schools and the teaching staff; and the composition of the student body. The ILO previously noted no significant change in the statutory or average hours of work expected of principals, which almost universally stood at 40 hours per week in 1994 (the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom alone among reporting countries indicated higher average hours). Nevertheless, considerable additional time devoted to a variety of “extra-curricular” activities in some countries often failed to be included in workload considerations (ILO, 1996a). Recent estimates from the United States put the typical primary and lower-secondary principals’ average workload at nine hours/day and 54hours/week (Olson, 1999). Increasingly diversified roles are likely to reinforce this aspect of principals’ work.
There is little evidence to indicate that overall patterns of work previously noted by the ILO (1996a) shifted at the end of the decade. With few exceptions, teachers were not being asked to work more hours, at least in terms of statutory or administrative requirements. Yet, the intensification of drives for more quality in response to centrally established standards and the expressed desire for quantitative measurement of higher student performance outcomes does appear to be impacting on the distribution of hours, as well as putting greater pressure on teachers to perform some teaching, and many non-teaching duties, outside the core contact time. Teaching and overall working hours in the Czech Republic have not changed appreciably in recent years, but a recent conflict there (box 3.2) highlighted the sensitivities that can arise in a transition to a different type of teaching.
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Box 3.2.
After some years of study, a job content analysis, and changes in other parts of the relevant legislation, the Government of the Czech Republic came to the conclusion in 1997 that reductions in non-teaching duties since the change of the political system in the early 1990s had opened up possibilities for an increase in teaching hours. It published a decree which had the effect of increasing teaching contact hours for pre-primary, primary and secondary teachers, without in principle augmenting total hours of work. School heads were expected to distribute the new hourly working arrangements as a function of greater school autonomy. The main teachers’ union, the CMOS PS, objected to the ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts (CEART) that overall hours would increase when account was taken of the other teaching-related and non-teaching duties, particularly as the complexity of teachers’ work had increased in the transition to a new social and educational system. New curricula, technologies, teaching methodologies, the impact of media, growing youth aggressiveness and widening social differences among pupils had dramatically augmented the need for more planning and consultation among teachers in a framework of more school autonomy. Increasing workloads without compensating resources (ancillary staff for example) would impact directly on the new approaches such as small group teaching, on the professional satisfaction of teachers and consequently on quality of teaching. Reviewing the available evidence, including international comparisons of working hours, the CEART applauded the Government’s desire to refocus more hours on the core function of teaching, but warned of the potential consequences of an increased workload on teachers’ job performance, recruitment, the work of school heads, and student performance, especially at a time of transition to a different educational model. Recommendations were made to associate more closely the teachers’ union with the plan’s implementation and school reorganization. As a result of negotiations with the teachers’ union, in June 1999 the Government rescinded the decree. Sources: CEART, 1999; and letter from the CMOS PS, 1999. |
There is considerable evidence that certain structural adjustment policies have significantly contributed to a decline in the teaching and learning environment (ILO,1996b), even if not always intended. This is evidenced by teacher absenteeism due to second and third jobs, more intensive workloads from higher class sizes or double job-holding; and reductions in teaching materials. Some researchers, however, continue to argue that maintaining higher pupil/teacher ratios and lowering what are considered relatively high teachers’ salaries in least developed countries represent sounder policy choices because they permit more extensive educational access of a country’s population. Based on international achievement test scores, lowered pupil/teacher ratios reportedly have little if any impact on student achievement according to these arguments (Mingat and Tan, 1998). These policy recommendations continue to exercise a hold on some governments as evidenced by government policy documents. For example, Ethiopia’s Education Sector Development Programme 1997-2002 calls for increasing efficiency by the more effective utilization of teachers, with an average student/teacher ratio of 50:1, and extensive use of a multiple-shift system (IBE, 1999).
As pointed out in the last ILO survey (1996a), the debate over appropriate class sizes[8] in relation to learning outcomes is far from being settled. Research in high-income countries during the last decade has pointed out weaknesses in focusing exclusively on class sizes without changes in teaching methods and classroom organization (for instance, OFSTED, 1995). At the same time, it has moved towards a consensus that the effects of smaller classes are the most significant in early childhood and initial primary education, and has begun to influence educational authorities to place restrictions on class sizes at these levels. Finland (first three grades) and France restrict primary classes to 25 or less, while the United Kingdom (England and Wales) policy is to reduce all infant classes to a maximum of 30 by 2001. Undercutting what is too often a mechanical analysis of class size or teacher/pupil ratios in relation to learning outcomes based on standardized testing, certain research in the United States shows that teachers of small classes spend more time on instruction and use more alternative instructional approaches, are more innovative, plan course work, evaluate students more frequently and manage classes better (box 3.3).
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Box 3.3.
An extensive 1999 review of research over time on class size reduction in the United States revealed the following:
The review supported the findings of the major class size study which sparked much debate in the 1970s (Glass and Smith, reported in ILO, 1981) that below certain thresholds and in different circumstances, class size makes a difference in teaching and learning. Source: Bracey, 1999. |
As Chapters 1 and 2 suggest, key issues in constructing lifelong learning systems include more innovative teaching and learning environments. The research pointing to smaller classes and policies that build on it by reducing class size at the earliest stages of formal learning appear to recognize the value of teaching/learning situations favouring a maximum of interaction between teachers and students to ensure that the foundations are laid properly. A key policy question for the future is the extent to which such learning environments can and should be extended to other levels of education to facilitate the various changes in educators’ roles considered desirable in Chapter 2 of this report. That there are cost considerations in terms of the number of teachers required to implement substantially smaller classes at national level is clear; that there are overriding instructional considerations which would justify this investment remains to be confirmed.
Research and informed policy on class size issues in developing countries have often been more mixed, in part because very little research has focused on the qualitative aspects of classroom learning as opposed to test outcomes, and in part because the overwhelming pressures of large class sizes of 40, 50, 60 or more in many countries tend to render such considerations academic. Information from selected countries suggests that no conscious effort is being made to encourage smaller classes even in the early years of schooling (table 3.1). Average class sizes remain large – above 40 or 50 in primary and secondary schools – in virtually all low-income and some middle-income countries. Pre-primary class sizes are smaller, but may also reflect the largely private nature of early childhood education in most developing countries. In half of 14 LDC African and Asian countries surveyed in the mid-1990s, there were more than 55 pupils in the first grade (in Equatorial Guinea, 110). The national averages reflect in part the vicious circle in this equation: by grade 5 or the end of primary school in many countries, averages are down to around 40 because of the tremendously high drop-out rate in the first four grades (EFA, 1996).
In all cases, it is significant to note that official pupil/teacher ratios are frequently several digits lower than the average class size, masking the real learning environment. Nor do the statistics on average class sizes reveal the imbalances, often tremendous, between lower-populated rural areas and the highly populated urban centres in the developing and least-developed countries. For example, Ethiopia reports that primary class sizes range from as low as 15 in some rural areas to over 80 in the urban areas. In the Sudan, some secondary classes have over 70 students. Sometimes gaps between official pupil/teacher ratios and class size mask differences of another kind (box 3.4).
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Box 3.4.
International observers have remarked on the large discrepancies between pupil/teacher ratios (p/t) and class sizes in secondary schools (some estimates put the first average at 13, whereas classes not untypically have 50 students). The World Bank has contended, presumably on the basis of the low p/t ratios, that Chinese teachers have an inefficient teaching load, but the priority in these schools appears to be put on collaborative teaching preparation during school hours (implying teacher absences and coverage by colleagues), largely through teaching and research groups (jiaoyanzu) organized to discuss course schedules, teaching materials, pedagogy and subject knowledge. On the other hand, emphasis on exam preparation and the effect of large classes leads to the predominance of a formal mode of teaching. Yet, student outcomes appear to sustain the factor of collaborative work as an important element of success in China, as in other Asian countries, when combined with other factors. Source: Bush, Coleman and Si Xiaohong, 1998. |
One of the indispensable considerations for changes in the parameters of teachers’ work, be it in the form of large or larger class sizes, hours of work, or changes in work organization, is the extent to which change or an undesired but inevitable status quo can be managed with proper support from above and below. Such support in the form of professional development programmes discussed earlier in the text, and management leadership at school or central level which takes account of the realities of classroom life, and especially school reform, can profoundly alter the outcomes in a negative or positive direction. The same holds true for support provided from below in the form of ancillary staff or external volunteers to assist teachers’ work and reduce the stresses of teaching which can produce negative learning environments and outcomes.
Table 3.1. Average class size in selected countries, 1997-98, unless otherwise indicated
Country group Pre-primary Primary Secondary
Low-income Africa Egypt 36 44 40 Ethiopia (1995-96) 40 50 (grades 1-4)
- Kenya (1995-96) 25-30 40 40 Mozambique (1995-96) - 50 40-46 Sudan 20-30 46 57 Tanzania, United Rep. of 25 45 - Zambia - 37 (1994) 48 (1995) Middle-income Africa Mauritius (1995-96) 33 33 Middle-income Arab States Jordan 24 30 - Low-income Asia Viet Nam 27 32 42 Middle-income Asia Malaysia - 33 (1996) 35 (1996) Philippines (1994-95) - 40 49 Middle-income Americas Dominican Republic (1995-96) 35 50 40 Paraguay (1993-94) 24 22 32 Source: IBE, 1999.
Findings recently reported from one state in Mexico (Guadelajara) provide an interesting glimpse of the extent to which processes of unsupported change may negatively affect cooperation for teaching and learning purposes between teachers, parents and students (box 3.5).
Box 3.5.
A case-study based on field research in two schools of Guadelajara, Mexico, both in the same neighbourhood, examined the outcomes of the devolution of administrative authority at a time of substantial fiscal constraints, leading to considerable workplace pressures on teachers: new pedagogical practices for which they were unprepared; curricula overload; and little professional support. As part of their coping mechanisms, teachers reportedly developed practices of assigning useless or pre-packaged material to cover for their inability to meet the curricula, found ways to be absent from classes, and “offloaded” some new responsibilities in the form of homework onto parents, themselves often not prepared to meet this task because of difficult socio-economic circumstances. Authoritarian decisions related to pupils’ assessment and promotion masqueraded as defence of professional autonomy, but were judged to be the only way that teachers could manage their responsibilities. The net result was a climate of suspicion and recrimination which reduced pupils’ chances of educational success. Source: Martin, 1998. One prominent casualty of such an environment is almost certainly a weakening of a positive and mutually supporting classroom environment, cooperative group learning, and possibilities for thought-provoking teacher-student exchanges. These are some of the key elements considered essential for good teaching and the motivation of students to develop skills and a propensity for learning throughout life, as noted above (Brophy, 1998). Surprisingly, the accumulated difficulties of being a teacher in many developing countries, particularly the LDCs, does not lead to wholesale departures in all. This may be a reflection of limited labour market possibilities, particularly in rural areas, though, as noted elsewhere, there is a high incidence of younger teachers which may translate into early departures from teaching. An equally serious obstacle to quality education is frequent teacher absenteeism – 10 per cent of teachers were absent two or more days a week for various reasons in seven of 14 LDCs in the mid-1990s, with the figure rising to more than a third in the United Republic of Tanzania (EFA, 1996). Teacher management experts tend to view this as a serious problem of teacher ethics. However, the largest contributing factors are unpaid salaries, and the relatively underdeveloped social security and leave systems which create difficulties for teacher professionalism in these more restrictive working environments. Bearing in mind the dimensions of educational work outlined above, and the expectations of alterations in roles and responsibilities of many educational personnel in the future, it seems inevitable that consideration will need to be given to several factors which condition schooling and learning at present. One is the daily, weekly, and yearly rhythm of school and teachers’ working hours. Can they be made more flexible, and if so, how? Second, the possibility of transforming schools into permanently available learning centres needs greater reflection. Third, a safe and healthy learning environment has to be assured. The present arrangement – whereby in high-income countries at least, schools are open for teaching and learning four or five days a week during fixed hours – fits industrial societies organized around a core number of hours of work in a day. This method of organizing schools does not have to continue indefinitely in societies where knowledge generation, information processing and distribution via communications technology reduce the “9 to 5” workday. Different methods of organizing a school year have been put forward based on local authority collective bargaining agreements and school-based “compacts” (see Chapter 4) which would establish minimal instruction time and the days schools would be expected to be in session. Individual schools would then be free to modify the calendar by increasing the number of school days and establishing their hours of operation (Kerchner, Koppich, and Weeres, 1997). Such arrangements would, of course, need to take account of the constraints imposed by current working day patterns; but, as work organization becomes more flexible, such opportunities would increase. They could also be enhanced by more flexible working time arrangements for teachers and other educational personnel. The increases in voluntary part-time work in many developed countries at least, and provisions for job-sharing in some, and the facility with which information technology can aid off-site teaching, research and evaluation of students’ work, represent an amalgam of crucial building blocks for a greater responsiveness of institutions to learners’ needs. Similarly in developing countries, the growth of non-formal educational opportunities in both rural and urban areas contain important lessons for reorganizing formal education to incorporate large numbers of young and adult students who have difficult access at present. To further encourage the broadest possible access by learners, more effort is going into redesigning schools and the way that they are used to maximize use of important capital investments, as well as to integrate a range of educational and other services. Physical design or renovation is important – but so is the framework of governance for community educational institutions and the management of shared resources. Here again, information technology will play an important, perhaps decisive, role in permitting different ways of utilizing and redesigning existing infrastructure to accompany the new learning demands, and the way that educators carry out their work. The notion of locally based partnerships to manage this transition also comes to the fore in such reflections (OECD, 1998e). Similar concepts pervade in the spread of community-based schools, especially those that are clustered to pool resources and learning opportunities. Dykstra and Kucita (1998) describe how cluster resource centres in Cambodia have been transformed at marginal cost into sites for a range of short courses for community members, lending libraries, and teacher resource centres, an idea explored in Chapter 2. An issue which is increasingly on the agenda of educational authorities, teachers and school managers is that of violence at school. ILO research (Chappell and di Martino, 1998) has suggested that teachers are among those who run the highest risk of experiencing violence at work. This must also be seen in light of well-documented research on stress and burn-out of teachers; indeed, Cox and Griffiths (1995) have estimated that some 25-33 per cent of teachers in high-income countries feel their work is highly stressful. The consequences for the school environment include increased absenteeism and turnover of staff, but also lowered performance and negative attitudes towards students. Conversely, the health of the school as an organization can moderate stress effects on teachers’ health and work behaviour. Innovative, forward-looking learning systems will need to ensure a safe and healthy teaching and learning environment if they are to reap maximum benefits from new methods of operation. Most suggestions for controlling both the incidence of violence and reducing stress rely on a multi-prong policy response with both organizational and individual responsibility to design a workplace which is as free as possible from these negative effects. Changes in school organization to emphasize small schools or smaller “schools within schools” may both encourage better learning and possibly reduce alienation and violence. Many of the ideas and practices in line with new school organization presented in this report could as well impact positively on the issue of safety and health in schools, and benefit in return from the more secure and open learning environment that ensues.
[7] In this report, the term is used to refer variously to New Information Technology (NIT) or New Information and Communications Technology (NICT) which might be employed in educational settings. [8] The measurement of class size – the number of pupils on average or legally permitted in a class taught by one teacher – as used in this report is distinct from pupil/teacher ratios – a statistical indicator of all students divided by persons engaged in teaching, part-time, temporary and full-time in the population under study, i.e. by school district, region or country. The two are often used interchangeably, even though they produce different outcomes in terms of teachers’ work, and the learning environment in the classroom. For more details see ILO, 1981, 1991, 1996a.
40 (grades 5-8)
Educational “efficiency” and teaching/learning in schools of Guadelajara, MexicoOrganization of learning sites:
Hours, infrastructure and healthFlexible timetabling
School sites: Broadening access
A safe and healthy working environment
Updated by BR. Approved by OdVR. Last update:
28 September 2000.
