POLICY DIRECTIONS FOR
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN
EDUCATION COUNCIL

SUBMISSION ON THE GOVERNMENT'S CONSULTATION DOCUMENT

PROPOSALS FOR ESTABLISHING AN EDUCATION COUNCIL:
A NEW PROFESSIONAL FORUM FOR TEACHING

EDUCATION FORUM
AUGUST 2000

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Education Forum acknowledges with gratitude the assistance of Michael Irwin, policy analyst for the New Zealand Business Roundtable, in the preparation of this submission.

This submission draws extensively on the Education Forum's submission of July 1998 on the Green Paper published in 1997 by the then government under the title Quality Teachers for Quality Learning - A Review of Teacher Education. That earlier submission (Education Forum, 1998) drew on a number of contributions and benefited from comments from several reviewers of an earlier draft as noted in its 'Acknowledgements' page.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Recent years have seen an upsurge of public concern with the state of public education in New Zealand, as in other English-speaking countries. Public confidence in the use professional educators make of the increased resources made available to formal education has declined.

In this context of anxiety several reports on aspects of public education have been published. However, they have been written mainly by people responsible for the system which causes anxiety. It is not surprising, therefore, that this Consultation Document (Mallard, 2000), like similar official publications, is written in a spirit of confidence and complacency with many lofty aims but little acknowledgement and analysis of problems.

The Document contains no identification and analysis of the problems the Council is intended to address; its proposals are not clearly related to its objectives; and it does not discuss and evaluate alternative ways of addressing them. This results in proposals which are inconsistent with the objectives and which could well make matters worse.

Unlike the Document, this submission views teacher education and related issues as problematic and concludes that the Document should not form the basis of decisions on the constitution, role and functions of a professional body for teachers and that submissions should be evaluated independently of the Ministry of Education. However, the Document and the submissions on it might form a starting point for the development of a further Consultation Document on the subject.

The government already intervenes in teacher education in numerous ways unique in tertiary education. Their overall effect is to create problems in choice, accountability and information. It is not clear that there are any countervailing benefits; the proposed new interventions could exacerbate existing problems. Before embarking on further interventions, the government should review its objectives for teacher education and the effectiveness of existing interventions in achieving them.

The Document doesn't directly address issues of teacher supply, but unfortunately its proposals are likely to be unhelpful in this regard. Rather than raise the attractiveness of teaching as a career, the proposed professional body is likely to isolate teaching as an educational backwater. The creation of flexible pathways into teaching is needed but the proposed Council may act more to protect existing pathways than approve and promote new ones. Similarly, existing problems arising from the quasi-monopoly of the major providers of teacher education are not addressed. Greater centralised controls via standards seem likely to compound problems of recruitment, especially in areas of shortages, and thus to portray teaching as an increasingly unusual occupation.

Teacher supply is linked to issues of status and professional standing. Supply would be assisted by rigorous student selection and demanding preservice training with some relevance to employment outside teaching. Flexible pay structures which reward merit and address specific shortages are required. The entry into teaching of more mature people with a sound education or specific and relevant skills without a lengthy and expensive period of preservice training should be encouraged. Teacher registration requirements should therefore be reviewed. All this seems unlikely to happen if placed within the purview of the proposed Council.

The role of formal schooling has become diffuse, creating uncertainty about the role of teachers. In official pronouncements knowledge has become downgraded as a priority for schooling and the gap filled by wider societal and politically correct concerns. Debate outside child-centred and reconstructionist ideologies is actively discouraged. All this further isolates teaching with adverse effects on recruitment. The role of formal schooling needs to be reviewed and 'no-go' areas opened up for critical debate if teaching is to be seen as an intellectually vigorous profession and its status and morale improved.

The Document fails to acknowledge that effective teaching requires effectively organised schools. Research on this issue points to fewer external controls on schools - not more. The establishment of a government-initiated professional body accountable to the Minister of Education and the imposition of national standards controlling entry to and continuation within the profession are likely to lead to less effective schools and less effective teaching within them even if, as seems unlikely, the Document's other proposals led to better preservice training.

The Document stresses teaching 'quality' without defining the concept. The proposed means of ensuring quality is through further interventions by the Council to be established as a Crown Entity with political accountability. The Document does not acknowledge the massive failures of the existing central planning approach to education and the reasons for them.

A critical omission is any discussion about how quality teaching - in the sense of causing learning to happen - is to be identified. Of course quality teacher preparation and quality teaching are essential, but standards used in the proposed managerial process are unlikely to be correlated with how well pupils actually learn. What is urgently required are national assessments of all children at certain stages or ages, undertaken by an independent agency or agencies, and the results published.

Better information is critical, but it is of little use if parents cannot make use of it in determining the best schooling arrangements for their children. Thus the supply side of schooling must be opened up by equalising funding of private and state schools.

Teacher status is a complex issue depending on some factors exogenous to teaching such as the value New Zealanders place on education. Factors within education include general perceptions of the sector as a whole including the bureaucracy, colleges of education and university education faculties. Concerns about pupil achievement and the constraints on debate about education are inimical to high status. A blinkered ministry appears to follow the tramlines of political correctness, uncaring or unconscious of where they may lead. The critical divide between education and indoctrination has become blurred. Generally the image of the sector is poor. If the government wishes to address seriously issues of quality teaching and of teacher supply these are concerns which must be confronted.

The Document promotes professionalisation but doesn't examine the characteristics of a profession, and the extent to which they do already, or should in the future, apply to teaching. Some present characteristics of teaching make professionalisation problematic including its diffuse role, its lack of a clear and widely accepted knowledge base, and its domination by the teacher unions for whom the client is, understandably, the teacher and not the pupil. Heavy-handed managerial control of who can teach and how, via a government-initiated professional body, seems likely to deprofessionalise with adverse effects on morale, status and teacher quality and supply.

The proposed professional body is likely to become another costly bureaucracy. Moreover, much of what the Forum considers unhelpful in terms of pedagogical directives within existing government approaches could well become mandatory or further enforced through the interpretation of a professional code. This submission urges that the proposals in the Document for the establishment of a professional body should not proceed.

In teacher education, reliance on a standards approach may assist in mapping the curriculum but should not be relied on for assessment of student-teachers. Prescribing standards for teacher education might seem an attractive short cut to raising quality but is highly problematic. Standards are likely to consist of general descriptions of activities in which every teacher is bound to engage, whether well or badly, and so are unlikely to guarantee educational standards. Further, the agencies responsible for enforcing standards may have little incentive to act in the best interests of school pupils. Teacher unions have strong incentives to guide standard setting so that standards erect barriers to entry for new members but do not unduly disturb existing members. Similar concerns can be raised about standards for practising teachers. In short, there is every reason to fear that the arsonists will be appointed to lead the fire brigade.

Generally, the government should not treat teacher education differently from other forms of tertiary education. Emphasis should be placed on full information about courses and programmes.

The overall conclusion of this submission is that most of the proposals in the Consultation Document are likely to be inconsistent with its objectives as far as these can be discerned. Current problems must be identified and their causes analysed before further steps are taken. Since many current problems are due to existing government interventions in teacher education and in schooling, increasing government control via a Crown Entity is likely to make matters worse not better.

A broad approach to teacher quality and supply issues is required. This requires a wide range of policy changes such as less control over the school curriculum, the publication of assessment data, devolving pay and conditions to schools, and equal funding of private and state schools. Pursuing status per se is unlikely to be helpful as a policy objective. But treating schools and teachers as professionals capable of managing their own affairs is likely to raise status and morale and improve the supply of able people entering the profession. The best form of status for teachers would come from teaching the children of parents who choose, on the basis of reliable information, to send their children to their school. Recent decisions to end bulk funding and to tighten enrolment schemes run counter to the aim of enhancing professonalism and the raising the status of teachers.

On the issue of a professional body, it is concluded that this should be a voluntary body without direct government involvement if it is to have real authority among teachers. But given the considerable influence of the teacher unions in schooling policy and the fact that the government owns, funds and regulates virtually all schooling there is very little room for an effective, teacher professional body with any real prospect of providing independent and influential input into policy and practice. Unless and until the government withdraws from much of its present involvement in schooling and declines to grant the unions the influence they currently enjoy, attempts to create a professional body will fail - any such body will simply be seen as an extension of the existing government-union nexus.

Given the range of legitimately contestable issues in education, it is debatable whether one professional body could represent all or most views among teachers. Schools could use membership of a professional body that concentrated on improving the knowledge base and pedagogical skills of teachers as a consideration in determining remuneration.

The recommendations in this submission are as follows:

From Chapter 2:

• The Consultation Document should not be accepted as a basis on which to make decisions about the establishment of an Education Council. However, it, together with the submissions made on it, might form the basis for the development of a further public discussion document on the subject.
• The government should arrange an independent evaluation of the submissions on the Consultation Document.

From Chapter 3:

• The government note that the range of existing government interventions in teacher education is extensive, and their overall results include poorly differentiated supply, lack of responsiveness, quality problems, and much rhetoric by vested interests.
• Before decisions are made on the proposals in the Consultation Document, the government should review its objectives for teacher education and evaluate the effectiveness of existing interventions in achieving them.

From Chapter 4:

• The government should note that effective teaching is most likely to take place in effective schools, identify the features of a policy environment most likely to encourage effective schooling, and consider whether and how a professional body for teachers might contribute to such an environment.

From Chapter 5:

• The highest priority in teacher education should be given to substantive knowledge in the subject or subjects to be covered and the ability to convey it to, and develop associated skills within, students. The other educational sciences are important but best studied in depth after some years of practical experience.
• Neither the government nor the proposed Education Council should seek to impose any particular pedagogical approach or approaches on New Zealand schools and teachers whether through curriculum statements, professional standards or other means.
• The government should review the already extensive international research into teaching methods, including approaches adopted in continental Europe and Asia. It should take the lead in opening up this vital area for objective, dispassionate debate.
• Neither the government nor the proposed Education Council should accept any notion that a 'one best' system can be identified and enshrined in teacher education and training. Providers should be able, within broad parameters, to determine their own programmes and mix of content, pedagogical emphases and such like.
• The best thing the government can do is to require all school children to sit national examinations in certain core subjects (say English, maths, science, history and geography) at certain stages and to publish the results. The publication of such information and a more open and rigorous debate about teaching methodologies will better enable schools and teachers to decide their own best strategies and approaches and parents to decide which schools are best for their own children.
• To enable parents to use school-based information and to take decisions about which schools best suit their own children, the supply side of schooling must be opened up by equalising funding of state and private schools.
• On resourcing issues, the best policy approach would be to provide funds for teacher development as far as is practical directly to schools, coupled with much greater exposure of the results of schooling in terms of the educational achievement of pupils.

From Chapter 6:

That the government:

• recognise that the issue of teacher status cannot be addressed effectively in isolation from several other factors. Some factors lie outside the education sector and include long-term societal changes and the importance attached to education by the general public. Other factors are within the control of those within the sector and influence how education generally, including teachers, is perceived and include:

  - the extent to which leading educators and education academics are open to searching debate, criticism and refutation;

  - whether the role of the teacher is well defined or diffuse;

  - the willingness or otherwise of educators to seek and publish objective measures of student performance; and

  - the willingness or otherwise of the ministry and other state education agencies to take part in open debate, to work from first principles in developing policy issues, to identify and expose their assumptions, to revisit long- and dearly held orthodoxies and, where external advice is sought, to seek the best possible advice from wherever it is to be found whether locally or from overseas;

• commission an objective, quality appraisal of current performance levels of New Zealand school students and the factors that influence their performance;
• note that the supply of teachers will be assisted by rigorous student selection procedures and by academically demanding pre-service training seen as relevant to a range of occupations outside teaching;
• note that the establishment of a government initiated and influenced professional body could hinder recruitment by restricting entry points and encouraging a view of teaching as an occupational backwater;
• note that the attraction and retention of able teachers and remedying problems of teacher shortage in subjects such as science and maths require flexible pay structures which reward merit, not the continuation of centrally determined national awards. The unified pay system may well be increasing existing rigidities;
• reconsider current teacher registration legislation with a view to encouraging the entry into teaching of suitable people - especially the well-educated and mature and those with relevant experience in other walks of life - without the need to meet a preservice training requirement; and
• not proceed with the proposals in the Consultation Document for the establishment of a professional body and professional standards. Some proposals are liable to result in consequences inimical to teacher quality, the status of teachers and student learning.

From Chapter 7:

That the government, or Education Council if established, should:

• note that an approach to standard setting such as that of the Unit Standards developed by Teacher Education Advisory Group (TEAG) may provide a broad and useful overview of the ground to be covered, but it would be most unwise to rely on their detailed application for the assessment of the quality of thought or performance of student-teachers;
• reject any notion that all primary teachers must be generalists and able to cover all the essential learning areas of the school curriculum and teach all children (including those with special needs). Instead, the ministry should investigate moves in other countries towards greater primary teacher specialisation and make available its findings to teacher educators in New Zealand;
  note that the view that special needs children have the right to take their place in the normal class is not beyond dispute. Such children may have a prior right to special facilities and special expertise. There may also be a conflict of rights - between those of special-needs children and those of other children;
• reject the view that teacher education requires more or different supervision and monitoring than other forms of tertiary education. The establishment and enforcement of standards for preservice education is likely to reduce innovation and lower quality by reinforcing what is already unhelpful. Reliance should be placed on the publication of full information about programmes and courses to assist prospective student-trainees in choosing a programme that suits them and to assist schools in recruiting suitable new staff members; and
• reject the establishment and enforcement of standards for entry to, and continuation within, the profession. Decisions on the recruitment and promotion of teaching staff are properly matters for principals and boards of trustees.

From Chapter 8:

That the government, or Education Council if established:

• treat Maori-medium teacher education in the same way as other forms of teacher education;
• encourage the sharing of knowledge and experience of different educational strategies among all teacher education providers; and
• fund quality research into the outcomes of various education strategies, including Maori-medium schooling, and publish the results so that Maori parents can decide for themselves about the balance of advantage for their own children between Maori-medium schooling and other forms of schooling.

From Chapter 9:

That the government:

• note the Forum's view that the ministry's role in influencing teaching practice has not been useful and that its role in this area should be largely restricted to establishing a core curriculum and publishing information on student performance;
• not proceed with the establishment of a professional body as proposed in the Consultation Document. The resource and educational costs would be considerable and the benefits very doubtful; and
• review the efficacy of existing controls over teaching and teacher education before introducing further controls.

From Chapter 10:

• The government should address the issue of quality teaching on a broad policy front involving less state control over the school curriculum, publication of assessment data, rigorous national qualifications at the secondary level, devolving pay and conditions to schools, and the equal funding of state and private schools.
• Pursuing status per se is probably unhelpful as a policy objective. The aim must be to establish an environment in which teachers can redefine their role and establish their own benchmarks for excellence.
• Instead of the government establishing a professional body, it should encourage the establishment of voluntary bodies by groups of teachers. Such a body or bodies should not be subsidised by the government though they could be awarded contracts for research and administrative tasks if suitably equipped.
• Membership of a voluntary professional body with suitable entry criteria could be used as a basis for higher pay.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The last 10 years or so have seen an upsurge of public concern with the state of public education, particularly with the quality of teachers and teaching, in every leading English-speaking country and in several other advanced industrial nations.

In New Zealand during the same period real expenditure per student in the compulsory sector has risen considerably, yet public confidence in the use professional educators make of these increased resources has declined. A recent media article reports that a large number of University of Canterbury academics "expressed concern that students had been let down by the 'primary and secondary systems, flawed curriculums, and deficient teaching methods'" (The Press, 16 August 2000). Another recorded employer concerns about the poor levels of basic literacy and numeracy among job applicants and the failure of the education system in this regard (The Dominion, 19 August 2000). Doubts about the effectiveness of public education have been expressed across a wide political spectrum and directed at teacher education as much as to any other branch of education. The current 'closing of the gaps' highlights particular concerns with the teaching of Maori and Pacific Island children.

In general, professional organisations of teachers and educational bureaucracies decried public concern about teacher quality as ignorant 'teacher-bashing', but public misgivings have been largely substantiated. The 1997 Green Paper on teacher education cited the findings of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) that teachers' lack of knowledge in mathematics and science contributed to the relatively poor performance of New Zealand school pupils in the study and that many current teacher education programmes have a "worrying low" level of study of these subjects beyond the study of the curriculum (p. 32). One cannot teach what one does not know. Such findings presumably prompted the Education Review Office to undertake a comparative study of mathematics and science education in a number of countries which had done well in TIMSS (ERO 2000).

Early childhood and primary teachers may well be better equipped to teach 'communication skills' than mathematics or science, but many have themselves an inadequate grasp of the basic structures of language and thus lack the capacity to provide students with such knowledge. There is good reason to consider that public opinion has been correct in its concern that school leavers are often equipped with a far lower level of mastery of their own language than is reasonable, given the resources devoted to education. There is also good reason to believe that many teacher educators have played a part in the neglect of language skills, often out of a belief that structured initiation into the way the language works might inhibit creativity or fail to interest or appeal to students. The results of inadequate teaching of English over several decades were revealed in a survey published in 1997 (Ministry of Education 1997). The survey showed that "more than a million adult New Zealanders have difficulty reading everyday material" (Benseman 1997).

The title of the 1997 Green Paper, Quality Teachers for Quality Learning, reflected a natural aspiration. The question then, as now, is how best to achieve this. In its submission (Education Forum 1998) the Education Forum expressed grave reservations about the approach of the Green Paper, and the value of the questions it raised. This was not to deny there were some useful specific suggestions scattered here and there throughout the Paper. But the general tenor and approach were mistaken.

It is disappointing to find that compared with the defective 1997 Green Paper the current Consultation Document is even more devoid of serious reflection on what are important issues. It constantly makes statements of such superficiality as to bring into question the seriousness of the consultation process. Moreover, the time given to the process - less that four weeks - suggests that all has been decided and that consultation is a mere formality.

Before making policy changes, including institutional changes such as are now proposed, it is usual to go through certain steps:

• to identify the problem or problems to be addressed;
• to identify the underlying cause or causes of the problems, distinguishing them from their symptoms;
• to identify and evaluate the possible ways in which the causes of the problem(s) might be addressed; and finally
• to come to a considered view as to which policy or, more usually, combination of policies will most effectively address the underlying problems.

All too often in education policy this process is ignored and we are left wondering why the symptoms don't go away. Usually it is the case that the causes of the problems were never identified in the first place, and sometimes the 'solutions' simply compound them. Too often 'solutions' are pronounced as the answer, but it is by no means clear to what problems they are the answer.

We find these tendencies in education amply illustrated in the Consultation Document. The Education Council is promoted as the solution to all sorts of unanalysed problems. It is advanced as the means of ensuring "vibrancy" in the profession, of ensuring "high quality initial teacher education", "enhanc[ed] teaching and learning standards and practice", and much else. But what is causing any perceived lack of "vibrancy" or holding back quality teacher education and teaching and learning standards and practice is totally unclear. It is simply assumed that the proposed Council is, somehow, the solution - it hangs in the air unattached to any solid piece of analysis which might give it support.

The Document proceeds from what are called "Guiding Principles" straight into a proposed constitution for the Council. The "principles" are not principles at all but assertions about what the Council is to achieve. Only after setting out the Council's status (a Crown Entity), size and membership does it discuss its functions. This is, of course, back-to-front if real, lasting solutions are to be sought. Decisions on the Council's constitution should depend on the tasks it is expected to perform. This is symptomatic of lack of serious thought and, perhaps, the view that the establishment of a Council with a particular constitution has priority over what it might in fact achieve.

This submission argues that if one starts to examine the underlying causes of problems in school education one will come to quite different solutions than that offered in the Consultation Document. Indeed, more than that, it is likely that the proposed Council will reinforce existing problems and make matters worse. Any reasonably intelligent young person thinking seriously about a career in teaching is likely to be worried at the prospect of his or her career being in any way under the control of a Council established with such little prior thought. The profession is, after all, meant to be a thinking one - indeed, much more than that, a profession that is meant to teach young people to "think critically" as current jargon has it.

A document so full of wishful thinking as the Consultation Document cannot be 'rescued' by a few simple changes in emphases or, for example, in the size and composition of the Council. The policy process needs to start again, to step back and ask some basic questions about the state of schooling in New Zealand and its problems and their causes. In the light of the answers to such prior questions one can go on to raise issues such as: "what do we mean by teacher quality and how might it be raised?"; "what is a 'profession'?" and "to what extent can teachers be seen to constitute one?"; and "how important is the 'status' of teaching and on what does it depend?". Only after having come to some considered views on such issues is it possible to ask whether and how an Education Council might address the problems uncovered in the process. Assuming a Council does seem to be a useful initiative, particular issues such as its functions, powers, size and composition can then be addressed. In contrast, the Consultation Document makes proposals about these latter issues without first working through the tough prior questions.

CHAPTER 2

THE CONSULTATION DOCUMENT

2.1 The primary function and guiding principles

The Consultation Document sets some ambitious tasks (called "guiding principles") for the Education Council and then proceeds to set out proposals for its constitution, funding and functions.

The primary function of the Council it to provide what is called "professional leadership". It is also to encourage "best [teaching] practice", provide advice on teaching and learning issues, establish and approve standards for initial teacher education, determine standards for teacher registration and oversee the operation of the teachers' register.

The Minister of Education, in his foreword to the Consultation Document, sees the Council as having an important part in achieving a "vibrant teaching profession" and "high quality initial teacher education". His "vision is for an Education Council that will provide a new professional forum for teaching [and which] will play a major role in maintaining and developing the capability of the teaching profession".

2.2 The functions of the Council

2.2.1 Teacher registration

The government sees registration of all teachers as important in improving the quality of teaching. Presently exempt teachers (those in kura kaupapa Maori and in early childhood other than kindergartens) will be required to be registered. The Council will develop registration criteria.

2.2.2 Professional standards

The Council would promote professional standards in a number of ways, in some of them taking over or expanding on work currently undertaken by the Teacher Registration Board (TRB):

• developing a code of ethics for the teaching profession that would define "the principles and values that underpin its professional behaviour".
• determining standards for initial teacher education programmes and applying them "rigorously and consistently". All such programmes would require the Council's approval.
• providing guidelines for advice and guidance programmes for new teachers;
• promoting and advancing best practice in teaching;
• promoting professional development; and
• promoting, recommending and sponsoring research into best teaching practices.

2.2.3 Teacher performance and behaviour

The Council will set standards for the profession and assess whether individual teachers meet the standards. The powers will be enhanced by:

• mandatory reporting of teacher misconduct and/or incompetence. It is proposed that legislation will clarify the reporting responsibilities of employers;
• a wider power of receiving complaints. It is proposed that complainants should be able to approach the Council, usually after first directing their concerns to the employer but in limited circumstances directly to the Council;
• powers of enquiry. It is proposed that the Council will have the power to inquire into cases that come to its attention; and
• a range of sanctions including suspension of a teacher's practising certificate for a specified period, specifying conditions for continued practice, supervision and censure.

Appeals to the District Court against Council decisions will be allowed (as they are currently in the case of TRB decisions).

2.2.4 Other functions

It is proposed that the Council would:

• be responsible for developing criteria and systems to carry out the police checks of non-teaching and unregistered staff in schools which the government intends to require; and
• have authority to generate revenue through the provision of services on a commercial basis.

2.3 The constitution of the Council

It is proposed that the Council be a Crown Entity accountable to the Minister of Education - as the TRB is at present.

Its size is to be large enough "to represent a wide range of professional interests" yet small enough for effective decision making. It will be able to establish advisory groups, and it is proposed that legislation establish ones for Maori and early childhood education.

Achieving a majority of teachers and "balanced" representation of specific sector groups is seen as the way to determine the Council's composition which, it is proposed, should total 14 made up as follows:

1 chairperson appointed by the Minister of Education
4 teacher union representatives (two from PPTA and two from NZEI)
4 practising registered teachers elected by registered teachers
2 employers' nominees
1 Kura kaupapa Maori nominee
1 Pacific peoples' nominee and
1 nominee representing initial teacher education programme providers.

2.4 Funding

It is proposed that the Council be funded by teachers' registration fees and an annual government contribution of $100,000 pa for the initial three years.

2.5 Some initial observations

The Document is notable for what it doesn't say rather than what is does say. There are some quite astonishing leaps of logic, and unidentified assumptions abound. Just about everything in teaching is perceived as entirely unproblematic. The establishment of a Council on the proposed lines is seen as having lots of benefits and no costs - the problems of tensions and trade-offs that are all too common in much policy analysis are conspicuous by their absence in the Document.

Some of the more spectacular omissions and underlying assumptions are:

• There is no discussion about quality in the context of initial teacher education programmes, whether and how far it is useful to define quality in this context and, to the extent it is useful, how it might be defined and judged. There is an underlying assumption that the 'quality' of present programmes is somehow deficient but no analysis is provided. Yet the Council is just presented as the answer to this 'problem'.
• Similarly there is no discussion of what 'quality' might mean in the context of teaching. There is here another underlying assumption that quality can be defined and its presence or absence can be identified in specific individuals.
• The Council is to be a professional body yet there is no discussion about the characteristics of such a body or, indeed, the extent to which it is useful to regard teaching as a profession. It is simply assumed that teachers are professionals, that a professional body is therefore needed, and, moreover, that it must be established by the government.
• Perhaps the most astonishing omission is any discussion about the ultimate client of the proposed professional body - school children who are not explicitly mentioned at all. Professional bodies do, after all, usually exist to protect the interests of their clients not their members. If the proposed Council is to protect the interests of school children then it is not all clear why "balanced representation" of "specific sector groups" should be needed and drive Council composition. The concern would appear to be give the various sector groups with interests that often compete (government vs providers; providers vs trainees; employers vs unions; ethnic minorities vs the majority groups etc) a forum in which to air their views and arrive at the inevitable compromises which may, but probably won't, be in the interests of school children. The teacher unions will have a solid core of four seats and together with other union members will probably dominate the Council. There is no discussion of whether the entirely legitimate interests of unions for their members' welfare is compatible with the interests of school children. This is hardly the "professional forum for teaching" that the Minister of Education envisages.
• There is no hint that there might be problems in teaching that an Education Council established along the lines proposed could not address and remedy. The Council is presented as a 'silver bullet' remedy to a largely unspecified range of assorted problems and issues. This is totally implausible.
• There is no discussion about the possible reasons why a professional body for teachers has not already been established and why it is that an outside agency, the government, has to step in to create one. If the answer is that the existing range of government interventions and the extent of union influence within teaching has militated against the creation of such a body by teachers themselves, then the creation of such a body by the government is likely to be artificial and unproductive and to compound problems facing the teaching profession.

A number of more general observations can be made at the outset about the unproblematic way in which the Document sees education. First, as noted above, there is little analysis of the present problems in teacher education. The Consultation Document contains no hint of tensions such as, for example, those between the 'classroom technician' and the 'cultured individual' view of teacher and, within teacher education, between the apprenticeship and the preservice models, between practice and theory, and between producing well-rounded 'caring' individuals and respectable academics. There is also no discussion of what are widely regarded as specific and critical issues in teacher education, for example the content, structure and location of courses and programmes.

Secondly, while it can certainly be accepted that good teacher preparation is important, the question that needs to be addressed is what aspects of teacher preparation are positively correlated with the subsequent academic achievement of their pupils. Hanushek (1986) found that there was no clear relationship between the input measures usually relied on by education bureaucrats (such as teacher qualifications and teacher-pupil ratios) and students' academic achievement (as measured by standardised tests). This doesn't appear to have been considered by the authors of the Document. Thus what the Council is likely to accept as evidence of good preparation of teachers may not be correlated with the subsequent performance of the children they teach, and the changes in teacher preparation proposed may have little benefit.

It is also the case that the effectiveness of schools in raising the academic performance of their pupils depends on a variety of factors - not only teacher preparation - as discussed later in this submission and which relate to the management and governance of schools and the external regulatory framework within which they operate (4.3). Again there is little evidence in the Document that its authors have placed teacher preparation within this broader context.

Thirdly, even if problems do exist at present (as Partington, 1997, affirms), it is by no means clear that more intervention either directly by government or a by central body such as the proposed Council will solve them. If the problems are found to arise from government intervention, then increasing intervention (as is proposed in the Document, for example in greater controls over the labour market for teachers) may well exacerbate, rather than resolve, them. It is also noteworthy that, until very recently, this trend to greater centralism is opposite to policy directions in virtually all other areas of government activity. However, the reason for this is not provided: the assumption is that education is different in some significant but unspecified ways.

Fourthly, the costs and benefits of the proposals are not examined. It seems to be assumed that only benefits will flow from them. With government interventions, this is rarely the case - it is almost invariably a question of comparing costs with benefits and assessing where the net advantage lies. Moreover, it is usually also the case that there are several possible ways of addressing problems, and the issue then becomes one of evaluating the various solutions with a view to establishing what is optimal in terms of net benefits. However, the Document only offers one set of proposals.

Finally, as is implicit in much of the above discussion, it is not clear what the basic objectives of the proposed interventions in the labour market for teachers are. A better approach would have been to identify the government and market failures that prevent the attainment of whatever objectives are being pursued. The interventions could then be targeted directly at the specific problem areas. This approach would necessarily have raised the issue of the efficiency of current interventions in meeting objectives. Without a 'first principles' approach of this kind, further interventions are likely to be no more than tinkering - and the problem with tinkering with any system is that you can end up making matters a lot worse.

2.6 Conclusions and recommendations

In the absence of any clear identification and analysis of the objectives to be pursued and the barriers that prevent their achievement, the Document relies largely on unsubstantiated assertions resting on unidentified assumptions. Moreover, as discussed later in this submission, several of the proposals will exacerbate existing problems and are in conflict with the Document's own objectives. Further, some considerations which are crucial to the effectiveness of teaching and schooling are not considered, with the result that there is considerable danger that many of the Document's proposals will divert attention from effective solutions to real problems. The Document as it stands should not, therefore, form the basis of decisions on teacher education and registration, though it and the submissions made on it might form a starting point for the development of a further discussion Document on the subject.

Further work on the review of teacher training could usefully consider how teachers' responsibilities might be simplified (and training thus made more effective). Possible ways of doing so could include simplifying areas of the curriculum, maintenance of specialised schools for special needs children or more specialised auxiliary assistance for them within mainstream schools, provision for more teacher aides for non-teaching duties, and some external testing.

It is recommended:

• The Consultation Document should not be accepted as a basis on which to make decisions about the establishment of an Education Council. However, it, together with the submissions made on it, might form the basis for the development of a further public discussion document on the subject.
• The government should arrange an independent evaluation of the submissions on the Consultation Document.
  

CHAPTER 3

THE GOVERNMENT'S INVOLVEMENT IN TEACHER EDUCATION

3.1 The government's present interests in teacher education

A distinctive feature of schooling and of teacher education and training is the high degree of government involvement. Any effective review of teaching and of the profession must necessarily include consideration of whether the various forms of involvement are beneficial or not. This would seem to be particularly important as the Consultation Document proposes even more extensive controls than exist at present.

Most occupational groups, with their associated pre- and post-entry training, exist without any specific government involvement beyond generic funding of tertiary education and training. However, the government has a variety of interests in schooling and teacher education, discharged by a number of means. In combination, these differ from, and go wider than, its interests in the pre- or post-entry education for any other occupational group. Also they are neither consistent across the educational sector (between pre-school/primary/secondary/tertiary) nor consistent within these sub-sectors.

The complex of interests in teacher education is outlined in Appendix A to this submission. It summaries the extensive range of government interests in teacher education and education more generally which includes funder of teacher training (via the EFTS funding system), negotiator of Collective Employment Contracts for primary and secondary teachers, owner of colleges of education and most other teacher education providers, purchaser of teacher training 'outputs' in that most teachers work in state schools, and regulator and standards setter of various aspects of teaching and teacher education. In nearly all the nine categories listed there are differences within the education sector (as between the various subsectors: preschool, primary, secondary and tertiary) and between the education sector and other sectors. Typically government control is much more extensive in education than in other sectors.

In combination, the large array of government interests, expressed through various forms of control and liability, reduce the degree to which employers, employees/students, and teacher education providers can, as in other occupations, contract freely together to construct patterns of training provision to mutual advantage. Why governments should be so keen to retain control over teacher education would make an interesting study in itself.

The various strands of government intervention mutually support and interact with each other. They create a distinctive pattern of incentives and information at the level of the individual, the institution and the system. The resulting complexities make it difficult to achieve responsiveness or flexibility to meet different or changing requirements or possibilities. The issue is, however, whether these disadvantages are exceeded by the advantages.

3.2 Problems arising from government interventions in teacher education

The Consultation Document assumes the existence of, but doesn't identify, specific problems in teacher education and teaching. There is a reference to "the skills and capability relevant to the new millennium" which suggests that any problems arise from changes in the environment in which teacher education takes place and hence are largely exogenous to the teacher education system itself. Certainly no specific shortcomings in current policy settings relating to teacher education are identified, though by implication the standards of initial teacher training programmes are not sufficiently specific and not applied sufficiently rigorously and consistently. It is questionable whether an Education Council with a composition heavily representative of the status quo and including provider interests would achieve what seems to be expected of it.

Many sectors face problems of changing and more diverse customer demands and labour requirements. The distinctive characteristic of teacher education is the array of government interests that inhibit its responsiveness to such changes. Unless the inhibiting factors are tackled, the lack of responsiveness may remain. The risk is that steps may be taken with the aim of improving 'teacher quality' but which do not assist or which further inhibit responsiveness and thus for problems mysteriously to grow despite government action and increased expenditure.

In short, the source of current problems needs to be understood before solutions are proposed. The source is not changes in outputs or outcomes required or in input markets. As noted by the authors of two recent reports on teacher education in New Zealand discussed below, it is largely the inability of teacher education to respond appropriately to such changes.

3.3 Analysing the institutional problems and their causes

Teaching is successful to the extent that learning takes place. The essential question is, therefore, whether teacher education programmes prepare student-teachers to cause learning to happen rather than merely to behave in the general manner expected of a teacher. Whether or not this essential aim is kept in view and whether incentives and information flows are aligned with it will be affected to some degree by institutional arrangements.

Many of the features of the current system likely to cause problems are discussed by Geoffrey Partington in his report for the Education Forum on teacher education and training in New Zealand (Partington 1997) and by Susan Hitchiner in her background report for the 1997 Green Paper (Hitchiner 1997). For example, they mention:

• elaborate controls, unwieldy councils and lack of autonomy for colleges of education (Partington) ; an ineffective accountability regime for institutions and weak monitoring by government (Hitchiner);
• unequal funding between private and state providers and the limited pool of funds available to private training establishments (PTEs), which reduce the competitive pressures on state providers and choice for student-trainees and employers of teachers (Partington);
• ideological capture and indoctrination (Partington);
• lack of choice in, and information about, teacher education (Partington); employers not able to exercise influence and weak competition between providers (Hitchiner);
• inconsistent courses and procedures (Partington and Hitchiner);
• ineffective quality control by some major providers (Partington); lack of common external standards (Hitchiner);
• lack of knowledge by some teaching staff of actual developments and issues at the chalk face (Partington); and
• apparent covert exclusion of students from some backgrounds by some providers (Partington); inconsistency in selection procedures (Hitchiner).

Several of these reflect the political nature of the process in which decisions about teacher training are made. In such a system the interests and concerns of providers and bureaucrats tend to dominate and the interests of employers (the schools) are only weakly represented. Employers are concerned for high quality student-teachers who are well-prepared in relevant and demanding programmes by suitable staff. The interests of bureaucrats are served by elaborate controls, and those of providers by restrictions on new-entrants, control over student selection and ideology, and weak accountability linkages (including poor information flows).

Criticism of any system can be expected, but common themes between Partington and Hitchiner are concern over poor choice, poor accountability and poor information in teacher education. Examination of the government's interests outlined in Appendix A shows how the environment for such weaknesses in choice among teacher education providers, accountability, and information is produced as well as the associated lack of responsiveness to change and to local requirements.

3.3.1 Limited choice of teacher education provider

As the 'demander' of teacher services it might be expected that the government would be concerned to ensure wide choice. But the government is not the ultimate 'demander' - school students, or rather their parents as their agents, are - and it buys on behalf of parents. In the political process the interests of producers are favoured rather than those of the poorly organised parents.

Several factors lie behind the limited choice of teacher education provider confronting prospective student-trainees. Private providers of teacher education are at a disadvantage, as in other areas of tertiary provision, because in most cases their funding is at lower levels than state providers and excludes property costs. Additional entry barriers are created by:

• o the funding of normal schools to provide practicums and expertise for specified teacher education colleges, to which other providers do not have access. This places other providers at a disadvantage. The Ministerial Reference Group (MRG) on school staffing made the helpful recommendation that the normal schools arrangement should cease;
• o the power of the teacher unions (stemming in part from the collective employment contracts - CECs), who have a clear interest in the inflows to the teaching workforce. Unions will wish to keep up their membership, but they also have an interest in reducing the supply of entrants to boost the wages of existing members. They will also tend to oppose entrants unlikely to join the unions. For example, by anecdote, there have been cases where a teacher union has sought to discourage schools from accepting trainees from private providers;
• o the tied nature of teacher Equivalent Full Time Student (EFTS) funding. Whilst in theory a provider can switch from the teacher EFTS category to other EFTS categories, there is considerable complexity and risk in so doing, the agreement of the Ministry of Education has to be obtained, and its various rules complied with. By contrast, other lower cost EFTS funding can be moved at the discretion of the provider between the many subject areas covered within much broader EFTS categories. Hence, any provider of teacher education is taking on a high and inflexible exposure to that field and cannot re-balance toward other types of course at its own discretion. Equally, other tertiary providers cannot simply add on a teacher education course to their range of provision in the same way that they might add on, say, a commerce or arts course;
• o the ministry's role as negotiator of the CECs with teachers and as implicit guarantor of teacher supply means that it will be under constant pressure to adjust teacher supply through changing its purchase of teacher training. The number and type of teacher training EFTS funding that the ministry is prepared to provide are subject to sudden change. So, teacher education providers are vulnerable to shifts in the ministry's policy on teacher education; and
• o the CECs for teachers mean that terms and conditions of employment are liable to change across the board as a result of central negotiations and tend to be inflexible and thus unable to meet local circumstances. This increases the risk of mismatches of supply and demand - both in terms of quantity and quality. Both the impact of negotiated employment contract changes and of consequent supply and demand mismatches increase the likelihood of sudden changes in the demand for teacher education places from students and the funding of them by the ministry. Again, providers face high risks which they can do little to control.

These factors produce high entry barriers to new providers.

The existing pattern of colleges of education has traditionally been for each to have a geographic catchment area, i.e. a local quasi-monopoly. However, with recent developments, including the entry of new providers (including some polytechnics, universities and private providers) and the establishment of regional campuses, the situation is much more varied and fluid. But there is still in effect a bilateral monopoly between the ministry and the teacher colleges, which parallels that between the ministry and the teacher unions over the CECs.

Bilateral monopolies do not have a single 'solution' in terms of price and the distribution of financial or other forms of profit or rent. The distribution of rents in a bilateral monopoly depends on the power and games-playing skills of the participants. Insider knowledge and contacts become important and sudden shifts in outcomes may occur. None of this encourages new entrants, investment or client orientation.

The appearance of new entrants to the provision of teacher education and new alliances between universities and colleges of education suggest that the bilateral monopoly is producing such low quality of provision that existing and new players see room for improvement in provision and a role for themselves in providing this, notwithstanding the risks involved. Thus, the bilateral monopoly has not created stasis, as the poor quality provision that has resulted has itself attracted attention.

3.3.2 Accountability problems

In addition to the ministry's close relationship with teacher education providers, various of the government's education agencies have roles as owner of the colleges, regulator and standard setter for the quantity and quality of teacher education, regulator of standards for teachers, and standard setter and enforcer of standards of schools' boards of trustees.

This web of inter-dependent relationships reinforces the bilateral monopoly between the ministry and the colleges over teacher supply and inhibit accountability. There cannot be clear accountability when the parties concerned are inter-dependent across a range of activities and the performance of colleges is partially dependent upon supply and other critical decisions by those to whom they are accountable.

As Partington (1997) points out, judgment of outcomes partly depends upon the educational theory held. Such ideology is a critical issue within the educational community, including the government's agents, and the teacher education providers play a key role in producing, developing and passing it on to the next generation of teachers. To the extent curriculum and other decisions by the government's agents reflect a particular educational theory or ideology, their willingness to criticise those providers holding the same views may be undermined.

Hitchiner (1997) notes the ineffectiveness of the accountability regime for institutions:

... the output classes and performance dimensions are generally described at a very high level, with a predominant focus on numbers of students. Other than in respect of enrolment, it is difficult to judge that an institution has delivered its agreed outputs or met its objectives; it is equally difficult to judge that an institution has not delivered its agreed outputs.
... Implementation appears to extend the principle of academic freedom while giving insufficient regard to the accountability and scrutiny elements [of the Education Act and Public Finance Act].

Providers face conflicting incentives. While they will be concerned to raise the quality of teacher-students and thus of new entrants to the teacher work force, the financing arrangements will tend to encourage high enrolments even if that means lower academic entrance requirements.

Other publicly funded occupational training regimes may have similar weaknesses in accountability to the ministry for their expenditures of EFTS funding. But this is counterbalanced by the discipline of an independent occupation and/or employers and the impact of market forces on wages and conditions of employment for those in the occupations concerned. In other words, outside teaching there is adequate choice and information to enable students and employers to exercise some effective influence over providers.

Such counterbalances are ineffective in the case of teaching. The occupation and the employers are connected to, and dependent on, the government through the web of government interests. The CECs depend on the interplay of unions and the ministry and lessen the impact of market forces on teachers' wages and conditions. Employers and students lack adequate choice and information to exercise effective pressure on providers. None of this assists accountability.

3.3.3 Information problems

These complexities and poor accountability also work against the provision of adequate information for students, employers and the government as funder. The information produced through the myriad standards is primarily a matter of requiring or ensuring bureaucratic compliance and is not aimed at assisting decision making by students or employers, who are likely to find the lack of clear comparators or reference points confusing and unhelpful. The ministry as funder focuses, as Hitchiner (1997) notes, on student numbers and, therefore, does not utilise whatever other useful information the various bureaucratic standards may produce.

The lack of choice between providers means that there are weak incentives on providers to give detailed information on courses or outputs for students or employers. Partington (1997) notes the lack of information on course content.

3.4 Implications of poor choice, accountability and information

As a consequence of poor choice, accountability and information, the system of teacher education:

• o is largely driven by occupational and bureaucratic interests - students and employers have limited influence;
• o has weak incentives on providers to respond to changes in the market place;
• o may suffer sudden changes in quantity and quality of provision as the balance of power in the bilateral monopoly shifts;
• o is subject to ideological capture; and
• o is discouraging to new providers - unless they have deep pockets, alliances with existing players or are driven by differences with the prevailing ideology among existing providers.

Overall, supply is likely to be poorly differentiated (apart from niche providers), unresponsive to change, of low quality, and characterised by high levels of rhetoric from the vested interests. Both Partington (1997) and Hitchiner (1997) note the rhetoric.

Furthermore, these characteristics are themselves likely to discourage many prospective student-teachers.

3.5 Conclusions and recommendations

The government already intervenes in teacher education in a range of ways unique in tertiary education. Their overall effects are to create problems in choice, accountability and information. It is not clear that there are any countervailing benefits.

Before embarking on a range of new interventions via an Education Council, it would be wise for the government to review its objectives and the effectiveness of existing interventions in achieving them. The Consultation Document does not do this. As discussed in later sections of this submission, the proposed Council will in fact exacerbate the problems arising from existing arrangements.

It is therefore recommended that:

• o The government note that the range of existing government interventions in teacher education is extensive, and their overall results include poorly differentiated supply, lack of responsiveness, quality problems, and much rhetoric by vested interests.
• o Before decisions are made on the proposals in the Consultation Document, the government should review its objectives for teacher education and evaluate the effectiveness of existing interventions in achieving them.
  

CHAPTER 4

TEACHER EDUCATION WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF SCHOOLING

4.1 Introduction

The Consultation Document promotes the establishment of an Education Council with wide powers over initial teacher training, professional standards and membership of the profession. There is an underlying assumption that these are connected with good teaching and learning, but no linkages are identified explicitly let alone examined in any depth.

It is reasonable to assume that good teacher preparation will contribute to good teaching and effective learning. But it is not reasonable to assume that the proposals in the Document will lead to more effective teaching, especially in the absence of any changes to the way schools are run.

Without clarity about what is to be achieved and by what means, tensions between different objectives can quickly arise. For example:

• o high professional status seems inconsistent with the heavy-handed government management approach to standards setting by a government established Crown Entity (c.f. "professions are inherently autonomous and self-policing", Benderson 1986);
• o the proposed Council is likely to defend and affirm the status quo in all sorts of issues including, perhaps, a particular approach to pedagogy or to the teaching of reading. But most professionals do their own thinking about how to go about their business and would reject top down interference in such matters;
• o the aim of promoting quality teaching would seem inconsistent with the proposals for increased central control via a Crown Entity of preservice training and of teaching standards and entry into, and continuation within, the occupation; and
• o hierarchical 'accountability' to the Minister of Education (via a government established Crown Entity) and to organisations nominating members of the Council (including the teacher unions) is likely to be inconsistent with 'professional' accountability to 'clients' (in the case of school education accountability to parents as agents of their children).

Many of the tensions in the Document result from confusion on one question which arises in several contexts: whether school management decisions should be left to schools and teachers or made by the central bureaucracy. The next section works through the issue of teaching within the context of formal schooling. But it should first be noted that schools do not have a monopoly of education - the home, the media (especially television), the peer group, the churches and community organisations can exercise a potent influence on attitudes, interpretations and knowledge.

4.2 The role of formal schooling

As indicated in a number of Education Forum reports, New Zealand's education policy advisors and makers tend to see schools as, inter alia, laboratories for eradicating injustice and transforming society rather than as incubators for developing an educated public. The initial report of the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission (TEAC, 2000) is the most recent example - it claims an enormous brief for the tertiary education sector (referred to as a "system") which, it says, must be designed and managed to achieve all sorts of functions including reducing inequalities and promoting social cohesion and understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi. The unstated designer and manager of the "system" and the supplier of the 'correct' understanding of the Treaty will undoubtedly be a small group of insiders.

From the morally dubious (values clarification and condoms in schools ) to the ideologically or pedagogically suspect (for example excessive reliance or over-emphasis on the whole language approach to reading, group activity, bi- and multicultural education) our leading educators and successive governments have shown a deep disrespect for the educational purposes of school .

A more traditional approach, and one favoured by the Education Forum, is to understand formal education as being, in general terms, the means by which children and young people are taught the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, are introduced to their cultural and scientific inheritance through the study of literature, the arts, history, geography, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology and prepared for life beyond school including, but certainly not exclusively, learning how to do and hold a job. In addition, many would expect that formal education would enable children to learn a foreign language and an ancient language (Latin or classical Greek). On the latter, the ministry is clearly as happy to abandon the classical, foundational languages of Western culture as it is to determined to retain the modern, unsatisfactory hybrid of social studies which undermines Western culture.

In formal education pupils will learn and encounter much that is worthwhile in itself. Thus, learning, say, physics or history is valuable in the first instance for itself and not because it leads to the acquisition of a 'transferable skill' which could equally be picked up by some other means. On the other hand, in learning physics and history, pupils will learn many useful skills (analysis, criticism, writing, communication, and so on) just because they are dealing with difficult and complicated matters at a high level (and, ultimately, as studied and pursued by some of the great minds in history).

Among other things, schooling should, at appropriate ages and stages, enable young people to engage with various ways of understanding the world through academic subjects, with applied knowledge through subjects like technology and business, and with occupational activities geared towards particular jobs (Smithers, 1997, pp. 40 and 74). In so doing, students will become innovative, creative and critical. However, all this can proceed only on the basis of knowledge of the area or subject matter in which one intends creativity, criticism, and such like. Otherwise, one's creativity is likely to be a juvenile fumbling towards things already well known and understood, and one's criticism jejune and shallow.

Reason, in the widest sense, is one of our goals, but before one can reason, one has to acquire the knowledge, experience and habits which make reason and reasoning possible. It will also be the case that while some people will go a long way in formal education - and themselves contribute to their traditions and disciplines - others will not. But at least all should have the opportunity of being exposed to the best that has been thought and known, as far as this is possible, and offered at the same time a map to the adult world and whatever educational foundations are necessary for them to acquire a fulfilling career.

All this may well seem axiomatic to most parents, and indeed to many teachers. However, among many education academics and teacher educators in New Zealand, including several of those likely to be appointed to the Council, this view of the role of schooling would certainly be highly contentious and contrary to their own child-centred, reconstructionist views about the role of education discussed above. Perhaps largely unconsciously, New Zealand teachers and to a degree parents, have accepted the child-centred approach to schooling which has seeped into the bloodstream of New Zealanders over several decades. By contrast, schooling in much of continental Europe and Asia is still unashamedly academic, that is, concerned above all with passing on useful knowledge and the national culture to the next generation. In New Zealand, the purpose of schooling has, as we have seen, become much more diffuse, embracing the social situation of the child and wider societal concerns. That it has now so obviously infiltrated higher education, including university education, is not surprising but nonetheless a cause of great concern (TEAC, 2000).

Partington (1997, pp. 1-6) identifies educational theories as falling into five clusters, each with a different priority:

• o transcendental education: what is of greatest value to God's purposes;
• o instrumental education: what is of greatest value to society broadly as it is;
• o liberal education: what is of greatest value to the development of the mind ;
• o reconstructionist education: what is of greatest value in transforming society as it is to one of a radically different character; and
• o child-centred education: what is of greatest value or interest to the child.

These are not rigid, mutually exclusive categories; the same person can embrace more than one, and within each there is room for much disagreement. The point is, however, that whichever cluster is embraced will, to a significant extent, influence the nature of teacher preparation. The question then arises whether through funding, accreditation, professional standards, teacher registration, or other means the state should determine which cluster or clusters of theories should underpin teacher education. On this issue, the Forum concurs with Partington that teacher education should "embrace the principle of educational contestability and accept that people of equal intelligence and experience may legitimately choose very different educational priorities" (Partington, 1997, p. 6). This, however, has clearly not been the view of the Ministry of Education which sees it as necessary to take a view about the future shape of New Zealand society and to inculcate in children its own views through the apparently innocuous means of school curricula (Education Forum 1995 and 1996).

New Zealand lacks vigorous debate on educational issues and there is a substantial homogeneity of view among education bureaucrats, most education sector organisations and many educationalists. To see the approach likely to be adopted by Council members on crucial issues such as the purposes of schooling we can examine the most recent official statement which is the 1997 Green Paper on teacher education (Creech, 1997c). That Paper, in endorsing the "child-centred strategies" and the "strong philosophies of education " which two particular New Zealand teacher educators associated with quality teaching (p. 19), reinforced the view of schooling as a means of reconstructing society. The authors of that Paper appear to view quality teaching as correlated with a concern for issues relating to class, race and gender and awareness and understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi. If such "strategies" and "philosophies" were to be enshrined by the proposed Council in officially sanctioned 'standards', they would advance the reconstructionist cause by effectively imposing a formal ideological straitjacket on entry to the profession and severely limiting contestation of what constitutes 'quality' teaching. By limiting entry to the profession and encouraging exit it would also exacerbate teacher supply problems.

Further, the view adopted of the role of schooling has implications for the 'professional status' of teachers which is discussed later in this submission. Should status relate essentially to the ability to develop cognitive abilities or should it relate to the ability to use schooling to reshape society? The high status of teachers in Europe and Asia is associated with the former. Does the relatively low status of teachers in New Zealand and other English-speaking countries reflect confusion about the purpose of schooling and hence the roles of teachers? If this is the case, adoption and promotion of reconstructionist philosophies might lower the status of teachers.

4.3 Teacher 'quality' and the effectiveness of schools

The Consultation Document assumes that the educational achievement of school students is directly related to teacher quality which in turn is directly related to the quality of teacher education. In a general sense this can be readily agreed. However, the research on the effectiveness of schools in regard to student achievement has often surprisingly little to say about teacher preparation.

Large-scale surveys undertaken in the United Kingdom and the United States to discover what characteristics of schooling account for different cognitive achievement of schools, after allowance is made for variations in student intakes, came up with very similar results . Mortimore et al. (1988), from a survey of 2000 London primary children, identified 12 key factors in school effectiveness that are within the control of the school:

• o purposeful leadership of the staff by the head teacher;
• o the involvement of the deputy head;
• o the involvement of teachers;
• o consistency amongst teachers;
• o structured sessions;
• o intellectually challenging teaching;
• o the work-centred environment;
• o limited focus within sessions;
• o maximum communication between teachers and pupils;
• o record keeping;
• o parental involvement; and
• o positive climate.

A similar list of positive characteristics has been identified by the New Jersey State Department of Education (1988):

• o strong leadership;
• a school climate conducive to learning;
• high expectations of pupils;
• o a clear and focused mission of mastery of basic skills for all pupils;
• o an ongoing assessment of student progress, and
• o a supportive home-school relationship.

A Brookings Institution research project (Chubb and Moe 1990) based on a very large data base found that when school resources and school organisation are analysed in conjunction with student aptitude, family and peers, school organisation is the factor with the second highest impact on student cognitive achievement trailing only student aptitude. In importance, school organisation leads parental influence by a little, and school resources and peer pressure by a lot. In fact "[a]ll other things being equal, attending an effectively organised high school for four years is worth at least a full year of additional achievement over attendance at an ineffectively organised school" (Chubb, 1988, drawing on research published later in Chubb and Moe, 1990). Compared with poorly performing schools (in terms of cognitive outcomes), high performance schools were those in which:

• o there were different goals, emphasising academic excellence as opposed to basics, occupational skills or good work habits;
• o the goals are clearer and more widely agreed;
• o there is an identifiable mission;
• o leadership is more pedagogical than managerial - principals are less likely to have accepted the job to escape teaching and take up management, and are less interested in using the job as a stepping stone to higher administrative office;
• o leadership is stronger but at the same time more democratic in that teachers are more involved and influential in school policy - the relationship between principal and teachers is more cooperative;
• o authority is more delegated to the classroom which leads to more teacher cooperation and mutual support; and
• o the organisation is more of a team than a hierarchy.

Hanushek (1986) conducted a survey of 147 studies estimating education production functions, that is, the relationship between various inputs into schooling and cognitive outcomes . He found that most measurable inputs were unrelated to variations in student academic achievement. Most of the studies found either an insignificant or negative relationship.

These studies do not show that schools and teachers are unimportant - far from it. They do show that schools and teachers differ dramatically in effectiveness, but that input measures do not capture the differences. Significant differences in teacher quality exist, but student performance is not related to differences in teacher educational backgrounds and qualifications. Interestingly, principals' evaluation of teachers were found to be highly correlated with estimates of total effectiveness (i.e. adjusted mean gains in achievement by the students of each teacher (Hanushek, 1989, citing Murnane, 1975, and Armour et al., 1976). This implies that good teaching can be identified at the school level.

Several points of interest relevant to the proposals in the Document arise from this empirical research. First, while there are different emphases, there are clear and consistent themes: within factors under the control of schools, high student achievement is associated with strong academic leadership, clear goals and regular assessment against those goals, and strong involvement of all teaching staff.

Secondly, while it can be assumed that most, perhaps all, teachers involved in the various surveys had attended preservice teacher education programmes, it is unclear what the significance of teacher education (and its various forms) is in terms of the subsequent effectiveness of teachers in the classroom. However, Stevenson (1992) has noted that many highly successful teachers in China had not had any education beyond high school, and that the Asian view is that teaching is best taught on-the-job under able role models. All this raises Alan Barcan's uncomfortable question "[d]oes the form of teacher training really matter?" (Barcan 1995). Clearly there are challenges in such views to schools and teacher education providers.

On the issue of the education of teachers, because of the importance of substantive knowledge we would strongly hold to the view that, other things being equal, teachers should themselves be highly educated. On the issue of formal initial teacher preparation versus a school-based apprenticeship model (as seems to be the pattern adopted in some parts of Asia), the challenge to providers is to demonstrate that they are better at preparing teachers to effect learning than most schools. This should be 'no contest' given that, compared with any one school (or even a consortium of schools), providers should be able to offer a much more diverse range of settings and more exposure to experienced teachers who can demonstrate how to effect learning in those various settings. However, the school-based model should not be rejected and government policy should not preclude it.

Thirdly, to the extent that 'professionalism' involves effectiveness in raising pupil cognitive achievement levels then it is most likely to be exercised in a school which is effectively organised in terms of the characteristics discussed above. The 1997 Green Paper emphasised the importance of the individual teacher:

The quality of the education provided for New Zealand students ultimately depends on the quality of the individual teachers in our classrooms (p. 19).

The Minister of Education has recently affirmed that "[raising] teacher quality is one of the most effective ways to improve learning" (Mallard, 2000a). The 1997 Green Paper also noted the importance of an "effective and supportive management structure [which] facilitates high quality teaching". However, it didn't go on to ask the vital question about what features of the regulatory environment in which schools operate might promote such a management structure. Many able teachers no doubt persevere notwithstanding failure in leadership and other aspects of management, but it is probably also the case that others give up, 'retire' into mediocrity, or leave teaching altogether and seek more satisfying occupations elsewhere. Recent moves to centralise decision making by abolishing bulk funding and tightening enrolment schemes will have adverse effects on school organisation and on teacher morale which the establishment of an Education Council on the lines proposed will do little if anything to reverse - indeed it may simply be seen as a further move to unhelpful centralisation.

The type of preservice education may still be very important, but other factors would seem to be at least as important in terms of effective classroom teaching: we want well-prepared, effective teachers working in effectively organised schools. From the perspective of educational policy, this observation prompts the question: 'why are some schools more effectively organised than others?'. Chubb and Moe (1990) addressed this particular issue. Since their definition of school organisation mainly centred on school goals, leadership and collaborative professional relationships among teachers, their findings are very much in line with earlier research. The question which Chubb and Moe then proceeded to ask, and one which by and large had been previously overlooked, was what determined school organisation. They found that the single most important determinant was the strength of external pressures on schools. Specifically, the more a school is subject to the influence of external administrators and unions, the less likely the school is to be effectively organised.

Autonomy was found to have the biggest influence on overall quality of school organisation. It is the strongest in the private sector, where schools are controlled by markets, and weakest in the public sector, where schools are controlled through the political process. Chubb and More recommend more parental choice and the use of decentralised markets to allow schools to prosper as effective organisations. This Chubb and Moe finding is clearly directly relevant not only to matters such as the bulk funding of teacher salaries and the level at which teacher contracts are determined but also to the proposals in the Document for more centralised control over standards and entry to, and continuation within, the profession.

4.4 Conclusions and recommendations

Obviously there is no one 'magic' solution to the problem of raising school performance. It is also the case that much of what effective school research has to say is hardly surprising - indeed it is intuitively obvious. All effective organisations - educational or otherwise - tend to display characteristics such as good leadership, clear and ambitious goals, frequent evaluation against goals and cooperative endeavour among staff. It is the Chubb and Moe finding that high levels of external pressure on schools make the achievement of these characteristics more difficult, together with the policy implications in terms of school autonomy and parent choice, that is of most interest - and most controversial. It is not surprising that some of the loudest protests are from organisations whose influence depends on the continuation of a system of centralised decision making.

Notwithstanding protests from educational interest groups, the aim of public policy for schools should be to establish an environment in which characteristics conducive to high achievement, including organisational characteristics, are likely to be encouraged. We should be wary of introducing new centralising bureaucratic processes such as a government initiated and established standards-setting 'professional' body which, on the face of it, would appear to be precisely what the Chubb and Moe research warns against.

It is therefore recommended that:

• o The government should note that effective teaching is most likely to take place in effective schools, identify the features of a policy environment most likely to encourage effective schooling, and consider whether and how a professional body for teachers might contribute to such an environment.

CHAPTER 5

TEACHER QUALITY

5.1 Introduction

'Quality' has become the latest buzzword in official documents on education. It was the dominating concept in the 1997 Green Paper on national qualifications (Creech 1997a) in which the "quality threshold" (consisting of some 13 "attributes" all of which will require breaking down into many 'sub-attributes') was to take the place of the now discredited unit standard as the unifying and transforming concept (Irwin 1997a). In the 1997 tertiary Green Paper a further 23 quality attributes were presented, and it was proposed that providers would have to present evidence that they demonstrate them (Creech, 1997b, Appendix C). Quality was the dominating concept in the 1997 teacher education Green Paper (Creech, 1997c).

'Quality' is, of course, a superficially attractive concept. The danger is that the use of the word will be thought to constitute an argument in itself without further elaboration, thus making the tedious business of thinking unnecessary. Various necessary steps are assumed - identify the attributes of quality for the activity concerned, set them in regulations of various kinds, appoint an organisation to administer them (an Education Council for example) - and, hey presto, many quality problems are solved. This, of course, would be a naive and simplistic approach embracing many dubious assumptions, certainly when applied to education, and one likely to compound existing problems or create new ones.

5.2 Teacher 'quality' in the Consultation Document and the 1997 Green Paper

Some shortcomings in teacher performance are implied by the references in the Consultation Document to the need to clarify the reporting requirements of employers in cases of teacher misconduct and incompetence, to the need for powers of enquiry and for a wider range of sanctions. These require legislative amendments but it is not clear that an Education Council need be established to administer any such changes. The provisions concerning the power to receive complaints against a teacher could, for example, be administered by the present TRB.

The 1997 teacher education Green Paper added to the massive stock of platitudes already available about the desirability of 'quality' among teachers. It acknowledged that "defining teacher quality is difficult and contentious" and recognised that "there is no nationally consistent means of defining or identifying quality teaching" (p. 25). It noted the dynamic interaction between teacher and student and the importance of the management structure (p. 19). However, it mistakenly assumed that this lack of definition results from a failure to consider the matter, not from more fundamental disagreements which do not disappear after even the most extensive consideration, and implied that it has overcome the problem and avoided contention.

As discussed in greater length later in this section (5.5.1), the 1997 Green Paper referred to official acceptance by a contributing New Zealand study of an OECD working definition of teacher quality. The Paper also stressed change management skills and pastoral ability as desirable attributes of teachers. Courses in substantive knowledge would include changing perceptions about the world - and they must avoid "static" skills and knowledge (p. 20).

5.3 The assumed need for government intervention to ensure teacher 'quality'

The 1997 Green Paper sought solutions to the teacher supply situation which "must ensure that New Zealand has a world class teaching profession capable of serving our country's needs into the future" (p. 6). Leaving aside all sorts of, perhaps pedantic, worries about what "world class" actually means, it is necessary to ask who should make decisions about what teaching needs there are now and how they are likely to change in the future, and about what standards of teaching quality should be sought to meet those needs.

In the production of most goods and services, the government plays no part in setting quality standards unless it is a consumer of those goods and services in which case it plays its part, like any other customer (though perhaps a very large and influential one) in obtaining the mix of quality and quantity that suits it best . For the vast majority of the goods and services available in New Zealand the quality results from the interaction of demand and supply in the market place. In most cases there is a range of quality available, and purchasers make their choices on the basis of information available and the competing demands on their resources. Providers compete in the production of the range of goods and services demanded. Teaching services - the teaching of children and the teaching of student-teachers - are, it seems, different: government intervention is required. Why?

The reasons given in the 1997 Green Paper on tertiary education (Creech, 1997b) for intervention in the quality regulation of tertiary education were to provide information to students and employers and to determine which institutions should be eligible to receive government subsidies. These were analysed at length in the Education Forum's submission on that Green Paper (Education Forum 1998) and found not to stand up to analysis. It was pointed out that quality is subjective, hard to define and very difficult to measure 'from above'. It is not clear that the government has the ability, much less the incentive, to determine the appropriate level of quality.

In the case of teaching and teacher education, an additional and obvious reason that might be advanced for government intervention is that the government is the dominant purchaser, being the owner and funder of the great majority of schools. However, the government still needs to show that the proposed interventions address the identified problems (i.e. they do achieve quality), that government or Crown Entity intervention is the best way of achieving it (i.e. the quality outcome is superior to what might be achieved in the absence of such intervention), and that the benefits in terms of additional quality exceed the costs.

The Education Forum's general reservations about the tertiary Green Paper proposals (Creech, 1997b) made in its submission on them apply also to teacher education. For example, there can be no market test of whether benefits exceed costs where eligibility for subsidies is tied to achieving a particular standard - the standard becomes de facto compulsory and may survive even when it is inefficient. A standard that sets a minimum standard for the receipt of subsidies may not be very informative to prospective student-teachers. Moreover, it is very difficult to establish a single quality standard in educational services - people (schools and prospective teachers in the case of teacher education) have different hierarchies of quality components depending on their own needs and perceptions about what is important.

If quality is set in terms of inputs alone the result may be a focus on factors which are relatively unimportant in determining teachers' performance in terms of their ability to effect learning in the classroom. Thus government accreditation agencies may impose additional compliance costs on teacher education providers with little effect on the performance of future teachers. They may in fact serve to hinder innovation and specialisation and thus lower quality. (For these and other considerations see Education Forum, 1997, section 4.)

The setting of standards for teachers may result in diminished responsibility on school principals and boards to secure the best teaching services available for their particular needs. They will be less accountable not only for first appointments but for promotions if, as was proposed in the 1997 Green Paper on teacher education, standards are set at higher levels as well. Again there has been no assessment of possible benefits against possible costs. If standards are set low, little quality improvement, if any, can be expected, but there will be considerable compliance and monitoring costs. If standards are set high, there could well be additional costs of appeals, judicial reviews and so on. If the standards are not targeted at identified quality problems there may be few if any benefits - only additional supply constraints which will lead to watering down initial, ambitious standards. For example, there may be little point in raising standards for maths and science teachers without substantial increases in pay for teachers with good tertiary qualifications in these specific subject areas.

Raising entry standards will just reduce supply unless teaching is made a more attractive career. In fact, there are very few tertiary institutions that could not adopt higher standards for admission to, and graduation from, programmes of teacher education if they were determined to. This fact reveals the faculty stake in low standards. There are simply not the incentives under current arrangements to raise standards, and it is quite unclear what the proposed Education Council could do about it.

Moreover, there are features of the current teacher labour market that undermine attempts to raise teacher quality. Schools have little incentive to teach students academic skills (due to lack of accountability and of information on their performance in doing so), and schools have little incentive to hire teachers with strong academic skills or to pay them more. In fact, current pay structures do not reward merit. It is little wonder that there are concerns about the level of talent in teaching. If the talented are not rewarded, then they are more likely to choose a different profession where there is a return to talent. Stuart Middleton has noted that the number of young people wanting to enter secondary teaching has declined by 41 percent according to a recent survey (Middleton, 2000). Current policies ensure a lack of good teachers.

The problem is compounded by the fact that trainees must invest in education specific training, with little value outside public education, which makes them sensitive to declining job prospects. The effect is greatest for those with the most attractive options outside teaching, as they incur the greatest loss if they train to become teachers and cannot find a teaching job. The lack of incentive for schools to hire applicants with strong academic records makes this a real problem. A US study concluded that public schools show no preference for applicants that have strong academic records (Ballou and Podgursky 1997). The study found that one reason for this is that academically well qualified staff are less likely to stay within the profession. It also found that private schools place more emphasis on strong academic background in staff recruitment and are more likely to differentiate salaries on the basis of performance and to dismiss ineffective teachers.

The point made earlier about teacher training institutions - that they are subject to the vagaries of government policy (3.3) - applies here. The fact that teachers must deal with the government as a monopoly buyer and are subject to the uncertainties of the political process makes teaching a less attractive profession. The insertion of a Crown Entity with strong teacher union influence and accountable to the Minister of Education will add to such concerns. A movement towards education degrees exacerbates this problem, by increasing the 'education specific' content of teacher training.

A better strategy to increase the quality of teachers is to differentiate salaries on the basis of performance and to raise standards for students (giving schools an incentive to value academically able teachers more) and teachers. Tenure arrangements for teachers would have to allow dismissal of incompetent teachers and registration requirements relaxed to broaden the recruitment base to include applicants without education credentials but with promise. The latter could also involve a reduction in education specific investment in training, for example by allowing them to complete an education credential while on-the-job. Such an approach is not likely to find favour among those members of an Education Council representing organisations with a strong stake in the status quo and the interests of existing teachers.

5.4 The importance of knowledge

From the Forum's perspective on the role of formal school education, teachers must, first and foremost, be knowledgeable in the subjects they are to teach (4.2). They should also exemplify certain moral and personal qualities. But as far as formal study is concerned the focus must be on their subject area. Thus the first requirement of teacher education programmes is to ensure that student-teachers have substantial knowledge in the subject area or areas they are likely to have to cover as teachers.

Partington (1997) notes that many university courses are narrow in scope and geared towards the particular research interests of teaching staff rather than on likely broader requirements of future teachers. He suggests that colleges of education and universities might profitably consider whether and how university programmes might be better aligned with the requirements of future teachers. Also, the understanding of subjects sufficient for the purpose of satisfying university markers is different in kind (and certainly in depth) from the understanding required to enable the teacher to present it in a comprehensible way to young minds. A great teacher, said Lee Shulman, is:

... someone who really understands the subject deeply and understands how exquisitely complex it is to make your knowledge accessible to the knowing processes of those who do not yet understand. (Shulman 1989, emphasis in original)

However, universities would need to be careful, in seeking to accommodate the concerns of teacher educators, that they do not allow their academic mission to be undermined. The best guarantors of intellectual honesty and quality are academics who are free to develop courses that are academically rigorous, even when this runs counter to the wishes of some 'client' group. Arguably one reason for the extent of 'political correctness' in the teachers' colleges is their proximity to teacher and other pressure groups and the perceived need to satisfy their demands.

The disparagement of knowledge seen widely in the education establishment and official documents is deplorable, and New Zealanders are paying a heavy price for it. Not all the innovation in the world (understood in the 1997 Green Paper on teacher education - but not by the Forum - as "the key to progress", p. 22) will render Plato or Aeschylus or Shakespeare or Gibbon or Tacitus redundant, nor indeed Newton or Einstein. Nor will all the information technology (IT) (p. 31) in the world render such knowledge otiose. Unless and until individual students have a basis of knowledge, they won't be able to use IT for anything other than mindless surfing, porn and computer games (5.7).

Further, knowledge in one's mind is never static. It is static when it lies in a computer (or a book) unaccessed, unread and unused. But who, apart from the educated can use it? And it is only well educated teachers who can protect schools and their students from the inevitable swings in education fashion. As Diane Ravitch (Ravitch 1985) said of teachers in the US context, the commitment of teachers and their students to knowledge moderates and blunts pedagogical fashions that are not solidly grounded in good educational practice.

5.5 Teaching methods

In the Forum's view, the second essential requirement for a 'quality' teacher is ability to communicate and teach a subject.

5.5.1 The perspective of the 1997 Green Pape

The Green Paper affirmed (p. 19) the following dimensions of quality teaching identified in an OECD study (OECD, 1994):

• o knowledge of substantive curriculum areas and content;
• o pedagogic skill, including the acquisition and ability to use a repertoire of teaching and assessment strategies;
• o reflection and the ability to be self-critical, the hallmark of teacher professionalism;
• o empathy and commitment to acknowledging the dignity of others (students, parents and colleagues) in the pursuit of affective as well as cognitive outcomes; and
• o managerial competence, as teachers assume a range of managerial responsibilities within and outside the classroom.

In addition, the Paper affirmed the "interactive and dynamic nature of quality teaching" and, as previously noted (4.2), associated itself with a New Zealand study (Ramsay and Oliver 1993) which found that " 'quality teachers' in New Zealand had strong philosophies of education and used child-centred strategies to encourage children to become independent learners."

The OECD report cited is bland and evasive, and none of its statements advances the argument. For example:

• o there is agreement that knowledge is required of substantive curriculum areas, but much disagreement on what levels of knowledge in which areas;
• o there is agreement that pedagogic skill is needed, but widespread disagreement on what balance between teacher-directed and student-initiated activities in a particular area at a particular level is a hallmark of skilful pedagogy;
• o there is agreement that teachers should be reflective and self-critical, but deep concern that many self-proclaimed advocates of reflection and criticism prove to be highly unreflective about their own doctrines and very resistant to any criticisms of them;
• o there is agreement about the desirability of empathy, but serious disagreement as to what this entails, especially in respect of highly disruptive students; and
• o there is agreement that teachers should be managerially competent rather than incompetent, but much disagreement as to how much time in pre-service teacher education should be devoted to managerial skills which may best be acquired in schools.

The Green Paper itself unreflectively and uncritically accepted the conclusion reached by one New Zealand study about the nature of quality in teachers in New Zealand (p. 19). Ramsay and Oliver (1993) claim to have established that there is a necessary link between success as a teacher and several key capacities apparently possessed by five female teachers considered to be of highest quality in their region. These women were all "able to think clearly and rationally at a high order level", had high tertiary qualifications, and displayed "warmth and compassion", "determination" and "sense of humour". In each case "issues relating to class, race and gender were well to the fore of their essential concerns, and were reflected in their social and community actions". In addition, "all of the teachers were aware of and understood the text of the Treaty of Waitangi".

These five women are no doubt very good teachers, but it does not necessarily follow that there is a correlation between their ideological convictions and success as a teacher. To generalise from the study of five female teachers across the whole body of teachers is an incredible extension. Why should it not also be concluded that the sex of the teachers was relevant and thus exclude all male teachers from any possibility of achieving 'quality' ? Professor Ivan Snook recently pointed to the fallacy of such exercises:

The facts are that for more than a decade educational researchers studied excellent teachers in order to derive guidance for more ordinary teachers. The whole expensive exercise failed: excellent teachers turned out to be so varied that no generalisations could usefully be made. (Snook, 2000)

It almost beggars belief that the Paper considered that the New Zealand study cited proved that 'quality teachers' in New Zealand use "child-centred strategies to encourage children to become independent learners", so that these "child-centred strategies" should become a necessary component of any definition of teacher quality applied by New Zealand governments as part of their prescriptions for education (p. 19). It was a special irony that 'child-centred strategies' conflict with traditional Maori methods of upbringing, which require adherence to long-established traditional beliefs and practices, even though the Paper purported to respect Maori custom. The main point is, however, that the Paper sought to impose uniformity in matters in which there is legitimate contention among equally intelligent, empathetic and experienced people. The danger is that the proposed Education Council wold seek to do likewise.

The Green Paper saw 'quality teachers' as those who use child-centred strategies, who move away from the traditional approach to one of facilitating and mediating students learning (p. 19). It draws in this respect from Ramsay and Oliver who observed that "[c]ritically [the five quality teachers they observed] saw themselves not as 'teachers' but as facilitators for children" (Ramsay and Oliver, 1993, p. 55). The Paper also considered that quality teachers believe that the emphasis should be on flexibility rather than "one static set of skills and knowledge" (p. 20).

5.5.2 An alternative view

A very different approach to that of the New Zealand education establishment, and one which the Forum considers should be given attention, is recommended by Professor Brian Simon, one of the most influential Marxist educationalists in Britain (Simon 1981):

The main thrust of the argument ... is this: that to start from the standpoint of individual differences is to start from the wrong position. To develop effective pedagogic means involves starting from the standpoint of what children have in common as members of the human species; to establish the general principles of teaching and, in the light of these, to determine what modifications of practice are necessary to meet specific individual needs. If all children are to be assisted to learn, to master increasingly complex cognitive tasks, to develop increasingly complex skills and abilities or mental operations, then this is an objective that schools have in common; their task becomes the deliberate development of such skills and abilities in all their children. And this involves imparting a definite structure into the teaching, and so into the learning experiences provided for the pupils. ...
This approach, I am arguing, is the opposite of basing the educational process on the child, on his immediate interests and spontaneous activity, and providing, in theory, for a total differentiation of the learning process in the case of each individual child. This latter approach is not only undesirable in principle, it is impossible of achievement in practice.

This approach looks for what is common rather than what is unique. It concentrates on the group rather than the individual student, while allowing for modifications in pedagogy to meet specific individual needs. One practical outcome of this structured group approach would be a greater concern to consider where there might be advantages in grouping students by aptitude and level of attainment so that the instruction can be the more effective. Its focus on achieving mastery of skills and cognitive tasks and their deliberate development is also in sharp contrast with approaches, common in New Zealand teacher education, based on the view that knowledge is individually constructed largely leaving the teacher as facilitator and emphasising group activity rather than whole class instruction.

It seems unlikely that the best schools in New Zealand pursue child-centred strategies at the expense of large tracts of authoritative and didactic teaching. Certainly this doesn't appear to be the case in Germany, Switzerland or the Far East. Phillips (1996, p. 52, drawing on research by Bierhoff and Prais 1995) contrasts the child-centred approach in England with that in Swiss schools noting that a survey had showed that in spite of spending less time on maths, science and technology, Swiss children were "years ahead of their English counterparts" in these subjects. She also noted that the child-centred approach observed by the researchers in English schools turned out to be anything but that:

For most of the time pupils are left to their own resources. The teacher's role is mainly to help individual pupils when there are difficulties and to check their work. Pupils are addressed by the teacher usually only if they request it. Often several pupils need the teachers' help at the same time; ... The pressure on teachers means that checking of pupils' work is often cursory; many pupils do not receive adequate support from the teacher to carry out their work successfully, and poor understanding by pupils frequently goes unnoticed. Average pupils, and even more so those who are below average, consequently suffer.

The didactic approach of the Swiss schools, however, "paid dividends":

Half to two-thirds of the lesson was devoted to continuous interaction between the teacher and the whole class. The teacher started with a problem and developed solutions and concepts through graded questions addressed to the whole class. Pupils were thus guided towards discovering solutions themselves. Virtually the whole class was mentally engaged and the teacher could see from the responses who was weaker and needed individual help during written exercises. "To English teachers familiar with the long tail of under-achieving pupils in their mathematics classes who have trouble in understanding what they are expected to do, the degree of evenness amongst Swiss Realschule pupils in their attainment comes as a considerable revelation as to what lies within the realms of possibility" (Bierhoff and Prais 1995).

Robin Alexander's study of primary practice in Leeds led to the conclusion that group work (with children working in groups on different projects), thematic curriculum planning and delivery based on children's inquiry methods could all lead to problems subversive of children's learning - particularly in the hands of inexperienced or uncommitted teachers - and tended to be wasteful of time and effort. He argued especially against any single model of 'good primary practice' being laid down as a absolute, and against the pretence that there was a consensus in this area. He also argued for far less emphasis on surface aspects like display and resources and for more on the precise nature and purposes of the tasks children were given (Alexander 1991).

It is possible that much of what is said above about schools in England could also be said of New Zealand schools. Arguably our woeful failures at primary and junior level are due to schools being largely staffed by teachers ignorant of "static" knowledge against which the Green Paper warned (p. 20), though filled with all kinds of notions of child-centredness leading to excessive reliance on group activity, discovery methods, mediation and facilitation. Such trends in Britain have, it is understood, led to many of those who can pay getting their children out of state primary schools as fast as they can, and there may be a similar trend to private and integrated schools in New Zealand.

We should be suspicious of the emphasis in the OECD report, and endorsed by the authors of the Green Paper, on self criticality in teacher quality. This is another fine-sounding term meaning little. Of course, all good teachers are thoughtful and self?critical, and so are good doctors, drainlayers, policy analysts and shop attendants. Self criticality need not be explicit. Explicit self-criticism (as in the 'reflective practitioner') all too often means the importation of dubious and irrelevant psychological and sociological perspectives into one's work (see Partington, 1997, pp. 101-108).

There is little hard evidence of what New Zealand teachers actually do (which might contrast with what they are asked to do or thought to be doing) and where their ideas come from. But there is a vast literature on unsuccessful attempts, such as that by Neville Bennett (1976), to link 'progressive' child-centred teaching strategies with successful student learning. The work during the 1980s in the United States of James S. Coleman and his associates suggested that structured rather than child-centred methods were more likely to foster good learning among students (Coleman et al. 1982). They found six distinguishing features of schools which showed above average student performance after all background factors (income, class, etc.) were allowed for. These were:

• o they set high standards of personal conduct;
• o they maintained strong and consistent discipline;
• o they assigned regular homework and ensured that it was marked regularly;
• o they demanded regular school attendance;
• o they offered a rigorous and demanding curriculum; and
• o they were staffed by dedicated teachers.

As we have already noted in this submission (4.3), similar findings were made in the United Kingdom and in other US studies.

Teaching is primarily a practical skill (as all teachers and learners will admit), learned primarily by doing. Advice from old hands and demonstration lessons can be most helpful, and there are no doubt a few rules of thumb which can be taught explicitly. But in the end, it is a matter of practice. While there will be some generally applicable processes, good teaching is teaching rooted in the subject matter and thus knowledge and pedagogy are inextricably linked in Shulman's "pedagogy of substance" (Shulman 1989) (5.4). This is a far cry from the 'facilitation' approach of some New Zealand education academics and endorsed by the previous government in its Green Paper.

5.5.3 The content of preservice teacher education courses

The Green Paper had a subhead with this title, but the four paragraphs under it scarcely addressed the topic. However, the authors of the Paper appeared to favour a return to centralised control over the content of teacher education programmes, through the setting of standards, as a means of ensuring their 'quality'. The authors of the Consultation Document express similar views and the recent TEAC report is full of the need for the tertiary "system", defined to include lifelong education from school upwards, to be designed and managed by unidentified persons but implicitly a powerful in-group at or near the national centre.

Many other subjects covered in teacher education programmes are less important to the beginning teacher than the "pedagogy of substance" discussed above (5.4 and 5.5.2). A student-teacher may know all about the psychology of child development or the theory of social stratification and still be a bad teacher. Conversely many good teachers will be thoroughly bored by psychology and sociology, finding such studies irrelevant to the classroom - perhaps partly because they recognise these are areas characterised more by fashion, ideology and prejudice than by any steady accumulation of well attested knowledge which can be helpfully applied in practice.

What is true of psychology and sociology can also apply to educational theory. Educational theories are often particularly value-laden and contested (as Partington, 1997, shows), and derive from fundamental assumptions about ethics and the nature both of mankind and the good. As we all know, in modern society there is no consensus on such matters. This emphasises the danger in putting education in the hands of a monopoly supplier (the state or its agent) and the preparation of teachers in the hands of an establishment dominated by one particular view. In New Zealand's colleges of education and university departments of education, most teaching staff are committed to child-centred and reconstructionist views of education and would be hostile to the vision of education just sketched - despite the fact that it is probably closer to the view of most citizens and even of politicians than is child-centrism.

Underlying the slimness of the Green Paper's comments on the issue of pedagogy is, perhaps, the assumption that the child-centred approach of the New Zealand education establishment is set in concrete for all time. The approach is exemplified by the New Zealand Curriculum Framework which states that the principles giving direction to the curriculum in New Zealand schools are based on two premises, one of which is that "the individual student is at the centre of all teaching and learning ... " (Ministry of Education, 1993, p. 6). This view has however been challenged (e.g. Irwin 1994) and is likely to come under further challenge as weaknesses in the curriculum framework and related curriculum statements are recognised (Irwin 1996b) and as New Zealand slips further down the international rankings for educational achievement.

5.5.4 Different pedagogies for different groups

The 1997 Green Paper had a brief reference to pedagogy in the context of the teaching of Maori children (p. 36), perhaps implying that the authors consider there are different pedagogies for different ethnic groups - a view that is problematic (8.2). But it does not address teaching problems associated with different abilities within a school, which is a much less problematic issue. Howson (1994) raised this important issue in the context of the new maths curriculum for New Zealand schools.

If the current wide variation in student achievement between schools is to be narrowed, it is particularly important that a pedagogy is developed that suits the interests and abilities of those in the lower achieving groups. Luxton (1993), writing for a Local Education Authority in the United Kingdom, has expressed concern that students post-14, particularly in the practical, technical and vocational areas in England, have been offered the pedagogy that is least suited to their abilities and aptitudes. He advocates less emphasis on experiential and activity-based approaches and on group work, and considers that for many young people 'direct instruction' is to be preferred.

Just as teachers need a variety of assessment methods, they also need a variety of teaching methods and the professional competence to know which 'works' best for each curricular activity and in relation to students' ages, interests and attainment levels. Asian teachers are reported to successfully employ a variety of teaching techniques within each lesson (Stevenson, 1992; Stevenson and Stigler 1992; ERO, 2000). The problem with the curriculum framework and some of the curriculum statements is that they point excessively to one approach and not to other approaches for which there are positive research findings and which teachers should be equipped to use. They focus on sensitivity to the needs of individuals rather than on what is to be taught.

Recent history has shown the dangers of highly centralised decision making on curricular and pedagogical issues, not least those of ideological capture (Partington 1997; Irwin 1997b) and the tendency inherent in all bureaucracies to give far too much weight in their decisions to the demands of articulate and well-organised lobby groups. To the extent the it has to be involved in education, the state should contrive a situation in which there are genuinely different types of school, from which parents can chose in the light of the ethos of the school and the needs of their children.

5.5.5 Teachers as skilled instructors or friendly facilitators - or both

In the United Kingdom similar child-centred approaches to teaching are increasingly seen as unhelpful. The Chief Inspector of Schools in England, Christopher Woodhead, has been to the fore in challenging the current orthodoxy and in raising the issue of what to do about incompetent teachers. Both the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) and the Department of Education and Science have been involved in producing discussion papers on curriculum organisation and classroom practice in primary schools, some drawing on Ofsted's findings from school inspections (Ofsted, 1993 and 1994; DES, 1992). One of these reports (Ofsted 1994) identified factors found to be associated with high and poor standards of pupil achievement. The three most important factors associated with high achievement were:

i In virtually all the lessons with high standards teachers had satisfactory or good knowledge of the subject they were teaching.

ii In more than half (58 per cent) of lessons where pupils achieved high standards teachers demonstrated good questioning skills to assess pupils' knowledge and challenge their thinking.

iii In 54 per cent of the better lessons teachers used a good balance of grouping strategies including whole class, small group or individual work as appropriate.

The four equally prominent factors in over a quarter of the lessons judged to be unsatisfactory or poor were:

i no actual teaching was done by the teacher. The teacher acted mainly as a supervisor or servicer of individuals or groups;

ii poor management and use of time in the lessons, often with no deadlines being set and/or wastage at the beginning and ends of sessions;

iii an overuse of undifferentiated worksheets;

iv unchallenging or dull tasks were set for pupils.

We are not aware of any similar broad-based data from New Zealand schools. However, there are some obvious points of contrast between these findings from research in England and current official thinking in New Zealand. For example, in the latter group work is officially encouraged. Also, of the four factors associated in the English study with poor learning, the first sounds like the 'facilitation' approach of constructivism, various forms of which dominate New Zealand's education establishment (and which was endorsed in the 1997 Green Paper ), and the fourth immediately evokes the new Social Studies curriculum (Ministry of Education 1997a; Education Forum, 1995 and 1996)).

Pedagogy seems to be a 'Cinderella' subject in New Zealand's educational establishment reflecting the strength with which child-centredness approaches have been enforced and accepted, the ideological baggage associated with it, and perhaps the reluctance of educators to express any doubts they may hold for fear of academic and personal repercussions. Such research into pedagogy as there is seems to avoid a 'first principles' approach which might lead to the questioning of current orthodoxy and a more open approach to finding out what works for which children and what doesn't.

5.6 The practicum

The 1997 Green Paper sensibly held that "teacher trainees [should] participate in practical school-based experience" (p. 31). This is a proposition no one appears ever to have denied, but it is quite another matter to argue that any particular mode of providing such practical school-based experience is so superior to others that is should become the basis for prescription and uniformity.

The Paper advised that the school?based experiences have to be in "a range of classroom settings" and in a diversity of schools (p. 38). However, the aim should be to prepare student-teachers to effect learning within a range of settings and situations and this requires exposing them to role models who can demonstrate the necessary skills. Diversity for the sake of diversity is unlikely to do much good.

The decision on the proportion of time to be spent during preservice training on the practicum is obviously very important. As the allocation of time on practicum increases the system comes closer to one of internship. Trials with internship should be encouraged, though the interests of some training providers might impede such experimentation.

5.7 Information technology skills

The 1997 Green Paper stated that "advances" in information technology (IT) "are changing the nature, practice and philosophies of teaching and learning" (p. 31). This was an astonishing assertion (no analysis or references were provided). What are these changes and are they for the better? It looks as if the authors of the Paper assumed that because IT is pervasive and developing very fast schooling must adapt to it in some fundamental (but unspecified) ways. Is the computer industry really to determine fundamental issues to do with the "nature, practice and philosophies" of schooling?

For the uneducated (and may be also for the educated) IT is the great delusion of our age. Certainly IT offers certain advantages and it is probably necessary for pupils to know how to use IT in an elementary way, but it is not clear that it should go further than that. We are not aware of any evidence that IT helps learning, except at the margins. There is plenty of reason to believe that it is a distraction and worse (5.4). Above all, it should not be used as a pretext for teachers not teaching and for learners not learning.

5.8 The importance of assessment data

The 1997 Green Paper was rightly concerned with raising educational achievement levels. However, it didn't address the issue of how we would know whether levels in the various subject areas at various ages or stages are going up, down or remaining static. Without good assessment data on achievement levels we don't know which schools and teachers are doing well and which poorly. Nor, as already noted (5.5.5), do we have the data about the quality of classroom lessons available in England from Ofsted inspection reports. Boards, principals and other senior school staff will have little data on which to assess the extent to which their teachers are actually teaching in the sense of causing learning to take place and on which to base judgments about how well the various colleges of education prepare their student-teachers to do so. It was disappointing that the present government cancelled the proposed trial of national testing at the primary level, and the latest ministerial announcement on the issue shows that government thinking is set firmly against any form of inter-school comparisons (Mallard, 2000b).

Another point to note from England is the cascading effect of national examinations. For example when secondary school students were examined and schools rated on the basis of performance, the secondary head teachers put pressure on primary schools to lift their standards. Secondary schools naturally did not want to be held responsible for the poor performance of students who had not been well taught at the primary level. Thus measuring in one part of the system led to pressure for accountability in other parts.

While there might be an argument for the state laying down a minimal curriculum (say about half of the school day at the junior secondary level - as recommended by Irwin 1994), the most useful thing the state can do in school education is to insist that schools enter pupils for public examinations and publish the results. In England, league tables have been the greatest, and perhaps the only, lever for raising standards in the past decade. Everything else tends to be beset with jargon, vacuity, ideological capture and bureaucratic inertia leading to coagulation around an undemanding and mediocre consensus, which ends up by satisfying no one .
The value of wide public availability of basic information about the average levels of achievement in each school of students at key ages has been accepted by the Blair Labour Government in the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett, seems more determined than the previous Conservative administration to ensure that students, parents and public, as well as teachers, are fully aware of how schools in similar circumstances carry out their tasks. Since most of the worst underperforming schools have been in Labour strongholds in old working class areas, it is natural that sincere Labour Party people should be determined to know which schools are most helping disadvantaged children. There is, after all, little point in rhetorical denunciations of poverty and deprivation and of educational "gaps" while at the same time taking no interest in how effective teaching methods, organisational systems or curricula are in terms of students' learning, or, for that matter, as regards their health, self-esteem, law-abidingness, or other relevant outcomes.

New Zealand is developing banks of assessment data and this could be very important. The use of this material is to be voluntary (Mallard, 2000b). In our view their use should be made compulsory at certain stages of schooling and the results published.

5.9 Conclusions and recommendations

In the 1997 Green Paper and now in the Consultation Document the issue of teacher quality is rightly given very high priority. However, the treatment in the latter is non-existent and in the former it was inadequate, relying far too heavily on a bland OECD report and a very small scale New Zealand study. Nowhere did the Paper discuss the issue of quality within the wider context of the school environment (4.3).

In our view the key attributes of a 'quality' teacher are substantive knowledge of the subject or subjects to covered, an infectious enthusiasm for the subject(s) as important in its own right, the skill to transmit the knowledge to, and to develop the skills in, children, and good moral character and attitude. Other educational subjects such as educational history and philosophy are important, and while they may be usefully introduced at the preservice stage are best studied in depth after some years of practical experience.

While the Green Paper refered to the importance of knowledge its treatment of it was inadequate and problematical. Its treatment of pedagogy was far worse, reinforcing unhelpful attitudes and approaches which are contrary to those adopted in countries with high levels of educational achievement. Nonetheless, we do not consider that the current orthodoxy should be changed by government fiat. Instead the government should encourage diversity and focus on results by insisting on objective assessment of student learning and the publication of results. Replacing one orthodoxy by another should not be the aim. Rather it should be to ensure ongoing, open, probing, sceptical debate well informed by high quality, objective empirical data.

The government could usefully initiate research into quality issues and open up the area for much needed dispassionate debate from a first principles basis. Teacher education providers, schools and teachers should have information derived from empirical and theoretical research with which to determine their own best strategies. Any notion of enshrining a 'one best' method of teaching in compulsory standards or professional codes should be rejected.

Parents should be able to choose which school is best for their own children. At present this remains largely an option for better-off families. To achieve equity and a better match of child and school it is necessary to free up the supply side of schooling by equalising taxpayer funding for state and private schools.

It is therefore recommended that:

• o The highest priority in teacher education should be given to substantive knowledge in the subject or subjects to be covered and the ability to convey it to, and develop associated skills within, students. The other educational sciences are important but best studied in depth after some years of practical experience.
• o Neither the government nor the proposed Education Council should seek to impose any particular pedagogical approach or approaches on New Zealand schools and teachers, whether through curriculum statements, professional standards or other means.
• o The government should review the already extensive international research into teaching methods including approaches adopted in continental Europe and Asia. It should take the lead in opening up this vital area for objective, dispassionate debate.
• o Neither the government nor the proposed Education Council should accept any notion that a 'one best' system can be identified and enshrined in teacher education and training. Providers should be able, within broad parameters, to determine their own programmes and mix of content, pedagogical emphases and such like.
• o The best thing the government can do is to require all school children to sit national examinations in certain core subjects (say English, maths, science, history and geography) at certain stages and to publish the results. The publication of such information and a more open and rigorous debate about teaching methodologies will better enable schools and teachers to decide their own best strategies and approaches and parents to decide which schools are best for their own children.
• o To enable parents to use school-based information and to take decisions about which schools best suit their own children, the supply side of schooling must be opened up by equalising funding of state and private schools.
• o On resourcing issues, the best policy approach would be to provide funds for teacher development as far as is practical directly to schools, coupled with much greater exposure of the results of schooling in terms of the educational achievement of pupils.
  

CHAPTER 6

THE STATUS OF TEACHING AND TEACHERS

6.1 Introduction

Status cannot be mandated. It reflects respect which has to be earned and maintained. It depends both on how well teachers are judged to perform their task and how teaching is judged to relate to other occupations. The first factor is complicated by the strong connections between teaching and other education institutions including colleges of education, university departments of education and the education bureaucracies. Thus how teachers are perceived is part of the wider issue about how is the education sector as a whole perceived. The second issue is no doubt linked to the first one, but to some degree is exogenous and relates to how important New Zealanders deem education to be.

The issue of status and the process of professionalisation are clearly related to each other and to the government's concern that the proposed Educaton Council should "raise the status of the profession and impact positively on the quality of teaching". What needs to be examined, however, is what professionalisation involves and whether the government's proposals in the Consultation Document are consistent with the process.

6.2 Perceptions about the performance of the school system

The common view within the education sector in New Zealand has long been that we enjoy a world class schooling system and have the benefits of world class teachers. The president of the PPTA said in reference to a report on the achievement of New Zealand school students in an international context:

And the news is good. There is still room for improvement in the area of mathematics, but overall it is clear that the available evidence points to levels of achievement amongst the best in the world. (Foreword to Elley 1991)

Such views have long been disputed by a minority of commentators, and recent international surveys of educational achievement suggest that their concerns have some foundation: perhaps our schools and their teachers are not achieving at the levels hitherto supposed.
In reading literacy, in which New Zealand scores highly internationally, there are worrying trends as indicated, for example, in the long tail of low achievers shown up in the latest IEA study (Wagemaker, 1993) and in Tom Nicholson's 'Struggletown' research (Nicholson 1996b). The recent study of adult literacy found a "high concentration of adults with very poor literacy skills (around 1 in 5 New Zealanders)" (Walker et al, 1997, Benseman, 1997). New Zealand is regarded as "a centre for the whole language approach to the teaching of reading" (Nicholson 1996a) but the ministry's promotion of this approach is under criticism by academics such as Bill Tunmer and Tom Nicholson - and seen by some as an example of the damage that can be inflicted on the education of children by closed bureaucratic minds wielding great power. In this context also, the Forum is very concerned at the prospect of unhelpful approaches being even more strongly enforced, and barriers to criticism reinforced, under the superficially attractive banner of 'professional standards'.

The IEA's Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) confirmed long- and widely held concerns that our teachers are weak in maths and science. Form 2 and Form 3 children were in the lower half of the 40 or so participating countries, with the exception that Form 3 children were slightly above half way in science. The 1997 Green Paper itself notes the TIMSS report's finding "that teachers' lack of knowledge in mathematics and science contributed to the relatively poor performance of New Zealand school pupils in the study. Many current teacher education programmes have very little ('worryingly low') study of these subjects beyond the study of the curriculum (p. 32)." Michael Matthews (Matthews, 1995) drew attention to the appallingly low standard of arithmetical ability of entrants to the primary programme at the Auckland College of Education as revealed in a research study (Buzeika, 1993).

What the ministry might also have noted from the TIMSS report is that several of the countries which achieved at the highest levels were either Asian (Singapore, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong ) or ex-Soviet bloc countries (Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Bulgaria, and the Russian Federation). We suspect a common feature of these countries is a lack of commitment to child-centrism and other aspects of the educational progressivism that dominates the education establishment in New Zealand. Certainly teachers in the Asian countries (China, Taiwan and Japan) included in the survey by Stevenson and Stigler (1992) had quite different views about the most important characteristics of a good instructor from those of their American counterparts. "Clarity" was the most common response of the Asians. "Sensitivity to the needs of individuals" was the most common American response and one which would, presumably, be greeted with approbation by the authors of the 1997 Green Paper in view of their support of "child-centred strategies" (p. 19), "pastoral skills to meet the individual learning needs of all children" (p. 5), and "empathy" (p. 19).

Stevenson (1992) notes that the stereotypical view of the Asian school as one in which children are burdened by excessive rote learning and repeated drill is wrong. Knowledge is not forced, and there are extensive amounts of recess and a positive attitude to academics. Moreover, nothing mysterious was found about Asian teaching styles and techniques - they embodied many of the ideals found in the United States but applied in an interesting and productive way that makes learning enjoyable. Stevenson said that the comparative research showed "how far Americans have strayed from the effective application of well-known teaching methods".

According to Stevenson, Asian teachers see themselves as well-informed, well-prepared guides, who consult one another, and who take children as active participants in a structured way through the material. The skill found in Asian teachers was not acquired in colleges of education.

The pattern for training teachers resembles that provided to other professionals: in-service training under the supervision of skilled models. Colleges are assumed to provide basic knowledge about subject matter, as well as about child development and theories of learning. But Asian instructors believe the art of teaching can be accomplished better in classrooms of elementary schools than in lecture halls in colleges. This approach stands in marked contrast to that taken in the U.S., where teaching skill is generally thought to be best acquired through several specialised courses in teaching methods.

It was suggested earlier in this submission (4.2) that low morale among New Zealand teachers might in part be explained by uncertainty about their role - as pastor and social reformer as well as teacher - and uncertainty about what teaching actually involves (guides to destinations determined by the child or skilled instructors in the mastery of knowledge). Stevenson and Stigler (1992, p. 165) report that pleas for professional status such as made by teachers in the United States would be "inconceivable" in Taiwan and Japan. They go on to report:

There is no question that teachers [in Taiwan and Japan] are professionals. Although in China these days teachers may suffer kinds of inequities in salary that other Chinese intellectuals face, they still retain their admired status.

Clearly too, the need for a Consultation Document such as we are now addressing or the 1997 Green Paper would be inconceivable in those countries.

We suspect the self-confidence and high status of Asian and European teachers (c.f. also Swiss teachers at 5.5.2) has much to do with a more clearly defined role and purpose. It seems doubtful, therefore, whether the status of teaching can be significantly improved while such fundamental uncertainties and ambiguities are widespread. Schools can do some things to highlight the instructional role of teachers by, for example, hiring more teacher assistants for tasks such as the supervision of playgrounds and sport.

6.3 Perceptions about the wider education system in New Zealand

Given the success of Asian teachers and schools in maths and science it could be considered surprising that the ministry has not sought to discover the reasons for their success rather than rely on the bland OECD report and a limited New Zealand study. This relative lack of interest indicates other unhealthy features of the New Zealand education establishment: its insularity and insecurity. The Education Review Office report (ERO 2000) is a recent and welcome exception providing many valuable insights into teaching practices in educationally successful countries. The ministry does not appear to regularly use overseas consultants even though in a very small country we cannot hope to have world class experts in many areas of interest.

When the Forum uses overseas experts their reports are often criticised not because of their actual content but because of the national origin or assumed ideology of the authors. Defensive reactions often involving ad hominem devices such as ideological 'labelling' and accusations of 'conspiracy' are used to denigrate critics and marginalise their views. These devices evade the hard business of seeking the truth and the humbling business of being open to refutation.

Much of what purports to be research about education in New Zealand does little to help children to learn or to add to our knowledge about the world and is more concerned with the pursuit of the common enemy - the 'New Right' - whose identity is often not revealed and whose words are rarely cited. Fortunately there are exceptions, but they are rare.

It is little wonder that the study of education as a subject at the academic and college of education levels and in the bureaucracy is not generally well regarded. Snook (1992) notes the low esteem of teacher education in American universities, and while being (perhaps charitably) uncertain whether the same situation applies in New Zealand "was shocked to read that scholastic success at school was abandoned as a criterion for selection into teacher education on the bizarre grounds that it (allegedly) did not correlate with teaching performance (Bachelor, 1986, p. 119)." However, if knowledge is downgraded and other factors such as empathy are elevated, this state of affairs should cause no surprise, especially if there are few incentives anywhere in the system for teaching academic knowledge and skills.

Barcan (1995, p. 51) reports that courses in Australian teacher training institutions clinging to progressive and/or radical ideologies often served to alienate trainee teachers from their profession. Partington found some evidence of the same in New Zealand institutions during his visit here in 1996. He notes, for example:

Several young teachers ... considered that too many lecturers were concerned to propagate their own personal views and idiosyncrasies (p. 124);

Ideological indoctrination of a reconstructionist character, with a special focus on feminist and Treaty of Waitangi issues, is not merely a danger but a living reality in many teacher education institutions (p. 150);

The principals of some Auckland secondary schools ... condemn much in current teacher education as a mixture of unfocused child-centred methodology and ideological radicalism (p. 47);

Indoctrination, it was suggested, took place chiefly by the presentation of something which is in essence very controversial as though it were undisputed and accepted by all thinking people (p. 51);

The ideological fix of some ACE staff was shown when one young woman asked to be called 'Mrs', since she had just been married. She was told with disdain by an academic 'Ms' that only women with no self-esteem who were dependent on men called themselves 'Mrs' (p. 51); and

In particular, these young teachers emphasised the almost total absence in their courses of any genuinely critical or reflective thought, even though these terms were frequently used by their lecturers. The young teachers considered some college lecturers positively anti-intellectual and hostile to university culture. They claimed that one leading figure in primary teacher education advised them that it was a waste of talent for a really able graduate to enter primary teaching (p. 55).

The Partington report on teacher education and training drew, as the author himself emphasises, from a very limited sample. However, his observations merely confirm the narrow ideological range of view within much of education and the defensiveness of many within it to criticism. Again it must be emphasised that there are exceptions, but overall we do not have a healthy, vigorous, intellectually open educational community.

The state of the education bureaucracy is another part of the education system whose reputation affects the general climate of opinion about education and indirectly people's perceptions about teachers. In the view of the Forum, the quality of the ministry's policy advice in recent years been has poor. It is not that unwelcome conclusions have been reached, but rather that policy papers have lacked rigor, have avoided working from first principles and therefore have not identified problems and their causes, and show little command of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. The three Green Papers issued in 1997 (on national qualifications, tertiary education and teacher education), illustrate these failings. But the problem goes wider. The present Consultation Document and the recent TEAC report contain little that could be identified as the product of rigorous thought.

If our low view of the ministry's policy performance is not a widely held view within the education community at large it is probably because most of the ministry consultants and members of its advisory groups are from the same 'education family' and share very similar educational backgrounds and outlook. The new school curricula, for example, have been drawn up mostly (perhaps entirely) by New Zealand consultants with the advice of advisory groups largely made up of New Zealand academics, tutors and teachers. The same applies to the new NCEA for which many expert groups are developing so-called Achievement Standards.

Overseas developments have, however, clearly been influential in some New Zealand developments. When expert outsiders are brought in to review their work - whether New Zealanders who are not members of the 'education family' like Professor Karl Stead or overseas experts - the ministry's work is often found to be seriously wanting (for example see Education Forum, 1995 and 1996; Howson 1994; Kelly 1995, Smithers 1997, Donnelly, 2000 ). However, the ministry has an astonishing capacity to ignore critical findings and to go on doing what it was going to do anyway - illustrated perhaps best by the development of the Social Studies curriculum for schools and its refusal to contemplate the possibility that its design of the new school qualification, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), contains serious flaws (Donnelly, 2000; Education Forum, 2000a and b).

One recent development which has caused considerable damage to the reputation of education in New Zealand has been the National Qualifications Framework (NQF). This was very vigorously pushed, largely for ideological reasons, by a militant educational bureaucracy, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, under its previous chief executive. It has caused - and still causes - widespread resentment among some secondary and tertiary institutions. After some five years of growing criticism - on both theoretical and practical grounds - the government decided to make radical changes. However, in the 1997 Green Paper on the issue, the ministry of education (until recently not a very public participant in the debate) appeared set to divert the development of the NQF from one cul-de-sac to another (Irwin, 1997a; Smithers 1997). The same unthinking ideological pursuit continues in the development of the NCEA which, if implemented as presently designed, will bring further national and international disrepute to New Zealand education (see especially Donnelly 2000; also Education Forum 2000a and b).

6.4 Perceptions about the relative attractiveness of teaching and the role of the teacher

The attractiveness of teaching inevitably rises and falls with rates of unemployment for tertiary educated young people and with the growth or decline in the demand in other sectors for the tertiary qualified. Changes in the employment market and in perceptions about family (including the use of child care services) over the last several decades have led to considerable growth of employment opportunities for women outside the more traditional occupations of teaching and nursing. Also, the opening up of the economy from the 1980s has resulted in a much more diversified labour force and a wider range of opportunities for both men and women, especially those with higher qualifications. Thus teaching has to compete much more vigorously than in the past for recruits. To the extent that status is a zero sum game, any raising of the status of teachers must also involve a lowering of the status of other occupations.

At the same time as developments outside teaching have reduced the relative attractiveness of teaching, developments within the sector have made teaching more difficult and problematic. Teacher organisations and individual teachers are often equivocal about some of the changes. For example, many teachers seek to have a more extensive pastoral and counselling role, so that they can deal with 'the whole child', but also complain about any increase in non-teaching duties. Others believe that the advocacy and embodiment of moral standards should be no more demanded of teachers than of accountants or driving instructors, but also wish to urge on students beliefs about race or gender which only make sense within a broader context of moral judgments. Many teachers wish to be facilitators rather than to be seen by their students as instructors, but are also often disturbed when they are no longer regarded as figures of authority. For some teachers dealing with unruly students is a challenge to be welcomed, but for more it is often draining and, if the teacher is unsupported, demoralising. All these considerations also influence people thinking about entering teaching.

If we consider the two sets of ideas, the child-centred and the reconstructionist, which, in various combinations, have dominated education over the last quarter of a century, we find that they pose problems for teachers, as well as opportunities. The moderate forms of child-centred philosophy simply require that students' work should be made as interesting and lively as possible and should be related as much as can be to their existing interests and experiences. However, in New Zealand teacher education a more intense form has been influential: radical constructivism which asserts that knowledge cannot be transmitted and that each learner actively constructs their own meaning. This limitation on the right of teachers to engage in direct teaching proves a sore restriction even for some of those who believe in the doctrine. Because the doctrine is, to some degree, endorsed and pushed by teacher education institutions and the ministry of education, it takes some courage to reject it publicly.

Until the 1970s the main reconstructionist theories, with 'classical' Marxism as their most influential variant, placed their main emphasis on the need for the best knowledge, hitherto confined to too small a portion of the population, to be made fully available to all. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Makerenko and Gramsci were all 'materialists' in epistemology and held that there was a real external world about which we can gain objective knowledge, although they were well aware that knowledge could be distorted for various reasons, mainly of a religious, political or other ideological character. Indeed, some of them were experts in some types of ideological distortion themselves when in power. Most reconstructionist opinion then followed Marx in holding that human history was broadly progressive and that significant advances had usually been made when one type of social formation had made way for another, although some changes had been retrogressive, whilst even generally beneficial changes often had some negative consequences. An alternative tradition, associated particularly with Rousseau, was nostalgia for earlier social formations on the ground that these were more natural to our species. However, sentiments which idealised the 'noble savage' and condemned the global intrusions of Europeans into prairies, tundra, jungles and bush were more often to be found on the political right than on the left.

The 1970s saw a weakening within the left of confidence in concepts of progress. This crisis of confidence arose in part from discredit accumulated by communist regimes, in part from fears that further rapid industrial and economic development would create environmental degradation and global catastrophe, and in part from the growing influence of cultural relativism. Claims, first popularised by Franz Boas and Margaret Mead, that values are purely internal to societies, and thus no society should be considered better than any other, easily slipped into belief that societies previously belittled as primitive were superior to those of the belittlers.

The reconstructionist educational ideas that became dominant during the 1970s were advanced by people who describe themselves as neo-Marxist, critical theorists and reflective thinkers. Their epistemology is relativist or subjectivist or, in other words, they do not consider there is any basic difference between knowledge and belief. They hold that it is mainly because of power (of the rich over the poor, men over women, whites over non-whites, and so on), not because of evidence or reason that some beliefs become 'privileged' as 'knowledge'. Far from seeking that all children should have full access to the cultural heritage of the human race previously confined to a minority, the newer reconstructionist views reject the concept of an objectively valuable cultural heritage. 'Whose knowledge?' and 'In whose interests is this claimed to be culturally valuable?' are the central questions asked first by 'critical theorists' and then by radical feminists and advocates of a host of special ethnic or cultural interests, including Maori interests.

Whatever merits the new reconstructionism possesses, it has the signal defect of rejecting the idea basic to earlier radical ideas, as well as to liberal ones, that there is a common core of knowledge, understandings and skills which have well nigh universal value and relevance, even though further experience and study will in time reveal inadequacies in our current ideas and practices. Unless teachers have genuine confidence that they have something true and valuable to impart, and that this is in principle of potential value to all learners, irrespective of class, race or gender, they are unlikely to achieve deep satisfaction from their work, and their occupation is unlikely, and unworthy, to be esteemed as a true profession or vocation.

However, it must be emphasised here, as elsewhere in this submission, that the pronouncements of education academics and bureaucrats do not necessarily affect what goes on in the schools and classrooms of New Zealand, about which hard evidence is lacking. A powerful counterweight to their more extreme notions is the commonsense of ordinary student-teachers, teachers and principals most of whom know that the business of teaching is to effect learning. Similarly students and their parents will demand that this is in fact undertaken. But it is also the case that over time the notions discussed above will tend to change the task of teaching and the image it presents to the rest of society.

6.5 Teacher supply issues

The supply of teachers is closely related to its attractiveness relative to other professions and occupations recruiting from the same graduate market. However, there are some particular aspects about teaching which need to be borne in mind.

An unstated assumption in the Consultation Document (as in the 1997 Green Paper) is that all persons who may be described as teachers have more in common than things in which they differ, yet in many countries there are considerable surpluses of some types of teacher but dire shortages of others. It is widely understood in New Zealand that there are currently shortages of teachers in specific subjects, notably mathematics and science, and of Maori and Maori-medium teachers in both the mainstream and bilingual or immersion classes. It may not be realised by the authors of the Consultation Documents that the absence of a single market for teachers may well undermine its policies which seem based on the assumption of teacher uniformity.

If it were true that 'a teacher is a teacher is a teacher', then an early childhood teacher could readily be retrained to teach secondary physics, or vice versa for that matter, and teacher shortages would be much more easily overcome. The assumption that broadly the same type of preparation is suitable for all who intend to teach requires evidence that is nowhere provided or hinted at in the Document. When it comes to pay and conditions, it seems at least odd that the same scales should apply to types of teacher in plentiful supply as to those whose knowledge is in short supply.

Where jobs for life are no longer expected or sought, teaching as an occupation must compete not only in terms of wages and conditions but also in terms of the relevance (and, to a degree, status) of the training and the occupation itself to other occupations. Low quality training with the taint of ideological capture, combined with high levels of central control, rigid pay scales and weak rewards for high achievement are unlikely to appeal to many of the more able of today's young men and women. Among those who find such factors appealing are likely to be those who are least equipped to practise the profession of teaching. This enhances the dangers of ideological capture and of teaching becoming an occupational backwater.

Recruitment difficulties result from the centralised and peculiar arrangements for teaching, and to counter the impact of one set of special government interventions by another set of special government interventions is to dig an even deeper pit. The solution is less, not more, government intervention.

Schools are having to increasingly compete for teaching staff. Some traditional sources of recruitment can no longer be relied upon, and teachers, like employees in many other occupations, are much more liable to move between various kinds of work during their working life. Selection for teacher training and successful completion of a teacher training programme should be seen as useful additions to a CV that is relevant to a variety of types of work. We doubt if this is the case at present and consider that the proposals in the Document may make recruitment more difficult and could lower, rather than enhance, the status of teachers.

Any problems in obtaining an adequate supply of suitably trained and motivated young teachers are liable to impact most adversely on those schools at the bottom of the pecking order, who are least able to pick and choose their teachers.

An obvious way to improve the supply situation is to encourage the entry into teaching of more mature people with a sound education or specific skills (for example in music and workshop practice) without the requirement of a lengthy and expensive period of preservice training which many such people would see as patronising and irrelevant. Legislation requires compulsory registration and allows untrained people to be granted 'limited authority to teach'. The compulsory requirement does little to improve quality and restricts the ability of schools to choose the best people to staff their classrooms. The 'limited authority' requires annual renewal and is unlikely to be seen as other than patronising and demeaning to able, mature and well-educated people. Teacher registration requirements should be reviewed.

6.6 Is teaching a 'profession'?

As part of its strategy to raise the status of teaching, the government wants the teaching profession to operate like other professions in all ways that it can. No analysis is provided in the Consultation Document about what this might mean - nor was it provided in the 1997 Green Paper. In what ways do other 'professions' operate, and to what extent can teaching follow suit? The Consultation Document sees professionalisation as involving the setting of "standards for entry to the profession" and a body to "rigorously and consistently" apply them, but is silent about other criteria.

Professionalisation is normally understood to refer to the process whereby an occupation increasingly meets the criteria attributed to a profession (Hoyle, 1983; Benderson, 1986). Most commentators would probably agree that the process includes the following:

o relatively high academic entry requirements;

o a longer and more specialised training than for other occupations involving acquisition of a considerable body of knowledge widely accepted as essential to the practice of the profession;

o the bodies of knowledge and related skills are applied in a non-routine manner in the interests of the ultimate client - all other interests are secondary;

o when practitioners have gained sufficient experience, most work relatively independently, with little supervision; and

o the profession, in return for control over entry, polices its own members, including dismissal proceedings, from the perspective of the clients' interests.

One initial and obvious point is that the sheer numbers of teachers compared with, say doctors and dentists, means that teaching can never require the very high entry requirements demanded of entrants to, say, medical schools, and cannot award the same pay. It is not, of course, being argued here that current pay levels are satisfactory, but simply that because large numbers are required teaching is not going to attract many of the most able to its ranks and is not going to command the premiums attached to many of those with rare abilities and skills in high demand

As to the first characteristic, most teachers have had tertiary education, either gaining a teaching diploma or a university degree. The trend to making teaching an all-graduate occupation has been seen as necessarily raising the status of teaching as a profession. To this extent the great majority of teachers will have met a reasonably high entry requirement, though not as demanding as for entry to programmes aimed at other occupations such as law and medicine. Entry requirements to some teacher education programmes are depressingly low: a survey conducted at Auckland College of Education (referred to earlier at 5.2) found that almost half the entrants to the primary course had little understanding of percentages or fractions (Buzeika, 1993; Matthews, 1995, pp. 57-64). The Document could well have asked why this situation exists and, in particular, whether current funding arrangements encourage institutions to concentrate on the number of student-teachers that can be accepted rather than on high entry requirements and the rigorous preparation of well-qualified student-teachers. The teaching occupation will not have the high status sought as long as significant numbers of its members are seen as not having achieved at the school level and thus likely to perpetuate ignorance and transmit unhelpful attitudes to the next generation.

On the second characteristic, it would traditionally have seemed axiomatic that there are large bodies of specific and generally accepted knowledge (demarcated by subject areas and the educational sciences) regarded as essential to the practice of teaching. This is no longer so straightforward for two reasons. First, it is often disputed that teachers teach in the sense of passing on useful knowledge and skills. Instead they are seen as guides to child-chosen destinations and facilitators while students (rarely 'pupils' or 'children') construct their own knowledge (5.5; 6.4).

Secondly, the traditional disciplinary boundaries are under attack with the growh of 'studies' of numerous kinds at tertiary levels and the fragmentation of learning involved in the development of the NCEA. But to the extent that it is accepted that there are bodies of knowledge to be acquired there may be little agreement about what they are. Much that previously, that is, in 'unenlightened' times, went unchallenged must now be deconstructed according to the power structures of society (6.4). The tendency of many educationalists is, understandably, to view teacher development in an unproblematic way, that is to see it in terms of steady improvement through the application of increasingly sophisticated technology and informed by more enlightened pedagogy and sociology . The outcome is often presented as a triumph of high ideals over inertia and myopia. It will be already evident that this submission views teacher education as highly problematic. Thus, it is difficult to say that the teaching occupation now unambiguously displays the second characteristic.

A further point is that the school curriculum is substantially determined by central authorities. In fact, this trend to centralisation has increased significantly with the establishment of the New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 1993) and the related curriculum statements to cover the whole school curriculum at all levels. The New Zealand Qualifications Framework (NQF) endeavours to reduce the many achievement objectives in the statements to clear learning outcomes and related performance criteria for assessment purposes. Thus the role of teachers in determining their essential business has been much reduced and this reduction in teacher autonomy puts the teacher more into the role of a technician than a professional. The NCEA will change the relationship of senior secondary school teachers to students, putting teachers more in the position of high-stakes assessors making summative assessment decisions on the basis of technicist criteria not professional judgment. It is thus hard to reconcile the government's determination to control the total school curriculum and its continuing endorsement of Unit Standards, and now Achievement Standards, for school subjects with its desire to enhance the professional status of teachers. If it is serious about the latter it needs to reduce significantly its control over the former .

The third characteristic raises the issue of who is the client. Traditionally the answer was unambiguous - initially parents as agents of their children, and later the children themselves as they reach more mature years. However, concerns about equity, the structures of society, social justice and such like mean that teachers have many clients - certainly the local community (whatever that means), but why stop there? Perhaps it should be the whole population of New Zealand, or even of the world. The previous government reflected this wider view when it stated that the professional body for teachers should be "charged with taking into account the interests of employers, government, teachers and the wider community" (1997 Green Paper p. 26). The present government continues this approach with its proposal that the Education Council be "directly accountable to the Minister of Education". By contrast, there is no uncertainty about who is the client of, say, a doctor, dentist or lawyer. In this respect it is difficult to understand how the proposed professional body for teachers can act like those administering other professions.

A related problem is whether the 'reconstructionist' or wider political role is compatible with professional status. For some educationalists, particularly in universities and colleges of education, this political role is not simply about improving the pay and conditions of teaching but for reconstructing society, that is, using schooling as a means of transforming society from what it is now to one of a radically different character (5.2; Partington, 1997, p. 1). The TEAC (TEAC, 2000) has bold claims for the responsibility of the tertiary "system" to reconstruct society, as long, presumably, as it is "designed" and "managed" by an unidentified but all-knowing and powerful elite. Members of other professions enter local government or national politics directly if they want to contribute to wider societal issues and usually either leave their profession or keep their professional activities separate from their political life. Some educators think that teachers can and should do both at the same time - indeed the one, educating, is an instrument for the other, that is changing the structures of society. Certainly recent governments have shamefully endorsed the use of the school curriculum for political reasons - i.e. indoctrination . The question in the present context is whether politicisation is compatible with professionalisation. In our view it is not. If the government wants to enhance the professional status of teachers it must not seek to use teachers for its own political and ideological ends.

Another feature of teaching affecting its image as a profession is the high degree of unionisation reflecting the centralised nature of salary bargaining. The practices of the unions have often not been what is normally expected of professional bodies. For example, the calling for go-slows, working to rule, non-participation in the implementation of reforms, and the use of threats against schools opting for salary bulk funding are very much part of militant industrial unionism negotiating for better terms and conditions for members - not of a professional body seeking to protect and improve the quality of its members' services in the exclusive interests of its clients, that is, school pupils. Such union activity tends to portray a 'cloth cap' image of the occupation which will limit what can be achieved to improve public perceptions and the status of teachers.

Teachers do by and large meet the fourth characteristic, that of working relatively independently. Unlike other 'professionals', however, they work with a large group of clients (that is, the children in their classes) rather than on a, usually confidential, one-to-one basis as, for example, between doctor and patient or solicitor and client. What is in some doubt is the degree of control and the closeness of that control which would be effected by the proposed professional body. As a general rule, the more and closer the external control the more the teachers will be functionaries carrying out pre-ordained tasks in a pre-ordained way and the less they will act as professionals exercising judgment in the way they apply their knowledge and skills to particular children at a particular time.

The fifth characteristic, that of self-policing, would be a troublesome one for teachers. It is difficult for schools to get rid of incompetent and unsuitable teachers. This has inevitable consequences on morale and status. Poor performing teachers are quickly identified by pupils and their parents as well as by their fellow teachers, and a school with several poor performers will tend to drag down the reputation of the profession as a whole along with that of the particular school. Further, there can be little that is more demoralising for able, conscientious teachers than to take over a class poorly taught the year before or to know that their pupils will be taken over the following year by an incompetent teacher who may undo much of their hard work.

As proposed in the Consultation Document professionalisation would require the establishment of a code in teaching governing the relationship between teacher and pupil in the same way the New Zealand Medical Council provides for the relationship between doctor and patient. There are two main sources of difficulty and a faulty underlying assumption. The first difficulty is the diffuse range of the teacher/pupil relationship involving classroom practice, pastoral care, conduct of schools and general teacher behaviour. As argued earlier (5.2), the range of the relationship has increased substantially in recent times and, as Peter Gordon has noted in the United Kingdom context, it might be difficult to know where to stop (Gordon, 1983).

The second difficulty is that, even if the coverage of the code could be agreed, it seems exceedingly unlikely that any sort of widespread agreement could be reached on behaviours that were contrary to the code - apart from those which would be subject to criminal prosecution anyway. Yet the proposed Education Council is to develop "an agreed code of ethics that defines the principles and values that underpin [the profession's] professional behaviour", which certainly raises considerable room for disputation. Would, for example, a teacher be allowed to emphasise phonemic awareness when teaching reading; to raise the possibility that New Zealand was formed more by settlement than cession and that its foundation of institutions, laws and customs owed little to the Treaty; to deny that "the ontological status of the literary work is largely determined by the gonads of author and reader" ; and to regard radical child-centrism as unhelpful nonsense? Clearly, given the range of views within New Zealand on these and many other matters, such agreement is simply not possible.

Another source of difficulty is the potential for the professional body on the one hand and school boards and principals on the other hand to disagree on issues to do with teacher practice and performance. What happens if the school principal, for example, has a quite different view from that propagated by the professional body on where the balance should lie between group work and whole class instruction or on issues to do with streaming? Again, if the professional body is to lay down standards for promotion and re-registration, what will happen if the school and the professional body disagree on a teacher's performance? These issues highlight another difference between the present circumstances of most school teachers and members of most other professions. The former are invariably employees whereas the latter are usually independent practitioners running their own businesses or members of a business partnership.

Any code of ethics for teachers that did secure widespread agreement would be largely meaningless and liable to be ridiculed as such. It is doubtful whether much of the code could actually be specified non-vacuously or used for objective assessment of teacher quality. Thus great power would be in the hands of the professional body as interpreter of the code, and issues of academic freedom thereby arise. The professional body may try to enforce still further what many teachers already find highly objectionable and disregard. Codification of professional teaching practice would be a powerful weapon in the hands of a burgeoning and imperialistic bureaucracy with a desire to impose its own ideology on a whole profession.

The underlying assumption of concern is that there is a lack of encouragement of "best [teaching] practice" and of "standards for initial teacher education programmes … and for teacher registration" (c.f. the identification of "the main problem" as being the lack of a "nationally consistent means of defining or identifying quality teaching" in the 1997 Green Paper p. 25). A possible interpretation is that there is just one model of quality teacher education and of teaching. We would not accept this. There may be several very successful models of teacher preparation. As regards teaching practice, there will be many models and, short of criminal or immoral behaviour, they should all be allowed to exist under the direction of school principals and boards and to flourish or decline as informed parental choice determines. A restrictive, exclusive view could well drive out many excellent teachers who are too old or young or clever or wise to conform. They also point in quite the wrong direction - towards teacher inputs and not student achievement. What is needed are quality results. So we are back with the need for reliable national testing and the publication of results (5.9) and parental choice of schooling .

6.7 Conclusions and recommendations

Status - high or low - cannot simply be mandated. In teaching it depends on a variety of factors including perceptions about the performance of schools and of the wider educational system and the relative attractiveness of teaching. Problems exist in all these areas.

Empirical research including international surveys suggests New Zealand has been complacent about its educational performance and that all is not, in fact, well. However, the education sector is generally defensive about criticism and closed to refutation and correction - not open, intellectually rigorous, sceptical and enquiring. A blinkered ministry appears to follow the tramlines of political correctness, uncaring or unconscious of where they may lead. The distinction between education and indoctrination has become blurred, yet few have drawn attention to this development, such is the narrowness of the permitted limits of debate about education in New Zealand.

There have been major actual or potential educational disasters arising from the all-powerful, paternalistic central planning approach - the National Qualifications Framework, the NCEA - but other top-down requirements, such as whole-language reading and the loss of English grammar, are being increasingly questioned. Yet the ministry has persisted with a highly centralised, all-embracing school curriculum.

Much of what the Forum considers unhelpful within existing government approaches could well become mandatory or enforced through the interpretation of a code by a government agency. The shifting sands of educational discourse have led to some unpromising developments. Reconstructionist impulses tend to merge education and politics with unhelpful downstream consequences for the morale and status of teachers.

The status of teaching suffers from the diffuseness of the teacher's role and uncertainty about the purpose of schooling. Also, teachers face problems originating elsewhere in society including the lowering of regard for authority and traditional morality and generally low regard for academic achievement - but some aspects of current educational theory and practice in New Zealand encourage these same trends.

Will professionalisation improve the quality and status of teachers and lift student performance? It could, but not via the process envisaged in the Consultation Document. In fact, several of the Document's proposals would seem likely to reinforce unhelpful practices and attitudes and thus compound, rather than resolve, problems, and create further difficulty for the recruitment and retention of able people wanting to teach. At heart is the difficulty of enforcing uniformity on a very large body of people on matters which are intrinsically contestable. To this extent 'professionalisation' for teachers as a whole may turn out to be a chimera.

It is recommended that the government:

• o recognise that the issue of teacher status cannot be addressed effectively in isolation from several other factors. Some factors lie outside the education sector and include long-term societal changes and the importance attached to education by the general public. Other factors are within the control of those within the sector and influence how education generally, including teachers, is perceived and include:

  - the extent to which leading educators and education academics are open to searching debate, criticism and refutation;
  - whether the role of the teacher is well defined or diffuse;
  - the willingness or otherwise of educators to seek and publish objective measures of student performance; and
  - the willingness or otherwise of the ministry and other state education agencies to take part in open debate, to work from first principles in developing policy issues, to identify and expose their assumptions, to revisit long- and dearly held orthodoxies and, where external advice is sought, to seek the best possible advice from wherever it is to be found whether locally or from overseas;

• o commission an objective, quality appraisal of current performance levels of New Zealand school students and the factors that influence their performance;

• o note that the supply of teachers will be assisted by rigorous student selection procedures and by academically demanding preservice training seen as relevant to a range of occupations outside teaching;

• o note that the establishment of a government initiated and influenced professional body could hinder recruitment by restricting entry points and encouraging a view of teaching as an occupational backwater;

• o note that the attraction and retention of able teachers and remedying problems of teacher shortage in subjects such as science and maths require flexible pay structures which reward merit, not the continuation of centrally determined national awards. The unified pay system may well be increasing existing rigidities;

• o reconsider current teacher registration legislation with a view to encouraging the entry into teaching of suitable people - especially the well-educated and mature and those with relevant experience in other walks of life - without the need to meet a preservice training requirement; and

• o not proceed with the proposals in the Consultation Document for the establishment of a professional body and professional standards. Some proposals are liable to result in consequences inimical to teacher quality, the status of teachers and student learning.
  

CHAPTER 7

STANDARDS FOR PRESERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION AND TEACHERS

7.1 Introduction

The Consultation Document advises that "all initial teacher training programmes will need to be approved by the Education Council and the Council will be responsible for ongoing oversight of the monitoring of these programmes".

Certainly, the government needs to ensure that taxpayer funding for teacher education is appropriately disbursed. The immediate question is whether the standard setting and monitoring involved need be higher or more complex than for other areas of tertiary training eligible for government funding. There are, for example, no common standards for economists and historians at the end of their undergraduate courses. Should the detailed content of teacher education courses be determined by a government agency or by providers competing in an open market place? If the professional status of teachers is to be enhanced, will the proposed process be conducive to future practitioners acquiring, and improving on, the knowledge and skill required for effective professional practice?

7.2 Functional competencies in preservice teacher education

Over the last several decades the idea of competency in education and training has found intermittent popularity. It is strong in New Zealand with its National Qualifications Framework and the NCEA which is a rerun of Unit Standards with three grades and in slightly different form. The authors of the Consultation Document presumably have in mind the sort of functional competencies that were promoted in the 1997 Green Paper (pp. 30-31). Those were based on the unit titles developed by the Teacher Education Advisory Group (TEAG) and registered by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and seemed to provide a sensible enough overview of the aspects of professional practice which can reasonably be expected of a beginning teacher. However, it is hard to see in what ways they could validate standards or ensure teacher quality. This is because the Unit Standards consist of general descriptions of activities in which teachers are bound to engage, whether well or badly. Unit Standards may provide a framework or matrix within which are identified dimensions of a subject which require distinctive attention, but the main task of evaluating quality of thought or performance achieved by teachers is not made any easier by their application.

Robyn Baker and Dugald Scott of Wellington College of Education examined the core standard for teacher education Facilitate learning through lessons and lesson sequences (Baker and Scott, 1996, p. 202). This Unit Standard has six elements or learning outcomes:

• o Organise settings for lessons and lesson sequences.
• o Organise students for lessons and lesson sequences.
• o Implement actions to intuit and sustain motivation in students during lessons and lesson sequences.
• o Implement instruction (direct/indirect) in lessons and lesson sequences.
• o Interact with students in lessons and lesson sequences.
• o Evaluate lessons and lesson sequences.

All these outcomes are important, but Baker and Scott pertinently ask what evidence would be required to determine whether they have been achieved. Every teacher has to organise settings for lessons and lesson sequences, since even apparent or real disorganisation may be defended as an open-ended form of organisation. Similar limitations affect almost all the Unit Standards and adverbs such as 'effectively' or 'adequately' still beg vital questions.

Competency-based approaches in teacher education have already been established in recent years in several countries with similar social and political systems to those of New Zealand, and similar educational worries. The work in England and Wales of the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) and the Teacher Training Agency (TAA) have been perhaps the most thorough and well-developed, and there seems little doubt that their check lists for the assessment of teacher and student-teacher performance have already contributed to some reduction in the number of woefully weak schools and classrooms by increasing the attention teachers must pay to their basic professional responsibilities. However, at the time of writing the Forum's submission on the Green Paper it appeared that the TAA was to take on extensive responsibilities in teacher training and development with all the risks of centralised control.

The benefits achieved in England and Wales have, however, been gained at some cost in flexibility and diversity among the relevant educational institutions, and critics claim that the assessment procedures take up considerable time and effort which might be better devoted to actual teaching. Desperate situations may well require desperate remedies, but detailed prescription is certainly a vote of no confidence in standard educational practice, so that it seems incongruous that many whose past efforts led to lack of confidence may well be among those drawing up and administering the prescriptions.

In Australia, too, some interest has developed in using functional competencies in teacher preparation. In 1992 the National Project on the Quality of Teaching and Learning commissioned three investigations - in Western Australia, New South Wales, and Tasmania. The September 1993 issue of Unicorn (journal of the Australian College of Education) discussed this matter. It was noted that the identification of work-related general skills offers an enticing appeal to employers of teachers. Yet scepticism about their usefulness had been expressed across a range of ideological stances and for a variety of reasons. The researchers themselves were sometimes initially dubious or encountered professional hostility (Unicorn, pp. 13, 24). At the one extreme, there is a danger of producing a series of checklists of value-free skills (Unicorn p. 14). At the other extreme, any general policy is likely to be framed in rather broad flexible terms, thus reducing its value. There may be some minimal advantage, of course, in reminding lecturers and trainee teachers of the range of skills inherent in teaching. Yet surely such skills have already been identified, or can be identified fairly easily.

Whether or not teaching is successful depends ultimately on whether and at what rate students learn. Competence as a teacher and characteristics such as conscientiousness are sufficiently related for us to seek to foster conscientiousness on instrumental grounds, as well as because such virtues are intrinsically valuable. Yet actual correlations are often only weak. Of course, it is necessary to take into account all contextual conditions that affect students' learning, many of which are completely outside the control of teachers. However, even when differing contexts are taken into account, many teachers and would-be teachers diverge sharply from expectations based on general correlations between teaching methods and student progress. Although it is true that, all other things being equal, the diligent and punctual teacher is generally more effective than the lazy and unpunctual one, and so on, some diligent and punctual teachers are not very competent and some lazy and unpunctual teachers are very competent once they are in the classroom and put their minds to the job.

7.3 Knowledge requirements for student-teachers

This submission has already commented on the primacy of knowledge as a requirement for teachers (5.4). The proposed Education Council would have to consider this carefully. The 1997 Green Paper distinguished (p. 32) between the knowledge requirements of those who will teach younger children and those who are to teach older children. The former, it argued, must be equipped to teach across all seven essential learning areas of the New Zealand school curriculum with a clear requirement for breadth of subject knowledge. The latter need to specialise in one or a few subjects and for them the requirement is depth of knowledge (emphases in original).

Many early childhood and primary teachers are weak in mathematics and science and thus unlikely to be able to teach them well. Furthermore, many teachers have inadequate knowledge of the structure of language. It cannot be claimed that established providers of teacher education devote inadequate time to curriculum knowledge in language, mathematics and science, although there are good grounds for fearing that some courses compound rather than cure inadequacies with which student-teachers start their courses. In particular, some forms of constructivism, which are influential among teacher educators, may lead some student-teachers to doubt whether they can, or should if they can, impart knowledge to school students, who, it is maintained, should create their own knowledge, if indeed there is such a thing as 'knowledge' at all.

However, even if teacher educators were all very wise and sensible, a fundamental problem facing primary, particularly intermediate level, education would probably still be that not many prospective teachers are capable of quality teaching across the curriculum, if quality is taken to mean the minimum mastery of the requirements of the National Curriculum in each prescribed subject within a given range of levels. Instead of uncritically endorsing generalism among primary teachers, the Green Paper should have considered seriously recent moves in Scandinavia and other parts of Europe to strengthen teacher specialisation, a decision with clear implications for teacher education. In the case of small early childhood centres and primary schools there is, of course, no alternative to each teacher seeking to teach across the curriculum, but this is not the case in large urban schools, and teacher education institutions should be encouraged to provide some degree of specialisation in primary education as well as generalist courses.

Unfortunately, the Green Paper moved farther away from specialisation and uncritically accepted that "students with special educational needs have a right to take their place in normal classrooms", so that "all teachers now need the skills to deal with a range of special needs students in mainstream settings" (p. 14). This is an arguable case as there is at least as much sense and morality in claiming that 'students with special educational needs have a right to be taught by teachers with special knowledge of those needs', whether those needs relate to physical or intellectual handicaps or to incapacity to accept the rules and conventions of normal classroom behaviour.

It may be that 'mainstreaming' will prove superior to special provision for students with exceptional needs, but it is at least as likely that the opposite will prove to be the case, whilst the most probable optimal solutions will be combinations of normal and special experience for such students. The point is that the imposition of a uniform view in advance of adequate evidence on such matters is gravely mistaken. Far better to allow different teacher education institutions to adopt different policies, so that schools have a choice of teachers prepared in different ways, one or more of which may be particularly congruent with their own policies and practices.

As already argued (5.4), there is good reason to give the highest priority in teacher education to substantive subject knowledge and teaching methods, but this is not to argue for the exclusion of serious engagement with fundamental issues concerning educational ends and purposes. What may be debated is the time and the depth at which these subjects should be addressed. Our preference is for student-teachers to be introduced to them at the preservice stage and for serious engagement to come after some years of experience which can form a basis for serious reflection. Such matters should not, however, be prescribed. What is reasonably clear is that many intending teachers will significantly benefit from considering some fundamental questions about teaching and learning before they settle into classroom routines. Without a proper introduction into basic issues in the philosophy of education, it is all too easy for students and teachers to embrace policy conclusions without ever realising that they are based on premises which need to be examined carefully. A practical problem is finding lecturers who can teach the philosophy of education competently.

The range of information, knowledge, understandings and skills which are valuable and candidates for inclusion in teacher education is far more extensive than could ever practicably be included, and every institution is constantly faced with difficult choices between breadth and depth, both between subjects or activities and within them. But it would be extremely retrograde for the government to signal to teacher educators, or to schools in respect of school-based teacher education, that the only knowledge needed by teachers relates to the best way to teach a curriculum nationally determined by others.

Mathematics teachers must first be competent mathematicians, but it is also desirable that they consider what relationship exists between different mathematical ideas and processes, and how understanding of mathematics relates to other kinds of understanding. Moreover, they need to understand such matters in sufficient depth and clarity to be able to introduce them to those who do not yet understand (5.4 and 5.5.2). The more general the role of the teacher, and the more 'integrated' or 'inter-disciplinary' the curriculum, the greater the need to consider links between different aspects of a subject and the relationship between different sorts of knowledge. It is in this sense that it can be seriously argued that the preparation of early childhood and primary teachers is an even more demanding undertaking than that of specialist teachers in secondary schools.

A frequent refrain in official New Zealand documents on education is that the needs of students must be the prime consideration. The curriculum framework (Ministry of Education, 1993) adopts a student's needs-based approach that places the "individual student" at the "centre of all teaching and learning". The recent TEAC similarly concluded that "The needs of learners should be recognised as central to the design of the tertiary education system" (TEAC, 2000). Such sentiments, it may be argued, are deeply disrespectful of the educational entreprise as traditionally understood. But the point is that there are fundamental disagreements about what constitutes the needs of individual students, and how these relate to national needs, however those may be defined, and to questions about what knowledge is of most worth ultimately. Further, it is possible to argue that there is no limit to the needs of the individual student.

7.4 Standards for practising teachers

The Consultation Document advises that the "Education Council will be charged with setting standards for the profession and with making assessments as to whether or not individudal teachers meet those standards. Decisions reached by the Education Council about a teacher's continued suitability to teach will be made by their peers … ".

Some simplification of the current variety of official standards and standard setting bodies would be welcome. However, there are great dangers from over-specification of standards by a single, monopolistic standard setter. As the 1997 Green Paper pointed out, "[d]efining teacher quality is difficult and contentious" (p. 19), though it immediately proceeded to endorse the OECD's working definition of the dimensions of teacher quality supplemented by findings in a New Zealand case study. It can reasonably be expected that the Council will expand on those dimensions and interpret and apply them through the promulgation of professional standards for teachers and the control of entry to, and continuation within, the profession.

Raising quality by raising standards for teachers is an attractive nostrum, but attempts to do so may have the reverse of the intended effect. It raises entry barriers to teaching, to the benefit of incumbents. Roger Scruton, in his foreword to Partington's report, argues that the best qualification for teaching is "the knowledge and love of a subject" and that in the United Kingdom:

Knowledge was driven out of the system and replaced by professional criteria designed to prevent the competent, the enthusiastic, the politically incorrect - in short, anyone who might threaten the complacent mediocrity of the state system - from entering the profession. (Partington, 1997, p. xv)

Occupational regulation usually leads to restricted choice. Higher standards may benefit the members of the occupation concerned rather than its clients. As another writer on the teaching occupation puts it:

"... professions, like all conscious occupational groupings, are best thought of as teams for the mobilisation of resources in the pursuit of status and income ... If property is the right to specific flows of income, and rent a flow of unearned income from control of a scarce resource, the profession which succeeds in creating an artificial scarcity in a vital service and so raising its price above the free market level is in effect charging a rent and thus creating property ... " (Perkin, 1985, p. 12-15)

Therefore, any body overseeing occupational standards needs careful scrutiny and limitation. The main issues arising were set out by the Government Working Group on Occupational Regulation .

Given the emphasis in the Consultation Document on "professionalism", on "quality", on "professional standards" and on the Council providing "leadership in teaching in the early childhood and compulsory school sectors", there is little likelihood that the standard-setting body will set a simple framework or guidelines or be driven by the requirements of employers and students. Instead, the idea seems to be to raise standards by fiat from the centre - by saying that they will be raised. This is precisely the danger to which Scruton alerts us.

Another important issue sadly neglected in the Consultation Document, as it was in the Green Paper, concerns the concept of 'value-added' teaching. Ultimately the test of teacher quality is the extent of student learning. Of course, some children are much harder to teach than others, and many influences teachers have on their students take time to show, whilst there can also be 'Hawthorn' effects that rely only on novelty and soon fade away. These limitations have especially to be considered in respect of student-teachers who spend only short periods with classes. Yet if we were quite unable to detect what influence teachers had on their students, there would be no point in discussing quality controls of any sort, or of teachers asking for smaller classes and better facilities, since no evidence could ever be garnered to demonstrate the results these might have. The ministry ought to fund research in New Zealand to help refine ways of estimating just what differences do result from the policies pursued by schools and by individual teachers.

7.5 Standards in England and Wales

We acknowledge that in England and Wales the standards system administered by the Teacher Training Agency has contributed to educational improvement by increasing the attention teachers must pay to their basic professional responsibilities. The Blair Labour government has not only endorsed this approach but made it more rigorous.

Our concern that standards will only provide general descriptions and do little by themselves to raise standards has been expressed extensively in Britain, especially on the Left and by educational professionals, rather than on the Centre or Right. The most telling argument here is that there is always a danger that specified competencies may be regarded as sufficient to ensure good teaching, whereas true education is a much more subtle process which cannot be confined to quantitative measurement or advance specification. These arguments, however, often merged into less defensible claims that no relevant competencies can be identified or that, if they could be, identifying them might detract from higher order educational values. This second stance fails to distinguish between necessary and sufficient conditions. If that distinction were made adequately, and if the Unit Standards system simply provided a matrix within which finer distinctions of achievement could be made by those capable of reliable professional judgment, many of our fears on this count would be met. The Consultation Document, however, fails to present, let alone analyse, key arguments for and against a competency/standards approach to teacher education.

The concern that bodies concerned with standards setting will pursue their own agendas has been partly satisfied in England and Wales, in that the bodies in control of standards inspection, the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) and a non-ministerial governmental department, the Office of Standards in Education (Ofsted), are conspicuously independent of teacher unions and the educational establishment as a whole and were, indeed, initially bitterly attacked by those groups for that very reason. Nonetheless, the system is very much open to partisan political directives to the TTA, although in practice so far there has been non-partisan continuity between the Conservative and Labour governments on these matters. In New Zealand, unfortunately, continuity has been of a different character: the groups most hostile to open and public assessment of educational achievement have maintained influence with the Ministry of Education and its advisory committees and bodies.

7.6 Conclusions and recommendations

In education, as in other matters, one thing tends to lead to another. Since the government owns and funds nearly all schools, it was not surprising that it should want to control what happens inside them, hence the national curriculum and the curriculum statements. The government, again naturally enough, wanted to define how to test whether students had learnt what they were meant to learn - hence the multiplicity of elements and performance criteria in Unit Standards, the whole National Qualifications Framework, and most recently Achievement Standards. But why stop there? What about the education and training of teachers and their entry and progression within the profession?

It brings to mind Andrew Lang's Bramah:

I am the batsman and the bat,
I am the bowler and the ball,
The umpire, the pavilion cat,
The roller, pitch, and stumps, and all.

The state and its agencies have found there are still a few parts of the educational cricket match that they do not sufficiently control and have acted accordingly. Will they stop there? Perhaps there is still a bail or two that has so far escaped their grasp. Since they wish to control teacher education, it would be logical to also control who is accepted for training and hence to establish criteria for student-teacher selection. And what about the appointment of teacher educators in colleges and universities and research projects undertaken by education academics? Why should they be exempt from official scrutiny?

This process of ever-widening state control is very understandable and, no doubt, undertaken with the best of intentions. Unfortunately it simply doesn't work. What is lacking is a consideration of the policy package as a whole, including clarity about objectives and assumptions and an assessment of the best way of achieving the government's objectives.

In other spheres, decentralising and divestment have led to enormous improvements in efficiency and consumer satisfaction. And we have seen the consequences in education of moves in the other direction - the costly, elaborate and deeply flawed National Qualifications Framework most obviously (Smithers, 1997; Irwin, 1997a) But there have been heavy costs in other areas where the state has dominated education: in its strictures about the teaching of reading; its endorsement of some kinds of constructivism; and its new curriculum framework and statements which will, we suspect, come under growing criticism in the years ahead as their inadequacies are more widely recognised (Irwin, 1996b, 1999). The NCEA, if introduced as presently intended, will lead to major disquiet when its fundamental flaws are more widely recognised and eventually to major changes (Education Forum, 2000a and b; Donnelly, 2000).

Are there good grounds for thinking that the establishment of standards for pre-service teacher education and for teachers should be an exception to the general rule that seems to apply elsewhere? There appears to be no such grounds. Perhaps, as suggested is the case in England and Wales, we have a desperate situation which requires desperate measures. Certainly there are deep problems in New Zealand education, though the Consultation Document acknowledges them only by implication. But even if our diagnosis of some of the problems were accepted, the government would find that in imposing desperate, that is draconian, solutions it would have to rely on those who perpetrated the problems in the first place. The arsonists would become the firefighters.

The teacher unions have strong incentives to guide standard setting so that standards erect barriers to entry for new members but do not unduly disturb existing members (more of less regardless of their competence). Those educational professionals with strong ideological commitments also have strong incentives to ensure that their views are replicated and possible challenges rejected. Partington (1997) has noted the ideological capture at some of our universities and colleges (6.3). The incentives on bureaucrats - and politicians - may be weak. The lack of significant progress with bulk funding of teacher salaries by successive governments and its recent abolition give little reason to back politicians and bureaucrats against the vested interests in the educational sector (see also discussion at 9.3 in the context of a professional body).

More fundamentally, to seek to control teacher education and teaching in the ways that seem to be envisaged is to misunderstand the nature of knowledge and of the engagement of teacher and child. It is clearly right to insist on some prerequisites for teaching - that teachers can demonstrate that they have acquired a substantial command of the subject or subjects they are expected to teach and are suitable people to have responsibility for children. Certainly there needs to be a system of police and other checks to guard against unsuitable people having responsibility for, and working with, children. But it is doubtful whether it is beneficial to proceed much further.

It is unfortunately necessary to recognise not only the shortcomings of existing elaborate structures designed to establish and enforce standards, but also the unlikelihood of alternative bureaucratic systems doing much better. More reliance should be placed instead on the dissemination of accurate and pertinent information which picks out significant differences between educational programmes and courses. If prospective student-teachers were informed simply yet accurately about available programmes and about the reasons why each is structured in the way it is presented rather than in other feasible ways, better choices can be made and, indeed, an early start made in thinking about what in education is most important and why. More penetrating information of this character would also help schools when choosing beginning teachers. Information on children's school performance, based on external national testing, should be relied upon to provide parents with information about the performance of schools and of the teachers within them (5.8).

It is therefore recommended that the government, or the Education Council if established, should:

• o note that an approach to standard setting such as that of the Unit Standards developed by TEAG may provide a broad and useful overview of the ground to be covered, but it would be most unwise to rely on their detailed application for the assessment of the quality of thought or performance of student-teachers;
• o reject any notion that all primary teachers must be generalists and able to cover all the essential learning areas of the school curriculum and teach all children (including those with special needs). Instead, the ministry should investigate moves in other countries towards greater primary teacher specialisation and make available its findings to teacher educators in New Zealand;
• o note that the view that special needs children have the right to take their place in the normal class is not beyond dispute. Such children may have a prior right to special facilities and special expertise. There may also be a conflict of rights - between those of special-needs children and those of other children;
• o reject the view that teacher education requires more or different supervision and monitoring than other forms of tertiary education. The establishment and enforcement of standards for preservice education is likely to reduce innovation and lower quality by reinforcing what is already unhelpful. Reliance should be placed on the publication of full information about programmes and courses to assist prospective student-trainees in choosing a programme that suits them and to assist schools in recruiting suitable new staff members; and
• o reject the establishment and enforcement of standards for entry to, and continuation within, the profession. Decisions on the recruitment and promotion of teaching staff are properly matters for principals and boards of trustees.
  

CHAPTER 8

ISSUES FOR SCHOOLING OF MAORI CHILDREN

8.1 Introduction

The Consultation Document says that "An important responsibility of the Council will be to reinforce and develop strategies to increase Maori achievement and involvement in education". How it is to do this is not stated. Nor is it clear what "the Government's obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi" are, how they are derived from the Treaty, and how they are to be "respected and adhered to" except thorough the proposed representation of Maori interests on the Council and the setting up by the Council of a Maori advisory group. All this is superficial and fails to adequately address some deep-seated problems which are just to be shuffled off, in whole or part, to the Council. The following comments address assumptions and beliefs which are likely to underlie these few statements on Maori schooling in the Consultation Document.

8.2 An underlying assumption

One likely underlying assumption is that the teaching of children in the medium of Maori should be officially encouraged. We are not confident that this is in the best educational interests of Maori children and are doubtful whether it is consistent with the government's concern to close the gap between the achievement levels of Maori and non-Maori. It could simply be an excellent way of keeping Maori teacher education and Maori children ghettoised. It is not simply that the Maori language faces an enormous uphill battle with English - the nearest to a universal language since Latin in medieval Europe - nor that the pool of fluent Maori speakers from which teachers could be drawn is very small relative to the perceived demand. Rather it is that promotion of Maori-medium teaching doesn't directly address what causes the gap.

In our understanding, the achievement level of Maori children depends essentially on the same factors affecting all other children in New Zealand including aptitude, determination, hard work, family and community resources, parental expectations, effective schools and good teaching. According to Nash (1993, p. 199) "the bulk of available research" indicates that Maori children underachieved compared with non-Maori because of differences in family resources, especially literary resources. Such things as the availability of books, conversation, intelligent interest in the world about them, opportunities for quiet study in the home make up the 'cultural capital' which is so helpful for educational success. When such 'capital' is not available or very limited the task of the school is even more important. But nothing is more likely to increase educational disparities than for teachers to believe that knowledge which is not valued in a particular group, or interests which are only weakly represented within it, are by that fact irrelevant to the intellectual and cultural development of its children.

Emphasis on the Maori language may encourage a greater concern for, and involvement in, education among some Maori parents and thus be very positive for the education of their children. However, against any such advantages would have to be put the opportunity cost of time spent in learning another language and the loss of time spent on English, maths, science, and so on.

We are not aware of any specific pedagogies that apply particularly to Maori children and not to other New Zealand children . It was noted earlier in this submission (6.2) that the teaching methods that were so successfully employed in parts of Asia had been first developed in the West, and that the superior educational achievement in Asian schools was because Asian teachers tended to employ them more effectively (Stevenson and Stigler, 1992). This should be a warning against uncritical acceptance, in teaching 'standards' or a code of ethics, of the notion that Maori and non-Maori need different teaching methods and that Maori children are therefore likely to fail in mainstream schools. What is required for all children are sound pedagogies effectively employed.

Far from eliminating the disparity between Maori and non?Maori educational outcomes, Maori-medium schooling may widen it. Forms of specifically Maori-type education and qualifications that might appeal to Maori politicians and activists may disadvantage Maori children and New Zealand society more generally. In the absence of a sound research basis, the promotion of Maori-medium teaching may be indulging in wishful thinking and taking an irresponsible gamble with the education of some of the most educationally disadvantaged. If the government considers that the interests of Maori language and culture always trump those of educational attainment then it should say so explicitly and not conflate the two sets of issues.

Current policy is presumably based, in part at least, on the assumption that poor relative Maori educational performance is due to the perceived suppression of Maori language and culture and that linguistic and cultural restoration must, therefore, be the solution or a major part of it. Another interpretation is in terms of the inevitable adjustment of a pre-metallic, tribal culture to a technologically advanced one and the conscious choice of many Maori in favour of English as the more useful cultural artefact and therefore a superior route to advancement for them and their children. But wherever the truth of the matter lies, there is no short-cut to Maori educational success - nor for anyone else. The recipe is the same for all and includes having books in homes, parents reading to their children, and turning off the TV and insisting that they do their homework.

A problem with having a 'Maori education policy' is that it diverts attention away from the hard, uncomfortable truth of the matter and suggests that there is some special form of pedagogy applicable only or mainly to Maori and which, if it could only be found, would lead to instant success . Moreover, it encourages the notion that relatively painless alterations in the system will, as inferred in the title of a recent official publication, succeed in "Making Education Work for Maori" . This is unhelpful nonsense - learning is always hard - and will, no doubt be seen as such by many Maori. It goes along with the whole grievance industry which perpetuates the condescending view of Maori as victims and dependent, and it ignores the many cases of Maori educational success. It is totally alien to the view that determination, hard work and high expectations are needed by every one who wishes to achieve educationally and in other socially useful ways.

· Conclusions and recommendations

Notwithstanding our uncertainly about the educational usefulness of Maori-medium instruction for children, we consider that the government should fund Maori-medium teacher education in the same way and on the same basis as it funds other teacher education. In an open system of teacher education and teaching, which is flexible and encourages diversity and innovation, there is no reason for special treatment of Maori-medium pre-service teacher education.

If there is a shortage of Maori-medium teachers this should be reflected both in wages for such teachers and the demand and supply of appropriate teacher education. Those with expertise in Maori language but without formal teaching qualifications should be readily able to be deployed at the discretion of employers. Mandatory teacher registration may be a barrier to such arrangements. In short, Maori-medium teaching need be treated no differently from any other sub-sector of any other occupation.

However, with complex and centralised control of teacher education and teaching and with the likelihood of higher entry barriers to teaching, significant problems for Maori are likely to arise, with the market unable to adjust to their particular needs. With a struggle for control of the powerful central institutions and the associated ideology, we would have every sympathy with a separatist approach for Maori teacher education. We would equally have sympathy with a separatist approach by other groups, such as Christian schools and Christian teacher-education providers.

Maori cultural and linguistic ambitions are not necessarily commensurate with high educational attainment and reducing the achievement gap. The government should encourage and fund quality research into the effectiveness of various forms of education including Maori-medium education at various stages of education and make the results widely known so Maori parents can make up their own minds where the balance of advantage lies for their own children. If there is a trade-off to be made between the educational achievement of Maori children and the preservation of the Maori language then this should be made known, and Maori parents and communities provided with the information on which to make decisions for their own children.

It is therefore recommended that the government, or Education Council if established:

• o treat Maori-medium teacher education in the same way as other forms of teacher education;
• o encourage the sharing of knowledge and experience of different educational strategies among all teacher education providers; and
• o fund quality research into the outcomes of various education strategies, including Maori-medium schooling, and publish the results so that Maori parents can decide for themselves about the balance of advantage for their own children between Maori-medium schooling and other forms of schooling.
  

CHAPTER 9

A PROFESSIONAL BODY FOR TEACHERS

9.1 Introduction

The Consultation Document proposes that the standards discussed in earlier chapters of this submission would be promulgated by a professional body for teachers. Our concerns about the notion of compulsory standards are not diminished by the proposals for the professional body.

The proposed body would certainly have very considerable powers. These have not been elaborated in any detail in the Document but would seem to include:

• o control over entry into the profession through the promulgation of standards for teachers at entry and for continuation within it by reinforcing the obligation to undertake professional development;
• o through powers of registration (initial and renewal), determining who can enter the teaching profession and, presumably, who must leave the profession on grounds of failing to meet the standards for reregistration or of failing to stay within "boundaries of professional behavour";
• o through developing and promoting a code of ethics and powers of receiving complaints, of inquiry and by the imposition of sanctions to enforce the "boundaries of professional behaviour";
• o deciding which providers can offer teacher education through accreditation processes;
• o deciding which qualifications can be accepted for entry to the profession through endorsement for registration on the National Qualifications Framework;
• o determining what does and does not constitute "best practice" teaching; and
• o advising the government on matters within its general ambit.

The form and governance of the body would be that of a Crown Entity with the composition outlined in Chapter 2.

9.2 What sort of professional body?

The government assumes that "the establishment of an Educational Council will be an appropriate and effective development for the teaching profession".

But it is a curious sort of professional body for two reasons. First, unlike other professional bodies it would not exist to control the practice of the profession in the interests of the ultimate clients - in this case school children whose interests are best represented by parents. The proposed Council is to have no parental representation at all. The body is to be directly accountable to the Minister of Education, and the problem that immediately arises is that any Minister of Education has very wide responsibilities and interests. In this regard the Document reflects the 1997 Green Paper's proposal that the professional body should take "into account the interests of employers, government, teachers and the wider community" (p. 26). The range of those with an interest is vast - potentially everyone in the country and perhaps beyond. How is the body to determine priorities between these interests when, as is often the case, they conflict? Almost invariably bodies in such a situation bow to the interest groups that are best organised and most articulate which in the present context means the teacher unions and large state-owned providers of teacher education. Moreover, the Minister of Education represents the state as owner and funder of schools, universities and colleges of education and as party to national teacher contracts. The Minister cannot be seen as always unambigously and unreservedly acting in the interests of school children.

Parents, as the agents of the ultimate clients, are not organised at all on a national basis, except perhaps very tenuously via the School Trustees Association (STA). Moreover, as the proposed body would clearly be part of the central political process, the incentives on it are likely to incline it towards the interests of the main state provider institutions for whom a major concern is to maintain enrolments rather than raise standards. Vague and conflicting objectives will make it difficult to hold the body accountable.

Secondly, the body will have substantial government involvement. The authors of the 1997 Green Paper claimed that "[i]n this context, it is vital that government is involved in the body that will undertake a leadership role in influencing teaching practice" (p. 27). This thinking is clearly also evident in the Consultation Document. We would take the opposite view: that it is vital that the government not take this role. The leadership of the Ministry of Education, the government's adviser on such matters, has been very poor and often retrograde: the new school curricula are of very poor quality; the ministry has been an accomplice in the development of the National Qualifications Framework and, with the NZQA, a designer of the deeply flawed NCEA; and its adherence to child-centrism, social engineering and their various manifestations have been very harmful. We do not wish the ministry to play any part in influencing teaching practice.
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The previous government did signal in its Green Paper the possibility that its involvement might lessen eventually in its proposed professional body:

If the profession, at a later date, indicated a willingness and an ability to take more ownership of its professional body and professional standards, the government could amend the nature of its relationship with the body. (p. 27)

Here of course is the rub. We want a professional body, but we don't quite trust it not to go against government wishes - or, perhaps, to erode the ministry's own power and responsibilities. The stated reasons for government involvement were such that the idea of the government slackening its hold must be an illusion - unless the previous government really envisaged the possibility that it would make schooling non-compulsory or that it might decide at some future date that it had little or no interest in educational outcomes. The present Consultation Document at least makes no pretence that the government's influence over the Education Council might only be temporary.

In what sense are we left with an organisation that can in any real sense be called a professional body? The diffuse role of teaching, the sheer number of teachers and the contested nature of many issues within it make the possibility of establishing a genuine profession difficult enough. To put on top of the profession a body representing very wide interests extending well beyond the immediate clients and accountable to the Minister of Education is a recipe for what will surely be seen as an extension of central government bureaucracy with minimal potential for any real sense of ownership by teachers. Its role could well cut across the legitimate employer responsibilities of school boards and principals. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful!

9.3 Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

It is a common temptation when faced with a difficult set of issues to establish a committee, or in this case a professional body, and to tell it to resolve the problem. However, Juvenal's words ('But who will guard the guards themselves?') remind us about the inadvisability of placing enormous powers in a body in a situation with considerable possibilities for wrongdoing and, we would add, bureaucratic bungling and empire building.

In this case the chances of bungling are enhanced by the absence of any serious discussion about the problems to be addressed. We do, however, have a lot of free-floating answers which are mostly of the 'feel good' variety employing words such as "standards" and "professional".

Within the Council the incentives on teacher union interests and on the ideologically driven will be strong. The government seems committed to a top-down method of improving quality, and the unions and main teacher-education providers are by far the best placed to tell it what the centrally determined standards should be. Control of the single standards-setting body, with its leadership role for occupational practice, will be a vital prize for ideologues and the unions. Those missing out in the struggle for power at the centre will be marginalised including the clients of the profession, school children.

Hence, the proposed body is liable to reinforce centralism and occupational control of schooling at the expense of employer and student interests, flexibility, diversity and innovation. Central control by occupational interests is likely to mean that the discretionary 'gates' for entry to the teaching occupation will become narrower.

As there is no discussion about what problems the new body will address, we cannot know whether the particular arrangements proposed constitute the best possible solution to them. For example, it would be widely accepted that getting rid of incompetent teachers is far too difficult at present, but the cause may lie in the national award system, the collective contract and aspects of employment law in which case the solution lies in reforms in those areas rather than trying to crank up quality through a system of national standards.

At a number of points in this submission we have expressed serious concern about the probability of a professional body reinforcing unhelpful educational theories, practices and attitudes and limiting still further the scope for experimentation and innovation (for example regarding 'whole language' reading at 6.2, the code of ethics at 6.7, and standards at 7.4). We can expect the professional standards set by a professional body accountable to the government to reinforce control over the school curriculum in the pursuit of the transformation of New Zealand society according to the government's own lights.

Even if this danger of interest group capture were averted and the best qualified people available formed a central regulatory body, the differences between the different sectors into which education is divided are far too great to justify the imposition on any one section of policies determined by a majority formed by other sections. It is relevant in this regard that the various education sectors (early childhood, primary and secondary) have represention via the two teacher unions and the employer and teachers' representatives.

The Consultation Document has nothing to say about the costs of the proposals, which would be considerable. The development of standards for teachers (at entry and at re-registration), the promulgation and enforcement of standards, accreditation of providers, and the endorsement of qualifications for NQF registration would require substantial resources both by the professional body and those seeking to meet, or prove they already meet, the standards or other requirements. Initial registration and re-registration of teachers would require a great deal of work by principals and other senior school staff. Elaborate and costly appeal procedures will presumably be required. Judicial appeals against administrative decisions seem probable, leading to more costs and uncertainties. However, a system of voluntary registration could provide some protection against the employment of unsuitable people as teachers, operate at much less cost, and uphold the accountability of boards and principals for staff appointments.

9.4 Existing arrangements for quality control

9.4.1 Teacher education

Every teacher education institution has an elaborate range of publications attesting to its concern for quality control. No doubt considerable time, effort and resources have been spent on such processes. Nonetheless, the establishment of elaborate bureaucracies to ensure quality control did little to prevent major weaknesses in several institutions. For example, serious faults in the Wellington College of Education-Victoria University of Wellington and the Auckland College of Education-University of Auckland relationships appear not to have been identified for a lengthy period by the committees and boards responsible for quality control or, if they were, no information about them was made public at the time they arose.

Systems of academic audit are in place in each institution, but they seem to have little concern with the actual content of courses which, certainly in teacher education (as Partington, 1997, has demonstrated), may be seriously defective. In general, it is minor administrative weaknesses which are identified, but more serious problems, such as ideological takeover amounting to indoctrination, were not tackled, assuming they were even identified.

There is little reason to believe that an elaborate national body would be more successful in identifying and exposing weaknesses in teacher education than existing mechanisms of quality control have been. What would be more effective would be a combination of greater transparency about course content and about standards of knowledge achieved in them, together with greater diversity of provision, so that effective choice is made more feasible.

The search for uniformity should be abandoned. Not all teaching is the same, and not all student-teachers are the same. There is no one best system for all. Although most would agree that beginning teachers should have adequate knowledge about what they are to teach and about the range of suitable teaching methods available, this level of agreement in no way amounts to consensus about the best balance in teacher education courses, whether in terms of balance between time spent in school and in tertiary education, or between time spent on curriculum content, methodology and the disciplines of education.

9.4.2 Teacher registration

The Teacher Registration Act 1996 reintroduced compulsory teacher registration. The legislation was promoted in the interests of the quality of teaching and teachers. According to a report in The Dominion of 23 August 1996, the passing of the legislation was greeted by the primary teachers' union as a triumph for raising the quality of educational services, and Professor John Codd of the Department of Education, Massey University, said compulsory registration endorsed the professionalism of teachers.

It would seem sensible before embarking on further statutory moves to control teaching to assess the effects of existing legislation. What differences has the 1996 legislation made? Were there any effects on the quality of teaching and learning and, if so, were they positive or negative and what was the net result?

9.5 Conclusions and recommendations

Obviously a body could be required to develop and administer the standards and to operate the accreditation and qualification endorsement functions proposed in the Consultation Document. The proposed organisation would, however, be a curious form of professional body and liable to be seen as an extension of the educational bureaucracy. It is not one likely to command any wide respect among teachers. It is open to capture by the best organised interest groups to the detriment of the interests of the profession's clients - school children.

The costs of a burgeoning bureaucracy to develop and implement the functions will be considerable. The costs will include development and monitoring costs incurred by the professional body and its staff and the compliance costs of all schools, teachers and teacher-training providers. There is also likely to be confusion between the roles of the professional body and other educational agencies and inter-agency rivalry. Further costs would arise from disputes between school boards and principals on the one hand and he professional body on the other on matters to do with teaching practice and teacher performance (6.5).

The concept of a single statutory body to command the whole system of teacher education and the practice of teaching is deeply misconceived and should be abandoned . If the body is effective in influencing the quality of teachers and teaching practice it will, at best, do so at a considerable cost to innovation and flexibility. At worst, it will enshrine the worst features of existing practice by issuing highly questionable pedagogical directives, fail to address existing problems in teacher education, and exacerbate recruitment and retention of able people by turning teachers more into technicians subject to even further centralised control and direction.

It is therefore recommended that the government:

• o note the Forum's view that the ministry's role in influencing teaching practice has not been useful and that its role in this area should be largely restricted to establishing a core curriculum and publishing information on student performance;
• o not proceed with the establishment of a professional body as proposed in the Consultation Document. The resource and educational costs would be considerable and the benefits very doubtful; and
• o review the efficacy of existing controls over teaching and teacher education before introducing further controls.
  

CHAPTER 10

SOME OVERALL CONCLUSIONS AND A DIFFERENT APPROACH

10.1 Introduction

Because the proposals in the Consultation Document have not been analysed, it has been difficult at times to know quite what is being proposed and why. Yet we are also deeply concerned about the quality of teacher preparation and the quality and status of teaching and share the government's concern that these be improved. The question is 'By what means?'

As the headmistress of a Sydney school recently wrote, education is subject to fads, and reforms are often introduced with great fanfare only to be abandoned when the next educational or political trend comes along.

Such changes bring little lasting improvement yet they make great demands on the most enthusiastic of our teachers, using up their time in in-servicing and rewriting programs and reorganising classrooms and ultimately, as it becomes apparent that little has been gained for all the work, using up their idealism and commitment as well, leaving a generation of cynical and jaundiced teachers to take care of young minds". (Jo Karaolis, 1998)

We provide below a sketch, no more, of the issues we think should be addressed and an indication of the way ahead as we see it. Much of what follows has been presaged by our earlier comments on the proposals in the Consultation Document.

Our basic concern is that many current problems in teaching and teacher education are due to the existing very high level of government intervention in virtually all aspects of schooling. In this context it is worth reflecting on the question raised earlier why a professional body for teachers has not yet been established. The answer surely is that there is little space for one. New Zealand has two very powerful and well-resourced teacher unions which deal directly on teacher-related issues with a very powerful government bureaucracy which, through ownership, funding and regulation, controls virtually all schooling. In such circumstances it can be expected that either an attempt to set up a professional body will fail (c.f. the Teachers' Council of Aotearoa - see Sullivan, 1999) or it will be little more than another part of the union-government nexus. Hence we view with alarm the Consultation Document's proposals for the introduction of still more central control. This is not just a general misgiving applied without thought to particulars. Our analysis of the various proposals only confirmed our apprehensions.

10.2 The school environment

We expect teachers to work as professionals in schools. Yet the government controls virtually every significant aspect of state schools which cater for over 96 per cent of school children. The total school curriculum is prescribed, the pay and conditions of teaching staff are centrally determined, there is compulsory teacher registration, and so on and so forth. Bulk funding provided schools with some small room for manoeuvre in resource allocation, but even this was bitterly contested and is now to be abolished. There is an interlocking web of relationships between schools, the colleges, the education departments of the universities, the Ministry of Education and the several government education agencies. It all constitutes a small education 'family' resistant to external critique and in which innovation beyond strict limits and discussion beyond the margins are actively discouraged. Moreover, there is, as we have seen, considerable confusion about the role of schools and therefore of teachers.

In addition, competition between schools is seen by virtually all leading educators as a great potential evil hanging over the system like a dark cloud which has thus far only been successfully averted by the most vigilant action by all right-thinking educators. The only rival school system of any consequence, the Catholic system, has been absorbed into the state system. Thus we have an introverted system getting into deeper difficulties and substantially protected from any competitors which might show up weaknesses. Moreover, the system is protected still further by the lack of reliable statistics on school performance, and it is not a coincidence that inter-school comparisons, like competition, are dirty words among many influential educators and Ministers of Education (Mallard, 2000b).

We do not think this is the kind of environment in which we can expect high quality teaching to flourish and to which many of our more able young people will be attracted. In fact the opposite is the case. The teaching work force is ageing. To the extent that good teachers and good teaching still exist in our schools it is largely in spite of the 'system'. Society owes them a considerable debt. Fewer young people are wanting to enter the profession (Middleton, 2000).

No significant quality improvements will take place within our schools unless existing problems in the school environment are addressed. Thus many of the Consultation Document's proposals are simply beside the point - but more than that, they follow the same mindset that has got us into difficulties in the first place and will indeed compound those difficulties.

Some of the more important directions for future policy are therefore:

• o much less state control over the school curriculum. The government should revisit the New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 1993) and the curriculum statements with a view to confining state control to a core within some key subjects from school entry up to and including year 10 (Form 4), leaving the rest to be determined by schools. From year 11 (Form 5), prescriptions for qualifications would determine the curriculum. We expect 'professionals' to apply a body of knowledge and their skills to the needs of their 'clients' in situations of relative independence and see no reason why we should treat teachers differently. For teachers who consider that they need guidance a series of alternative syllabuses should be devised;
• o the publication of annual assessment data on all children at certain stages or ages. Talk about the accountability of schools and of the professional accountability of teachers to their clients is useless unless we know what is actually being achieved in terms of their pupils' learning. Of course cognitive development isn't everything - the affective domain is also very important, though much more difficult to measure - but it is important. National assessment should be undertaken by independent agencies: the tests should not be under the control of teachers. There could be competition between independent testing agencies; universities, for example, might wish to offer testing services. With parental choice of school (see final point below) there would be no need to tie funding to test performance;
• o the development of a range of rigorously assessed national school qualifications employing a substantial degree of external assessment. Smithers (1997) has sketched the way ahead on this issue. A rigorous, educationally sound set of 'exit' qualifications would have a desirable 'cascade' effect on schooling at lower levels. The ill-conceived NCEA should be abandoned or drastically revised (Donnelly, 2000; Education Forum, 2000a and b);
• o devolving pay and conditions to schools within a bulk funded, formula driven, constraint; and
• o freeing-up the supply side of schooling by funding private schools on an equal basis with state schools.

In our view these are all necessary, being mutually reinforcing and interlocking, and must therefore be undertaken together.

10.3 Status and professionalism

We doubt if the deliberate pursuit by the government of higher status and professionalisation for teachers is useful . It could well be counter-productive. In fact it smacks of insecurity and the avoidance of more constructive, but more difficult or contentious, policies. The point is, as already noted, that one cannot just crank up status by legislative or administrative fiat. Status is conferred on those who are perceived to deserve it. To deliberately seek it is to admit something is wrong which one cannot, or does not want to, do anything serious about - it is tackling symptoms not causes and seeking palliatives not cures. It would be yet another case of applying a solution to an undiagnosed problem and making matters worse.

To the Asian teachers surveyed by Stevenson and Stigler (1992) much of the Consultation Document would seem nonsensical if applied to their own school contexts because they already are widely recognised as professionals, secure in their well-defined role, and are confident in their ability and expertise in carrying out their responsibilities. The professional status of teachers in New Zealand would increasingly be recognised if there were greater clarity about the extent and nature of their job and objective data showing that they are doing it well.

It would be wrong to seek to slavishly follow other professions in all respects. Teachers may learn from other professions, but must ultimately define their own view of what being a professional and acting professionally means and pursue it vigorously. This may involve departing in some significant ways from the practices of other professions, and if there is some loss in relative status then so be it. For example, the pursuit by colleges of education of academic respectability for its own sake may win some scholarly approbation but may not assist the professionalisation of teachers who carry out their professional practice in a very concrete, immediate world remote from academic detachment and scepticism.
Schools of education will not assist the professionalization of teachers and teaching if they sacrifice a healthy respect for practice to a single-minded pursuit of scholarship for its own sake. Nor, ironically, will they purchase with that sacrifice the respect of their peers - a favour they have sought for so long with no great success. They will flourish by being scholarly, to be sure, but their scholarship must be related to the improvement of practice in schools. (Judge, 1980, cited in Hoyle, 1987)

In fact in New Zealand colleges of education the balance between theory and practice is too heavily weighted towards the former, but we doubt if much scholarly respect has thereby been gained. What has been lost is an emphasis on teaching as a practice. In New Zealand generally, pedagogy is largely a series of ideological 'givens' about which real debate is severely discouraged. Certainly, state colleges of education could not be described as 'colleges of pedagogy'.

In New Zealand the role of teachers is confused, and adding to the confusion is government-sanctioned social engineering. Such matters cannot be addressed overnight. The government should certainly reconsider as a matter of urgency its use of the school curricula for indoctrination: in our view this is a matter undermining education and bringing New Zealand schooling into disrepute . But it should not engage in counter-indoctrination either. However, the government can and should require government-subsidised teacher education providers to publish details of coverage, including reading lists, of their courses and programmes. As already recommended, it should fund private providers and state providers on an equal basis and thus encourage diversity in provision.

Devolution of real responsibility to schools for curricula and staffing combined with the publication of assessment data and the opening-up of the supply of schooling would do much to redefine the role of teachers and bring back important issues of pedagogy and school structures into the debating arena. Parents, as agents for the clients of the schools, will have a much greater say. They will be able to knowledgeably 'vote with their feet' in deciding which schools best suit their children - an ability at present largely restricted to the better-off - and exercise real influence on school decisions. The best form of 'status' for teachers will come about when parents have chosen to send their children to their schools rather than doing so because there is no other choice - tightening enrolment schemes will make matters worse. Similarly. 'quality' is determined by "the actions of professionals in their day-to-day work with their clients" (Ross, 1990, p. 143).

10.4 A professional body?

We view with alarm the proposal to set up a professional body accountable to the government. This concern is partly because of recent governments' willingness to use the school curriculum for indoctrination and the ministry's present analytical weakness and ideological inclinations on specifically educational issues such as curriculum and pedagogy. But even if the present situation were otherwise, the problem of changes in policy towards schooling and teaching with changes of government and minister would remain. For this reason we consider that a body concerned with the professional practice of teaching should be established from within the profession itself and thus be able to stand apart from (and if need be against) the government of the day. It would also enable teachers to stand apart from the collective image of teachers presented by the teacher unions. But this will not happen until far more decentralisation of decision making takes place allowing a space to develop between a much reduced government sector and far less powerful teacher unions.

Experience with overseas government-established models is not encouraging. The Scottish General Teaching Council is widely seen as controlled by the teacher unions, and the same outcome can be expected in New Zealand if the Consultation Document's proposals are adopted. The problem here is that the client for teacher unions is, quite properly, the teacher, whereas the client of a body which has any real intention to be a professional body for teachers must be the pupil. The interests of teachers and pupils cannot always be reconciled, notably in the case of incompetent teachers but also in the wider context of standards setting and enforcement for existing teachers. In any clash of interests a union-dominated body can be expected to give priority to those of teachers.

There have been repeated attempts by UK governments to set up a professional structure for teachers in England and Wales, but as far as it is known none have succeeded . The Forum's submission on the 1997 Green Paper noted that the Labour government was proceeding with the establishment of a General Teaching Council to speak for and raise standards in the profession. However, it was then quite unclear how it was to operate and fit in with other agencies particularly the Teacher Training Agency (TAA). The UK government policy seemed to envisage an extensive managerial, 'top-down' role for the TAA and considerable difficulties were anticipated, and it did not appear to be a model which New Zealand might usefully follow. It is not known whether the situation has changed significantly over the last two years.

Because so much in schooling is contestable, it is doubtful whether one body could cater for all teachers. Membership should be voluntary and monopoly status should not be conferred on any one such body. The government should not subsidise any particular body since it could soon become dependent on such funding and thus lose its independence. However, if suitably staffed, a professional body could be awarded contracts by the government for research and administrative tasks.

10.5 Teacher supply and remuneration

Clearly there are supply problems in particular domains, such as mathematics and science, and in some more remote areas, which need to be addressed. There is also the wider problem of providing recognition of all able teachers, thereby keeping them in the classroom and avoiding promotion into administration as the only avenue for advancement. As long as the government is a major owner of schools (and therefore guarantor of adequate teacher supply) it needs to address these issues. However, the problem areas need to be carefully identified and the solutions, including where necessary substantial pay increases, geared directly to the problems. Generalised, system-wide solutions, such as a unified pay system, may well overlook these problems and make it more difficult to address them effectively.

A voluntary professional body which developed and implemented a strict set of criteria for high quality teaching could have its membership accepted for the purposes of signalling to employers a possible reason for higher pay. The criteria relevant to such a purpose would be a very high degree of substantive knowledge and pedagogical excellence.

10.6 Recommendations for a way ahead

Our recommendations for a general approach to teacher quality and supply issues are as follows:

• o The government should address the issue of quality teaching on a broad policy front involving less state control over the school curriculum, publication of assessment data, rigorous national qualifications at the secondary level, devolving pay and conditions to schools, and the equal funding of state and private schools.
• o Pursuing status per se is probably unhelpful as a policy objective. The aim must be to establish an environment in which teachers can redefine their role and establish their own benchmarks for excellence.
• o Instead of the government establishing a professional body, it should encourage the establishment of voluntary bodies by groups of teachers. Such a body or bodies should not be subsidised by the government though they could be awarded contracts for research and administrative tasks if suitably equipped.
• o Membership of a voluntary professional body with suitable entry criteria could be used as a basis for higher pay.
  

APPENDIX A

Crown interests in teacher education

Crown interest Differences from non-education sectors Differences within education sector

1. Funder of EFTS places for teacher training.: Teacher EFTS distinct. No other occupationally specific EFTS, outside high priced health ones. Pre-school and primary teacher EFTS distinct from secondary EFTS. No EFTS for tertiary teacher training.

2. Negotiator of Central Employment Contracts for primary and for secondary teachers and thus of terms and conditions for entering teachers and of performance standards for all teachers. Teacher CECs are only large scale, cross-employer contracts remaining in state sector. Unified pay system stated goal for primary and secondary. Pre-school not covered (kindergartens removed from coverage in 1997). No role for Crown as negotiator of tertiary contracts.

3. Funder and risk holder for primary and secondary teacher wages in public sector. Decisions on funding formulaefor schools can also directly effect promotion prospects, e.g. the number of positions of responsibility available. In no other sector outside government departments does the Crown directly fund the payroll of most providers or determine funding formulae and thus (in combination with its negotiator role) hold the risk from changes in wages and supply and demand. Funding applies to pre-school, primary and secondary. Risk holding to primary and secondary only as the Crown is not the owner of pre-school providers.

4. Perceived guarantor of the availability of appropriate education and thus of teacher supply (stems from risk holder role and from compulsory nature of schooling). As above Primary and secondary only

5. Effective purchaser of teacher education outputs, as 90%+ of teachers work in state schools. Crown may have similar exposure to training for other predominantly public sector occupations. However, its purchase interests in other cases are expressed through normal employer and labour market mechanisms. As above

6. Owner of colleges of education and most other teacher education providers Crown owns many tertiary institutes. However, because of distinct nature of 1, 3, 4 and 7, the relationship is less "arms length" with teacher education.. Pre-school, primary and secondary

7. Regulator and standard setter for quantity and quality of teacher education provision Through the agency of the NZQA, the Crown sets standards in various areas. However, control of teacher EFTS numbers and detail (e.g. length of course) and specific legislation on colleges of education is atypical of other areas. Relates to provision of teacher education for pre-school, primary and secondary schooling.
8. Regulator of standards for teachers through TRB. Various occupations are regulated by statute, though generally the body responsible is an independent, professional one. For teachers, the combination with 2, 7 and 9 provides effective central control. For primary and secondary schools and kindergartens only. Implied or explicit requirements of 7, 8 and 9 may not cohere.
9. Standard setter and enforcer of standards for employers of teachers (school boards of trustees) via Ministry of Education requirements and performance management system and via ERO No equivalent for other occupations As above.

APPENDIX B
EDUCATION FORUM

The Education Forum has been formed to contribute to education policy through research and debate on the current issues, structures, and expectations at all levels of New Zealand education.

The Forum believes that New Zealand education requires an approach to learning and achieving which encourages all individuals to reach their full potential, and which will take New Zealand to the leading edge of international performance and achievement.

The Forum is an association of individuals who have a common concern for the future direction of New Zealand education. The membership is drawn from primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of education, together with leaders of industry and commerce.

The principles incorporated in the above statements include the following:

A commitment to excellence and high expectation in all human endeavour, based on a lifelong desire for learning.

The belief that the community/government should ensure that all young New Zealanders have access to quality education.

The teaching of values and life skills which will preserve the dignity of the individual and the integrity of the family.

The acceptance of healthy competition for both individuals and the education sector.

The encouragement of cooperation, creativity, adaptability and enterprise.

The encouragement and recognition of personal responsibility, goal setting and achievement in all endeavours, through self discipline and hard work.

The acceptance of a compulsory core curriculum in primary and secondary schools.

The necessity for high standards of assessment of student performance and of accountability of teachers and institutions.

The promotion of a New Zealand cultural identity.

The key involvement and responsibility of parents in their children's education.

The emphasis on the value of parental choice and the self-management of education institutions.

The development of closer links between education institutions and industry.

PO Box 38-218 Auckland 1730
Telephone: 09-273-1860 Facsimile: 09-273-1861

APPENDIX C

MEMBERS OF THE EDUCATION FORUM

Mr Byron Bentley
Principal
Macleans College

Mr Simon Carlaw
Chief Executive
New Zealand Manufacturers Federation

Mr John Fleming
Principal
Pt Chevalier School

Mrs Alison Gernhoefer
Principal
Westlake Girls' High School

Dr John Hinchcliff
Vice-Chancellor
Auckland University of Technology

Mr Roger Kerr
Executive Director
New Zealand Business Roundtable

Mr Allen McDonald
Retired Secondary School Principal

Mr John Morris
Headmaster
Auckland Grammar School

Mr Roger Moses
Headmaster
Wellington College

Mr John Taylor
Headmaster
King's College

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