Teachers face extra year of training

A review of teacher training quality will go before Cabinet this month.

The eight-month Ministry of Education review raised concerns over the selection of those going into training and the competence of graduates, the New Zealand Herald reported today.

Submissions to the review made by people at all levels of the education sector said schools were being left to deal with incompetent new teachers in the workforce.

Questions were raised over how well educated the graduates were in the area they would be teaching, and some submissions suggested a tougher entry criteria for teacher training programmes.

Submissions in the review argued graduates needed to be more "class-room ready."

Teacher training courses currently range from a one-year graduate diploma to a three or four-year degree.

The review was commissioned last year, after an Education Review Office report in 2004 found widespread problems with graduates in their first two years of provisional registration.

The report showed almost half of beginner secondary teachers did not reach the required level of competence, and suggested a "significant minority" of teachers gaining full registration were falling short of the standard.

It raised questions about the selection of teacher trainees and the quality of training and graduates.

It also found that the relatively low public regard for teachers compared to their standing in many other OECD countries was a problem.

New Zealand, unlike many other countries, does not have a centralised system to control entry to the profession, instead it relies on schools to judge if teachers are ready to be fully registered after two years in the classroom.

However, the New Zealand Educational Institute president Frances Nelson disputed the review's emphasis on new teachers not being up to scratch saying the majority of people going through did make the grade.

She also said the review failed to acknowledge that students should not be expected to be experts on their first day.

- NZPA