2020 Presentations

This conference was conducted remotely - a recording of our session can be watched here

A sustainable workforce through Initial Teacher Education (ITE): a new waste management policy?

Theme 3: Sustainability in teacher education and teacher education policy

Dr Mark Carver, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

Dr Paul Adams, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland

Keywords: teacher retention; career-long professional learning; career transitions; initial teacher education destinations

This paper seeks to reframe Initial Teacher Education (ITE) evaluation with respect to teacher retention, challenging the notion that teachers need to be ‘classroom-ready’ upon graduation and that teacher attrition is largely a failing of ITE. We draw upon Boud’s (2000) concept of sustainable assessment, emphasising the tension in meeting today’s needs without sacrificing the needs of the future, and Sadler’s (2010) concept of self-guided critical appraisal as part of the reflective practice of a lifelong professional learner. Transposing these concepts into ITE highlights limitations in measures currently used to make policy positions, most notably ‘wastage rate’, which counts any teacher not in the state-funded school sector in Scotland (excepting short-term or maternity leave) as ‘wasted’, a term imbued with covert meaning and intent.

Our data comes from the six-year, Scottish Government funded project, Measuring Quality in ITE (MQuITE). This project has a broad remit to look at existing data collection and use, supplementing data where possible, and conceiving of a measurement framework which combines internationally-relevant comparisons with measurement nuanced and localised for the Scottish context. From data gathered as part of both online questionnaires and in-depth individual interviews, notable themes have emerged concerning the concepts of teacher wastage and loss from the profession across Scotland. These data suggest that, as it is currently measured, wastage rate is too pessimistic given teachers’ contemporary career paths and aspirations which may include working in schools in the private sector, other education-related jobs, working in other parts of the UK or overseas, or taking up roles within further and higher education. In the longer-term, the statistical invisibility of such teachers may even serve to limit their (perceived or real) opportunities to return to state-funded schools if their intervening experiences are not valued.

When examined in the light of Scottish ITE, it becomes apparent that this policy orientation is reductive in conceptualising ITE in two ways: as failing if the numbers of those remaining employed in schools falls; and, as only serving to provide schools with teachers. This orientation runs the risk of denoting education as solely taking place in schools, and that the work of a teacher is only of benefit if it is carried out therein.

As its main contribution, this paper argues for more nuanced and qualitative measures and uses of teacher retention data. It therefore highlights three themes: how students/inductees position themselves and their own career destinations as related to their ITE; how student teachers and inductees conceptualise teaching in Scotland as opposed to alternative career choices; and, how ITE relates to teachers’ lifelong learning. As a secondary contribution, the paper sets out a case for reconceptualising how support is offered to teachers throughout their career. It therefore challenges the idea of front-loaded initial teacher education and problematic concepts of being ‘classroom-ready’, argues that schools and professional bodies currently undervalue what may be useful professional learning experiences overseas or in other sectors, and argues for a reconsideration of the underpinning aims for ITE with regard to teacher supply.

References

Boud, D. (2000). Sustainable assessment: rethinking assessment for the learning society. Studies in Continuing Education, 22(2), 151–167.

Sadler, D. R. (2010). Beyond feedback: Developing student capability in complex appraisal. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(5), 535–550. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930903541015