“Teaching is increasingly complex work. It requires the highest standards of professional practice in order to perform it well. Teaching is the core profession, the key agent of change in today’s knowledge society.”4
Teachers are distinguished from other professions by their knowledge of the science of learning and cognitive processes. This expertise must be valued and trusted13 so that teachers can prepare students for a society and an economy in which students will expect to be self-directed learners and motivated to keep learning.14 Quality professional teachers3,15,16 are vital if the educational challenges of this century are to be met. Skilbeck et al17 research in Queensland regarding teaching careers found that:
“The quality of teaching has a decisive impact in student learning. Teacher policies directed at quality teachers and teaching will play a key role in determining the extent to which the strategic goals of the SmartState are achieved. …..challenges… the state’s capacity to attract, educate, deploy and retain a high quality teaching force.”17
Many OECD countries share a concern about having enough teachers with the necessary skills and knowledge to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Finland, which ranks highly in the OECD Programs for International Student Assessment (PISA) results places a particularly high degree of importance on the quality of teachers that are recruited to the profession. Excellent teachers in Queensland schools are vital if SET and other demands are to be met and the attitudes of Queensland students to science and mathematics, as evidenced in the 2003 PISA18 results, are to improve.
A greater emphasis on teacher quality could see teachers’ work being redefined to focus more on the professional and knowledge-based components and teachers being paid substantially more to attract and retain the best possible candidates. It has long been the desire of teachers to be able to concentrate on doing what they obviously entered the profession to do and that is to teach. Over time, teachers have been expected to take on responsibilities that fall outside the realm of their professional work as teachers. Such responsibilities have contributed to their workload and at times detracted from their professional role.
Currently, there is no formal recognition or a culture of valuing the additional qualifications and professional skills and knowledge that teachers develop during their careers which places them in direct contrast to how other professions operate. The lock step, one size fits all approach to remuneration for teaching is a ‘hangover’ from an industrial time. New models must be investigated. Warner6 and the MACER19 report suggest that recognition and remuneration of teachers should be about ‘what they do’ not ‘who they are’. It is critical to have a sustained campaign to improve the status, stature and capability of the teaching profession, and to attract gifted and highly qualified individuals who are committed to ongoing personal learning and professionalism and capable of motivating students to be ambitious and to enter ‘in-demand’ industries.
The 2004 DEST16 report suggests that recognising outstanding teachers will strengthen the status and quality of the profession. Recently at the national level, it has been suggested that performance-based pay should be introduced to attract and retain excellent teachers to the profession and to raise the esteem of the profession. Skilbeck et al17 suggest that teaching is insufficiently structured as a career and work should be undertaken to investigate how other professions recognise and reward quality so that outstanding teacher quality can be rewarded.
Caldwell20 in commenting on knowledge management in schools calls for a:
‘new professionalism in which teachers’ work is increasingly research-based, outcomes oriented, data driven and team focused with lifelong professional learning as important in education as it is in medicine.’
To position Queensland at the leading edge it is suggested that:
Teachers as knowledge workers must learn to work with colleagues and students in knowledge producing and knowledge sharing.19 As knowledge workers in the modern world, there is the need for continuous education among professionals.14 The trend for teachers to become lifelong learners and to model this learning for students with whom they work needs to gain momentum and be a priority.
To achieve this position may take some years and will require a reassessment of teacher salaries to bring them into line with other professionals with similar qualifications. To invest in this change and to create the incentives for excellent, professionally prepared and professionally remunerated teachers will require a cultural shift by many educators. Teachers who gain additional qualifications and/or demonstrate a professional commitment through engaging in ongoing professional activities in their own time should be recognised and rewarded accordingly.
It is vital that teachers maintain skills through professional learning as school environments, social and economic conditions change and the innovations in technology impact on teaching practices and subsequently student learning.16,21 The times are gone when teachers could be dependent on the ‘system’ to provide top down professional development to ensure currency within the profession. Teachers and employers need to accept joint responsibility for continued professional learning.
“In many professions, reaccreditation and/or renewal of registration are dependent on continued professional learning. Community expectations of members of a profession relate to standards of conduct, competence, knowledge, skill, judgement and care, and aspirants are admitted to a profession after they have satisfied rigorous entry requirements……..”22
It is acknowledged that at times, schools face many conflicting challenges which places enormous demands on teachers to undertake professional development and thus puts a strain on budgets and priorities. As Watson23 and the Senate Inquiry24 recognised, many of the arrangements for teacher professional development are ‘piecemeal’ or ‘ad hoc’ and may turn teachers off engaging. The plethora of professional learning opportunities and resources for educators are frequently ignored because there is a ‘hit and miss’ approach to how they receive and access information. They are bombarded from all sides and often make ill-informed decisions about what is suitable and/or available to enhance personal and professional learning. A unified approach that provides a ‘one-stop place’ for educators to access current information regarding opportunities for ongoing formal and informal learning pathways would assist individuals and schools in their planning.
It is also vital that our community recover high respect and strong support for teaching as one of, if not the, most important professions that will determine the opportunities for the next generation of Queenslanders and a prosperous and civil society as a whole.
There are often gaps in teaching expertise in defined subject areas in the secondary years as teacher supply tries to match demand. Common across education systems in Australia is the need for more highly trained teachers in the science, technology and mathematics fields to ensure that students are encouraged and motivated to meet the growing demands in these career areas. To address the ongoing and urgent need for more qualified and motivated teachers of maths and science, recruitment strategies, recognition and incentives are required to attract and retain suitable people. In addition, these teachers need to be the ones who inspire and motivate students to engage in learning pathways that take them into tertiary study and technical roles in which scientific literacy is an imperative.
Many primary teachers struggle with the teaching of science and mathematics as a result of low confidence and interest in these subjects. This is reflected in the weekly time allocated, particularly to science teaching. It is acknowledged that Queensland will be addressing this situation in the primary sector with the introduction of the ‘Primary Connections’ program being developed by the Australian Academy of Science. At the secondary levels of education, there is often concern regarding the currency of knowledge of teachers who may not have engaged in relevant professional learning for many years in these subjects and are the manner in which their teaching occurs.
The situation described by Goodrum et al25 in 2000 still prevails today:
“The actual picture of science teaching and learning is one of great variability … the picture is disappointing. ……some primary schools, often science is not taught at all…….move to high school, many experience disappointment, because the science they are taught is neither relevant nor engaging and does not connect with their interests or experience. ….. Disenchantment with science is reflected in the declining numbers of students who take science subjects in post-compulsory years of schooling.”
Last reviewed 31 January 2007