Teaching Resources to Have Professional License
By Alistair Owens http://www.keen2learn.co.uk
After years of Ofsted inspections, SAT’s and league tables are we going to see a breakthrough by having teachers licensed? Could this be a better way to judge schools’ potential based on the capability of its teaching resources rather than the performance of its pupils.
Many teachers find Ofsted inspections intimidating. A feeling of dread, panic and theatre with stage direction The Old Vic would be proud of. But is this a true measure of a schools performance? The common denominator is the pupil’s connection with learning. If this is not in evidence a huge slice of any teacher’s educational ability can dissipated. This is especially evident whilst controlling any disruptive or disconnected elements. A small proportion of these individuals can have a negative and sometimes devastating effect on the whole class way beyond the most positive influence of a good teacher.
Predominantly emanating from the home environment and changes in society the disruptive effect can break the learning curve of the class. It can present a false impression of the pedagogic skill of the teacher and commitment of the rest of the class. But a schools position in any league table currently ignores any such impediment. Now that the teacher is to be licensed, perhaps even graded in the process, the performance of the school can be additionally tempered by the quality of the staff. To even the field, and encourage these hard working schools to remain in contention, the better schools, judged by exam success could be handicapped as in horse racing. This would require the better schools to work harder to maintain their relative position. Edward De Bono recently invented a concept summarised with the acronym Edne – Excellence Delivered is Not Enough. He considers that anything reaching a point of excellence must try even harder to maintain that position by continually reinventing itself.
The assessment of the teachers means 500,000 teachers will be evaluated every five years. The process is expected to reveal an estimated 20,000 incompetent teachers than can then be categorically removed. Something the current procedure has failed to achieve. In the last six years only ten teachers have been sacked for incompetence.
The assessment procedure will fall to the Headteacher. Yet more work, but the outcome could materially benefit the school and in turn reduce the Head’s work content in other areas. The unions are inevitably concerned. It could reveal some shocking truths. To offset any personality clash and make the assessment impartial perhaps the assessments should completed by the head of a different school. Let us pray any costs involved are supported centrally and not further deplete the school budgets.
Michael Grove the Shadow Schools Secretary felt “Ed Balls proposes yet another huge bureaucratic measure that will cost a fortune and cause all sorts of problems.†Rather a simplistic response to a major issue that has plagued UK teaching resources for years. There is no easy solution as it would have been implemented years ago. The problem is complex and requires some brave and long term thinking, something the transitory tenure of a Minister of State may lack. As Edward De Bono recently said “Most of the problems in the world have been caused by an inadequacy in our current methods of thinking. Most major conflicts in the world today exist as a direct result of that inadequacy, as do all the smaller-scale misunderstandings we encounter day to day. All could be solved by an improvement in the quality of human thought. All could be eased by developing our ability to look at things through the other person’s eyesâ€.
