Teacher Training at Otago

The TEU have drawn attention to Otago University’s plans to cut the number of teacher educators. This move isn’t necessarily because they don’t like teacher educators. I think it’s to do with the fact that the research that is relevant for teacher educators isn’t considered to be “real research” by the government that attracts PBRF funding. So, when it comes to wire over funding, the departments that don’t generate as much PBRF government income are the first to be targeted for budget cuts. I suspect if teacher colleges knew this sort of thing was going to happen they would have held out against the trend of becoming part of universities for a lot longer.

I recall (earlier post here) that the Education faculty at the University of Canterbury was at risk of being ”fined”  if they did not attract enought PBRF funding for the university.

UPDATE: Have altered the wording of this post slightly, to reflect that it is government policy that decides which research counts towards PBRF.

Tolley’s Proposal to Fast Track Masters Graduates

I think Tolley’s proposal does have some merit. There will be some lobbying to retain the status quo, and some of that is part of the desire to see teaching as a credentialled profession with status, like law or medicine. Such lobbying has been very successful in the ECE sector. But that’s another story. Some opposition to this will be only because of that.

The reality is, when you go out on practicum – there will be plenty of associate teachers (your mentors) who will tell you “what they tell you at teacher’s college is rubbish”. There is universal agreement that the practical teaching stints are the most useful parts of the course. When you are on teaching practice as a trainee (or “student teacher” or whatever you like to call it) you are expected to be, and act like a real teacher. The only real difference between a trainee teacher and real teacher is being present for only 5-7 weeks, a smaller workload, having an associate or mentor whose class you take on to assist you, having a network of support back at college to draw on if required and you don’t get paid. Teaching is something you learn, indeed, “on the job”.

Even once you’ve got the certificate, your first two years are probationary while you gain full registration as a teacher. Workload is reduced, to allow you to do things like build up resources and develop a portfolio that shows that you’re competent to show to the likes of ERO and the Teachers’ Council (registering board).

I believe the intent of Tolley’s proposal is to recognise this reality. Some say that what makes teaching different from other professions is that there is more reliance on natural ability. You would be right in thinking that just taking people off the street would be a duffer thing to do. Being able to take a complex subject, tailor it to your (often unwilling, unmotivated audience, unlike university lectures students are not allowed to vote with their feet) audience and break it down so that they can understand it. This is part of pedagogy, a word which all teachers hate. Why? It’s like the word random for statisticians, everyone has a vague idea of what is but in reality has no idea what it truly means.

As the teacher, you’re the one who has to motivate them. You have to get them into a teachable state. You provide the feedback and feedforward. You have to break stuff down and chunk it, scaffold, cajole, manage (what everyone else would call discipline), present, evaluate, prepare, mark for multiple people in multiple classes.

I imagine that Tolley’s proposal would simple maximise this training in the process by fast-tracking people into the teaching practicum where you are forced into learning the bread and butter tools very quickly.

Why fast-tracking? It is likely masters degree graduates already have jobs that have decent pay and conditions. It is one thing to make a salary sacrifice to change career. Having to do a year of training and forgo a year of income, and make a salary sacrifice is unpalateable for many would be career changers into teaching. A teaching course would be about 30 odd weeks, and you pay around $5000 for fees, living costs not included. This compares to say, police college where they pay you while you train for 19 weeks on a wage equivalent to $34272 per annum. There have been career changer allowances paid in the past for shortage subjects, but I am unsure of their status at the current time.

And why choose masters degree graduates? Because there is a perception that prospective kiwi teachers don’t need to be “high calibre” to get into teachers’ college. In New Zealand the entry standard doesn’t require highly competitive cutoffs, like say law, and it has been said that people who enter the diploma come from the bottom third of graduates, where as in Singapore and Taiwan they come from the top third of graduates. In New Zealand there are some who think that anyone can get into teachers’ college, and from personal experience I know that it isn’t always true. So this is a step to see higher academic credentials counting for more, which counteracts things in some ways.

PBRF stick at UC

From what I can gather, every staff member hates the Performance Based Research Fund. The PBRF is a contestable government fund. The more researchers of certain qualities at an institution, the more funding it gets. I think it is yet another example of Goodhart’s Law. The University of Canterbury is now instituting a $40000 fine for colleges not having enough recognised researchers under this scheme. I do wonder how this will affect the recently merged college of Education, given that its primary function is teacher education and not research.

The PBRF is a bit of an anomoly. One of the reasons why the funding model was shifted away from bums on seats was because the universities and other tertiary institutions would spend a lot of money on recruitment to compete for students. The PBRF has the same thing going on, but researchers on seats instead.