Concerns over teacher education changes

The New Zealand Teachers Council yesterday released new regulations for teacher education providers, that Massey University academics say are primarily about increasing the council’s power over poor quality providers.

They say the regulations have failed to address university sector concerns over cost, quality and academic freedom.

In several submissions to the Teachers Council in the last year, the University outlined its support of some of the principles behind the new regulations, and expressed concerns over many others, including their implementation and cost.

The University’s College of Education estimates the new requirements will cost around $1.5 million to implement. This includes the need for additional staffing, added travel costs for college staff to undertake teaching practice visits, and the costs involved with bringing existing teachers onto student selection panels.

Director of Teacher Education Dr Sally Hansen says the University supports many of the requirements identified in the new regulations, and already addresses them, but considers the processes involved to be the business of individual colleges of education and not the Teachers Council.

“The entire consultation process established to form the regulations released yesterday showed a disregard for the independence, expertise and current resources of universities – and for the significant compliance costs that will be incurred,” Dr Hansen says. “How the University chooses to teach is fundamental to the academic freedom and autonomy accorded to universities in current legislation.”

Dr Hansen says requirements set out by the Teachers Council to add teachers to selection panels will add considerable cost for a benefit that has not been identified or demonstrated.

The University already has a rigorous selection process for its teacher education programmes, and last month announced changes that would further tighten entry criteria.

“Currently we involve the teaching profession in many aspects of our initial teacher education programmes, from a range of educational settings, however the forced inclusion of teachers and early childhood workers in the initial selection process will add considerable cost,” she says.

Online and distance delivered programmes must now have a compulsory face-to-face component in each academic year, which Dr Hansen says overlooks the advances that have taken place in the delivery of distance and online education.

“There is no evidence to indicate that the lack of a face-to-face component disadvantages distance students. The proposed requirement also overlooks the fact that distance students have personal teaching and supervision by means of associate teachers in schools during their practicum work.

“The irony is that providers have to demonstrate to the Teachers Council that their programmes are based on research, but it can provide no research to justify its own detailed requirements,” Dr Hansen says.

The University is also questioning the legislative authority of the new regulations, citing the New Zealand Education Act 1989, which guarantees tertiary institutions freedom to determine matters including their teaching, assessment and staffing.

“The act does not provide a legal framework for the Teachers Council to specify admission requirements for students into initial teacher education programmes, to determine class sizes, to determine pedagogical approaches in either face-to-face or distance learning modes, or to specify attributes of staff teaching in programmes,” Dr Hansen says.

“Most disappointing of all is that the Teachers Council, at both governance and management levels, has proven unwilling and unable to provide any research evidence that its detailed proposals to revise the criteria for approval of initial teacher education providers and programmes, are based on any more than the desire to micro-manage the work of university colleges of education.”