The quality of teacher educators in the European policy debate

Actions and measures to improve professionalism of teacher educators

Marco Snoek, Hogeschool van Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Anja Swennen, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Marcel van der Klink, Celstec, Open University of the Netherlands, The Netherlands

Abstract

Recent studies identified the teacheras the most important factor influencing the quality of education. It is then likelyto assume that the teacher educator isthemost important factor influencing the quality of teacher education.This paper examines howthe contemporary European policy debate addresses the quality and status ofteacher educators. Using a classification framework based on literature on professions and professionalism,seven European policy documents are analysed and national policy actions and measures in 16 European countries are compared.

The findings show that the policy documents have limitedattention for teacher educators and their professionalism. On the level of individual member statesthe professionalism of teacher educators receives more policy attention. These policies mostly are part of general policies for higher education teachers while the initiative lies with governments and teacher education institutes. The role of the professionals themselves in developing their profession seems very limited.

Keywords: Teacher educator, teacher policy, European policy, professionalism

Introduction

Teachers are considered the most important in-school impact factor on the quality of student achievement. In the McKinsey report How the world’s best-performing schoolsystems come out on topthis is stated clearly: ‘The available evidence suggests that the main driver of the variation in student learning at school is the quality of the teachers’(Barber and Mourshed 2007, 12). Based on large scale research Hattie(2009) suggests that the quality of teachers has a larger impact on the learning of pupils than the quality of the curriculum, the teaching methods, the school building or the role of parents. As a result of the widely acknowledged importance of teachers much attention is given to policies with respect to teacher quality, both on a national and the European level. The EuropeanCouncil and the European Commissionhave publishedpolicy documents and recommendations for quality improvement of teachers and teacher education and stimulate national governments to invest in the improvement of teacher quality(Commission 2005, 2007;European Council 2007, 2009). These governing bodies also stimulate processes of peer learning and the exchange of policies and practices across Europe(see for example Snoek, Uzerli and Schratz 2008).

When the general consensus is that teachers are the most important in-school factor influencing the quality of their pupils’ learning, it seems appropriate to assume that teacher educators are an important factor influencing the quality of the learning of student teachers.The issue of the quality of the teacher educator then becomes an issue of paramount importance. So, given the European attention for the quality of teachers and teacher education, one would expect attention for the quality and professionalism of the teacher educators within the European policy debate.

In this paper we discuss to what extentEuropean policy documents and national policies indeed identify the quality of teacher educators as a topic of policy concern. To be such a topic of concern, it is essential that teacher educators are recognized as a specialized professional group within education.The emergence of the teacher educator profession as such a specializedprofessional group is reflected in the establishment of national and international associations, like the American Association of Teacher Education (ATE), the Association of Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE) and the Dutch Association of Teacher Educators (VELON). These professional associations, each with their own journals, can be regarded as an indication that teacher educators see themselves as a specialized professional group with a specialized professional knowledge base. In this paper therefore we address the quality of teacher educators in the policy debate from the perspective of the concept of ‘professionalism of teacher educators’, leading tothe following research question: ‘To what extend is the professionalism of teacher educators a topic of concern within education policies in Europe?’

In the next section we elaborate on the notion of professionalism and measures and actions to enhance professionalism. We than describe the used methodology of this explorative study and outline the development of the instruments. The findings will be presented, followed by the conclusions and recommendations for further research and a discussion of the methodology and the findings.

Professionalism of teachers and teacher educators

Although the English word ‘profession’ may refer to occupations in general the word was originally used for high status occupations, like medicine, law or architecture. The members of these prestigious professions and their patients and clients as well, attach certain, positive, characteristics to these professions. In the classical view on professionsfive main features can be identified:

  • Monopoly of the members of the profession and control over their own work. (see e.g. Freidson 2001);
  • A prominent role of the profession regarding the entry requirements, further professional development of the individual members and judgment and exclusion of the members who do not keep to the professional standards and ethical code;
  • An ethical code to serve as a guideline for good conduct of the members of the profession and to win the trust of the public and public bodies (often governments) (Evetts 2006);
  • Academic knowledge (Abbott 1988), formal knowledge or technical knowledge (Goodson and Hargreaves 1996);
  • The freedom of establishment, so members do not have a job contract but are independent and self employed.

It goes without saying that teaching and teacher education have never been regarded as true, classical professions. Teaching, like nursing, social work and librarianship, was called a semi-profession (Etzioni 1969) or sub-profession (Marcus 1975). Members of semi-professions are less autonomous than those of the true professions and they work within organisations and institutes, like schools, hospitals and libraries that are characterised by bureaucracy and hierarchy. The autonomy of teachers and schools is furthermore limited by the influence of governments that are involved in decisions on the content of the curriculum and the pedagogy of the teachers (see Snoek andŽogla 2009; Whitty, 2008). Also the academic levels of the teaching and teacher education professionsare limited. Within Europe the there are different requirements for teacher educators(see Snoek andŽogla 2009; Murray, Swennen,and Shagrir 2009), but it is still relatively rare for teachereducators, in particular those working with pre-schooland primary school teacher education,to be research trained and/or to have carried out post-graduate studies(Erixon, Frånberg,and Kallós 2001).

Over the last decades the term ‘new professionalism’ has been broadly used to refer to the work of members of various occupations that can not be regarded as classical professions, such as teachers,social workers and civil servants (Eraut 1994; Evans 2008; Goodson and Hargreaves 1996). Although the meaning of the concept ‘new professionalism’ is somewhat blurred and varies from author to author and context to context, there are some general characteristics.Several authors mention the strong emphasis on output requirements initiated by the government and not by the professionals themselves. This is certainly the case for teaching and teacher education in which national governments enforce change and innovations by laws and accreditation procedures of schools and higher education institutions (Eraut 1994; Evans 2008). In connection to the notion of accountability assessments of professional performancehas entered many occupations to gain detailed insights into the contribution of professional activities to achieve the intended outcomes There is now more pressure on teachers to focus on established goals and aims, test children and monitor learning more closely (Hattie 2009).

Authors on new professionalism also stress the importance of a professional knowledge base, which needs not only be formal and academic like in the classical professions but can also be the result of experience and reflection. This implies the implementation of standards describing competences and qualifications of beginners and expert members of professions(Eraut 1994). The concept of new professionalism does also emphasizethe improvement and innovation of work and the continuous renewal of concepts, methods and tools (Evans 2008). Professionalism gives way to new forms of relationships and collaboration with colleagues and stakeholders moving away from the traditional professional authority and autonomy (Hargreaves 1994; Whitty 2008) and to increased attention (and resources) for professional development and lifelong learning of professionals throughout their careers.

Methodology

To answer the initial research question ‘To what extend is the professionalism of teacher educators a topic of concern within education policies in Europe?’ a distinction was made between national policies and European policies. As nation policies include guidelines and regulations, the research question can be reformulated in ‘What issues of professionalism of teacher educators are addressed in policies at the level of individual member states’. On the European level, policy documents do not have a legislative status but are formulated in terms of recommendations, so the research question needs to be reformulated in ‘What measures and actions on professionalism of teacher educators are proposed in policies on the European level?’.

This has lead to a two stage approach, where on the one hand representatives from national governments were asked about existing national policies that focus on the professionalism of teacher educators, while on the other hand relevant European policy documentswere analyzed to identify which issues of professionalism of teacher educators were addressed.

Actions and measuresto increase the professionalism of teacher educators

For both approaches, a framework is needed to analyse national and European policies. Based on our analysis of the characteristics of classical and new professionalism we identified possible actions and measures that can support policies to strengthen the professionalismof teacher educators (see Figure 1). The first five issues are indicators of the extend in which the professionalism of teacher educators is put on the policy agenda.The other issues refer to the characteristics of classical professions and new professionalism as mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Figure 1: Overview of actions and measures to support professionalism of teacher educators

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Analysis of policy documents

The analysis of European policy documents has been conducted to search for elements referring to the profession ofteacher educatorsand for actions and measures to improve teacher educators’ professionalism. The study was restricted to seven European policy documents that were considered as influential in the contemporary debate on teaching and teacher education:

  • Teachers Matters (OECD 2005). This OECD publication addresses issues that are essential in attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers.
  • Common European Principles for Teacher Competences and Qualifications (European Commission 2005)
  • Improving the Quality of Teacher Education (European Commission 2007).
  • The Council Conclusions (European Council2007) which summarises the main findings of some previous documents and formulates directions and conclusions for the further development of teacher education in Europe.
  • The Quality of Teachers (ATEE 2006). In this policy paper the Association of Teacher Education in Europe contributes to the debate on teacher standards through seven recommendations on the identification of indicators for teacher quality.
  • Teacher Education in Europe (ETUCE 2008). Policy paper on teacher education from the European Trade Union Committee for Education.
  • Council Conclusion on the Professional Development of Teachers and School Leaders (European Council 2009).

The procedure for the analysis consisted of a search within the document using teacher educator(s) as search terms. Fragments that contained these search terms were examined and re-examined by the authors. For this purpose Figure 1 was translated to a classification scheme to assist the researchers in sorting the text fragments. The outcomes of this analysis have also been reported in the proceedings of the TEPE 2009 conference (Snoek, Swennen, and van der Klink 2010).

Questionnaire among national representatives

To gain more insights in measures and actions on the level of individual member states within the European Union, a questionnaire has been administered among representatives of different member states. Respondents were members of the Cluster Teachers and Trainers of the European Commission. This Cluster is establishedwithin the context of the EU Education & Training 2010 programme (and its follow-up Education & Training 2020) to exchange policy developments on national levelsin the area of teacher policy and teacher education. Member states that participate in the cluster have one representative from their ministry of education in the Cluster. The members of this Cluster have insight in the various developments concerning teachers and teacher educators within their own member state and are experts in educational policy matters. The respondentsof two countries were notCluster members. The English respondent was a policy and liaison officer of the Universities’ Councilfor the Education of Teachers (UCET).In Sweden, the respondentwas a senior policy adviser from the University of Uppsala (and secretary of a former parliamentary committee on teacher education).

The questionnaire was divided into the four sections of the classification scheme of Figure 1. The items in these four sections corresponded closely with the 16 actions and measures of the classification scheme. Some items had ‘yes’ and ‘no’ as answering categories (for example the item: “In my country the quality of teacher educators is a topic of research”), while other items invited respondents to tick the stakeholders that were involved in that particular action/measure. For example the item “In my country concern is expressed about the quality of teacher educators by…” asked respondents to select one or more of the following stakeholders: government, (heads of) teacher education institutions, individual teacher educators, teacher unions, teacher agencies, higher education agencies, teacher (educator) associations. After ticking the appropriate stakeholders, respondents were invited to clarify their answers by providing additional information on that particular action or measure. Respondents received the questionnaire by e-mail prior to a regular cluster meeting and during the meeting they were informed about backgrounds and motives. All respondents received a reminder six weeks after the questionnaire was administered.Twenty three questionnaires were send out.The responses covered 16 different members states:Austria (Au), Cyprus (Cy), England (En), Estonia (Es), Finland (Fi), Flanders (Fl), Germany (Ge), Hungary (Hu), Iceland (Ic), Ireland (Ir), Italy (It), The Netherlands (Nl), Norway (No), Romania (Ro), Sweden (Sw) and Turkey (Tu).

Findings of the analysis of European policy documents

With exception of the ‘Common European Principles for Teacher Competences and Qualifications’, each of documents refer to the quality of teacher educators. However, the main focusof these documents is on the quality of teachers while the quality of teacher educators is marginally mentioned. Only the ETUCE document shows considerable attention to teacher educators by dedicating a separate chapter to teacher educators. Several documents (ETUCE, OECD and European Council 2009) clearly express concerns regarding teacher educators’ professionalism. Especially the arguments in the ETUCE policy paper demonstrate that European Trade Unions experience a strong need to improve the quality of teacher educators across Europe. The ETUCEpolicy paper and the recent conclusions of the European Council are the only documents that clearly suggest actions related to the entry into the teacher educator profession:

Teacher educators should be able to provide student-centred education in close cooperation with othercolleagues. As outlined in the previous chapter, the ETUCE emphasises that all teachersshould beeducated to Master’s level in higher education and, ofcourse, teacher educators must have the qualifications required tobe able to teach at that level (ETUCE 2008, 34).

Though not clearly expressed, the ETUCE policy paper suggests that if teachers need a Master degreethenteacher educators need to possess a doctoral degree in order to be equipped for teaching atmaster’s level. The Council (2009) emphasizes that teacher educators should themselves have attained a high academic standard as well as possess solid practical teaching experience. Furthermore, the Council invites the European Commission to prepare a study on the existing arrangements in Member States for selecting, recruiting andtraining teacher educators (European Commission 2009, 12).

The ETUCE policy paper is the only document that clearly addresses the theme of the further professional development of teacher educators:

In order to meet the demands placed on the profession, all teacher educators - including mentors at schools - should be given the opportunity to undertake proper lifelong learning of their own. Ongoing professional development is a must. Both time and financing should be made available. Agreements should be reached to allow sabbatical years for professional development. This must include provision for qualified replacement staff (ETUCE 2008, 36).

Actions for career and mobility are expressed in three documents:the ETUCE policy paper and both documents of the European Councilpublished in 2007 and 2009.Each of thesethree documents focuses on mobility and emphasise the need to broaden mobility from national level toa European scale. The European Council invites the European Commission explicitly to:

Promote and support greater participation by teachers, school leaders and teacher educators in transnational mobility schemes, partnerships and projects established under Community

programmes, in particular the Lifelong Learning Programme.

(Council Conclusions 2009, 12).

Participating in professional networks is regarded as a strong impetus to improve teacher educators’ professionalism. Text fragments on the need for networking were discovered in three documents that all point at the same advantages of networking (European Commission, 2007; ATEE and ETUCE). This is illustrated by a fragment from the report of the Commission ‘Improving the quality of teacher education’:

Links between teacher educators, practicing teachers, the world of work and otheragencies need to be strengthened. Higher Education institutions have an importantrole to play in developing effective partnerships with schools and other stakeholdersto ensure that their Teacher Education courses are based upon solid evidence andgood classroom practice (European Commission 2007, 15).