EDUCATION-LATIN AMERICA:
Examining the Teachers
Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO,  (IPS) - What role does teacher expertise play in education quality? How can what teachers do be evaluated? By an internal process involving reflection, or using external mechanisms with rewards for good practice?

One of the keys to improving the quality of education is connecting teacher training, professional development and performance assessment, an expert from the UNESCO Regional Office told IPS, on the occasion of the presentation of a global comparative study.

"Although this is a descriptive study, not an evaluation, we can infer from it that in order to improve teachers' work, those three elements should be integrated," said Magaly Robalino, teacher training specialist at the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Robalino coordinated the study "Evaluation of Performance and Professional Teacher Training", presented here Thursday. It compares the situation in 50 countries of the Americas and Europe, as well as the states of California and North Carolina in the United States.

In its 120 pages, the document explores entry to the teaching profession, promotion systems, retirement and pensions. It also analyses the systems each country uses to assess teachers' work.

The research, carried out between January and March 2005, looked at primary, or elementary-level, teachers working in public schools. The starting premise was that Latin American countries have made progress in their teacher training systems, but that many challenges remain.

According to Robalino, the region needs to develop a culture of assessment, rather than specific procedures or instruments; create space for dialogue and consensus seeking between those involved in assessment, and increase the status and social recognition of the teaching profession.

The study found that in Western European countries the priority of teacher training courses is to attract the best candidates. Assessment, in turn, is understood as a process of personal reflection by the teacher, and existing promotion systems are aimed at keeping teachers motivated.

In Latin American and Eastern European countries, in contrast, the main efforts are directed at improving the quality of teaching, and external evaluation systems have been put in place, including mechanisms to reward good performance.

With regard to access to teaching jobs, the report found that in all the countries analysed there is some form of selection of candidates, with the exception of Cuba, where all graduates of teacher training centres are assured a teaching post.

However, two main selection models can be identified: the first is prevalent in Anglo-Saxon, Nordic and Baltic countries, where teaching centres or local authorities have a strong tradition of independence in selecting teachers.

The second model is applied in the more centralised countries of southern and central Europe and Latin America, where the highest central education authority carries out selection by applying an equitable method across the whole country, usually through competition.

According to the study, it is not surprising that countries carry out only limited evaluation of teachers' performance, as this is a matter where the interests and opinions of politicians and administrators, teachers and their unions and specialists in education, often come into conflict.

Taking Finland, considered to be a "symbol of educational quality," as an example, the study concludes that it is possible to achieve a high-quality educational system without external evaluation of teachers' performance. In Finland, a relation of trust is entered into with teachers, whose professionalism is valued.

If an external evaluation system is implemented, the study adds, the system must be accepted by the educational community, and be technically above reproach.

The report was presented during the International Meeting on the Assessment, Training and Professional Development of Teachers, organised by the UNESCO Regional Office, the private Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez University, and the Kipus Network in Chile, which brings together several teacher training institutes in the country.

Representatives of the regional ministries of education, teacher training institutes, research centres, trade unions, civil society movements, communications media and schools were all invited to the Jul. 5-7 meeting in Santiago.

Its purpose was to share knowledge and exchange experiences, to make progress towards integrated schemes of teaching assessment, training and professional development, in order to help improve educational systems in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Carlos Eugenio Beca, the director of the Chilean Education ministry's Centre for Pedagogical Improvement, Assessment and Research, told IPS that the research study shows the variety of perspectives in many parts of the world, and that the information it contains will contribute to improving education policies in each country.

He also expressed satisfaction with the assessment system, which functions as a form of in-service training, that was introduced in Chile a couple of years ago in spite of opposition from a group of teachers belonging to the Colegio de Profesores (Teachers' Federation).

"Obviously, the technical aspects could be improved. I think we have to keep working on the connection between teacher assessment and school assessment," he said.

Beca was also enthusiastic about the recently approved Law of University Accreditation, which creates a quality assurance system for higher education in Chile.

One of the main provisions of the law is to make certification obligatory for the teaching and medical professions.

Last year, a commission was set up, composed of the Ministry of Education, teacher training institutes and the Colegio de Profesores, which represented a big step forward for teacher training in Chile.

Among other achievements, universities imparting courses that were of doubtful quality because they used distance learning, had no entrance requirements and inadequate support materials, agreed to terminate those programmes.

Now, teacher training institutes are discussing the possible future introduction of an examination for graduates of teacher training courses, to assess their teaching fitness, as well as establishing a mentoring system for new teachers.