Time to put the record straight on Scotland’s teacher education

Parliament’s debate on teacher education revealed misunderstandings of the system
30th June 2017, 12:00am
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Time to put the record straight on Scotland’s teacher education

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archived/time-put-record-straight-scotlands-teacher-education

Last month’s high-profile inquiry of the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee into teacher workforce planning is another welcome indication of the importance given to educational matters at Holyrood.

Of course, much of the current interest has a distinct political and electoral edge, as opposition parties seek to gain advantage from the government’s difficulties around recent surveys and attainment data. The committee took particular interest in its own survey of student teachers in Scotland and the views expressed by those invited to give evidence in person. Both the committee session and the subsequent debate, however, were marked by considerable inaccuracy, anachronism and misunderstanding. It therefore seems timely to remind politicians, the media and the public about the nature of initial teacher education in Scotland, and to correct some common and widespread misconceptions.

Universities, not colleges

Teacher education courses in Scotland are offered by the university sector. The former colleges of education disappeared more than 25 years ago when they merged with the university sector to become either schools or faculties of education within these larger institutions. To hear politicians refer to “colleges” and read newspaper headlines in the same vein is dispiriting and irritating, particularly when the associated comment is critical. Informed opinion is always welcome but its ill-informed relative is, surely, better suited to the wilder reaches of social media rather than a parliamentary chamber.

Teacher education, not training

All the Scottish universities involved offer initial teacher education (ITE) degrees and courses. The concept of “teacher training” was abandoned many years ago, although it is a term still used in other jurisdictions, such as England. There are good reasons for this distinction to be made and upheld.

“Training” suggests preparation for routine, repetitive, predictable activity; “education” is much better suited to the professional world of teaching, where practitioners need a far greater depth of knowledge and understanding to be able to cope with, and thrive within, a context marked by complex, unpredictable and value-laden practice and decision-making. Students cannot be “trained” for every potential eventuality they may face. They can, however, be educated to know how to respond to different challenges they may face, where to seek advice and how to think through issues and their implications.

Initial teacher education, not accomplished experts

Even before the Donaldson Report, there was concern in Scotland that teaching should be marked by career-long professional learning if practitioners were to keep pace with societal and technological changes and research advances. The introduction of Professional Update by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) now embeds that concept within professional practice.

Initial teacher education courses, therefore, have never been designed to produce accomplished experts. These are new teachers who have reached the threshold GTCS Standards and who will go on, through the Teacher Induction Scheme, to move from probationer to fully-registered teachers, if successful. It is expected that such beginning teachers, if they have developed as the reflective practitioners desired, will experience some lack of confidence in certain aspects of their practice, and will need the further support and experience which the early years of teaching can afford.

Approved and accredited, not ivory-tower creations

All ITE courses at Scottish universities need to go through a formal approval and validation exercise, and to be accredited by GTCS. The nature, content and design of these courses are subject to very close scrutiny and investigation, and only when they demonstrate the quality expected can they be accredited and students enrolled. Prospective students must meet minimum entry requirements set by GTCS, and the numbers enrolled for the different sectors and subject areas are controlled by Scottish government. Universities are not at liberty, therefore, to set up their own programmes or recruit at will.

Complex professional programmes, not tick-box inputs

These ITE programmes are well-designed, professional courses intended to prepare students to meet the required GTCS standards. In keeping with recent Curriculum for Excellence approaches, many of the key issues are embedded in the programmes as cross-cutting themes, rather than simply as discrete packages. In addition, dependent on individual students’ needs, activity around behaviour management, literacy or numeracy, for example, will vary considerably, particularly as students are supported through placement. While unpicking course content to ascribe hours and minutes to a specific curricular area or educational issue may provide some information, it is very limited and cannot be taken as proxy for the quality measures required for course evaluation.

Working in partnership, not rogue outliers

All Scottish universities work in partnership with local authorities and their teaching staff. This relates not just to school experience placements (30 weeks for undergraduate, 18 weeks for graduate - PGDE - courses), but often to recruitment and selection, where local authority partners and university tutors interview together.

In addition, school experience placements are jointly managed and assessed by trainees’ school colleagues and university tutors. These arrangements are vital to ensure that student performance is subject to rigorous, fair and informed professional evaluation.

Open to improvement, not fixed

All ITE programmes are subject to regular review and re-accreditation by the GTCS and relevant stakeholders. This ensures that courses remain relevant and topical and that adjustments to content and approach are made in the light of developing national policy imperatives. In addition, universities use feedback from the National Student Survey (NSS), staff-student liaison groups, internal module evaluations and local authority partners in order to keep striving to improve the quality of provision.

Certainly, in the light of recent public comment, universities will be reviewing and checking their programmes to ensure the right balance of content and activity is maintained. The recent performance in The Complete University Guide 2018’s league table for education, where Scottish institutions took five of the first eight places in the UK (out of 77), and the high performance of these programmes in the NSS, show that there is no crisis in teacher education in Scotland. The system can do better. But we start from strong foundations - not from weak ground.


Professor Donald Gillies is dean of the School of Education at the University of the West of Scotland

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