Teacher educators must reframe their profession

Teacher educators in New Zealand are not fully professionalised because of the current “sticking plaster” model and a new system is needed to better prepare beginning teachers, Massey Professor John O’Neill told a conference this week.

More than 130 leading teacher education researchers, policy makers and professional representatives attended the annual Teacher Education Forum of Aotearoa New Zealand at Massey’s Manawatū campus.

The conference focused on current challenges in initial teacher education, including whether teacher education in New Zealand is a profession or not.

Professor of Teacher Education John O’Neill said the current model is an uneasy compromise between the old teacher’s college and old university models of teacher preparation, neither of which can work in today’s era of chronic under-funding and over-compliance.

“The model teacher educators are trying valiantly to operate is made up of a whole series of historical accidents. Government has so severely pared back teacher education funding in the last twenty years that it now risks becoming a cottage industry, not a profession.

“The current model of teacher education is effectively a sticking plaster. It’s simply not working. If tertiary educators, practitioners and policy makers can all sit down together and agree how best to prepare beginning teachers, they will also gain a much clearer understanding of the unique professional contributions of the various teacher educators.”

Professor O’Neill said it would not be a profession until the number eight wire system that currently exists is changed.

“We need to develop and properly fund a system that supports not just the efforts of teacher educators in the tertiary education setting, but also the work of exemplary teachers who allow students to learn the practical craft of teaching in their classrooms and in early childhood settings.“

He said a collaborative model was needed for better dialogue between teacher education providers and the teaching profession, and between government agencies and the providers. 

The forum was established in 1999 to provide a national voice for research-informed teacher education.