Career Ladder Policy For Teachers: The Case Of Ghana

In 1984 the Ministry of Education in Ghana introduced a career ladder policy for teachers. While reformers believe that this has improved the condition of the teaching profession, the net gains of the policy remain deceptive. There has even been a reduction in some of the benefits that teachers used to enjoy in the single salary scheme in the past. After critically assessing the major aspects of the policy, along with the voices of Ghanaian teachers, this study argues that the career ladder policy for teachers in Ghana is another prototypical case of a failed experiment in terms of both improving the lives of teachers and maintaining their professional rights.     

Teachers’ career ladder policy in Ethiopia: an opportunity for professional growth or “a stick disguised as a carrot?”

In response to the ever-declining status of the teaching profession, and its adverse effects on the country's educational system, the Federal Ministry of Education in Ethiopia introduced a policy of the teachers’ career ladder in 1994. While reformers believe that the introduction of the policy has improved the condition of the teaching profession, the net gains of the policy remain deceptive and even, in part, reduce some of the benefits teachers used to enjoy in the single salary scheme in the past. Among other things, central to the claims of the policy's advocates stands an improved salary scale for teachers. While this was admittedly true by the time the policy was introduced, the gain in salary raise has gradually been lost to the bureaucratic hurdles and watchdog structures erected to screen teachers’ eligibility at each stage of the career ladder. After critically assessing the major aspects of the policy, along with the voices of Ethiopian teachers, the current study argues that the policy of the teachers’ career ladder in Ethiopia is another prototypical case of a failed experiment both in terms of improving the lives of teachers and maintaining their professional rights.     

Enacting policy: the capacity of school leaders to support early career teachers through policy work

Early career teachers often feel overwhelmed by the complex, intense and unpredictable nature of their work. Recently, policy initiatives have been introduced to provide new teachers with extra release-time from face-to-face classroom teaching duties to assist them in their transition to the workforce. This paper reports on a critical policy study that investigated the enactment of this policy initiative. A data set was created from a larger qualitative study which investigated early career teacher resilience. Drawing on a policy enactment theoretical ‘toolbox’, the findings indicate that school leaders can empower early career teachers to move beyond being ‘receivers’ of policy to assume a more active policy role. This paper argues that school leaders are very powerful in their capacity to enact policy to ensure strategic access to appropriate on-going learning opportunities to support early career teachers.     

Hong Kong secondary schoolteachers' understanding of their careers

Changes that occur in teachers’ careers are typically conceptualized in research as occurring in several demarcated and sequential stages/phases. This study examines secondary schoolteachers’ understandings of their careers and whether they could identify stages/phases in their career development. It is based on experienced teachers’ recall of their career development and their in‐depth interviews. The findings demonstrate the need to acknowledge the individual ways in which teachers develop as well as the need for the use of multiple frameworks for describing teachers’ career development. Using a single a priori model to describe their career development, as has been common in certain previous research, does not do justice to teachers’ understanding of their own careers. Furthermore, the findings of this study shed light on the contextualized nature of experience and expertise. Accordingly, implications for teacher education and policy‐making in the area are drawn.     

Early career teachers in Australia: a critical policy historiography

Amid the growing ‘teacher quality’ discourse, early career teachers have increasingly been positioned as problematic in Australian education policy discourses over the past decade. This paper uses a critical policy historiography approach to compare representations of early career teachers in two key education policy documents, from the late 1990s and mid-2010s. Starting with the Government response to A Class Act: Inquiry into the Status of the Teaching Profession (1998) and moving to the Government response to Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers (2015), it explores changing representations in the context of broader shifts in education policy related to teachers’ work over this timeframe. It argues that the early career teacher ‘problem’ is articulated in very different ways in these two timeframes, explores the antecedents of key tenets of the current policy settlement, and, using the theory of practice architectures, considers the implications of these for the preconditions that shape and frame teachers’ work in contemporary times.     

Empowerment amongst teachers holding leadership positions

This study used semi-structured in-depth interviews to explore empowerment patterns among teachers who hold leadership positions in school. Our qualitative analysis presents a hierarchical ladder with three types of empowerment amongst these teachers, ranging from limited empowerment through rewarding empowerment to change-enhancing empowerment. The level of empowerment seems to be related to the leadership position which the teachers hold and to their perception of the position. Our results contribute to the theoretical understanding of empowerment as a complex construct that affects the career characteristics of the teacher, ranging from limited impact of the leadership position to a powerful effect on the organizational culture. We also suggest that this model has practical implications on the way principals can evaluate their teachers’ empowerment patterns and accordingly assist their development toward change-enhancing empowerment.     

部属师范大学师范生免费教育的喜与忧

国家从2007年秋期开始对部属师范大学的师范学生实行免费,这一政策充分体现了教师教育是国家的事业、政府的责任。政策的执行对于进一步形成尊师重教的浓厚氛围、让教育成为全社会最受尊重的职业具有示范性意义。但是,就师范生的总量和基层就业的分布看,这一政策并没有惠及到真正在基层农村学校安居乐业的主力军——地方师范院校毕业的学生。作者提出了部属师范大学师范学生免费教育的"喜"与"忧"这一命题,从不同的角度论述了政策效应的"喜"和地方师范院校发展的"忧"。     

Professional aspirations among pre-service teachers: personal responsibility,time perspectives,and career choice satisfaction

Exploring the direct and indirect effects of pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility on their professional aspirations through affective (i.e., career choice satisfaction) and cognitive (i.e., time perspectives) variables may enable teacher educators and policy makers to better describe the factors influencing teacher development in an era of teacher accountability. Indeed, current teacher accountability movements rather neglect the ‘teacher’ as a person who has professional aspirations, a sense of personal responsibility, career choice satisfaction and time perspectives within which these professional aspirations are contextualized and/or interpreted/reinterpreted. This indicates that it is important to consider pre-service teachers’ professional intentions together with their sense of responsibility, professional satisfaction, and time perspectives in order to inform current accountability movements more comprehensively. Thus, the current study examined whether pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility, time perspectives, and career choice satisfaction were significantly related to their professional aspirations, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of their time perspectives and career choice satisfaction. A total of 511 pre-service teachers voluntarily participated in the study. Correlation, multiple regression, and structural equation modeling analyses were conducted in order to analyze the data in a comprehensive manner. The results showed that aspects of pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility were significantly and positively related to their professional aspirations, career choice satisfaction, and future time perspective. The results also showed that career choice satisfaction and future time perspective played significant mediating roles in the relationships between personal responsibility and professional aspirations. Notably, the mediating role of career choice satisfaction was stronger than that of the mediating role of future time perspective. Overall, the results of the study reveal that the correlational patterns, derived from the links between pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility, career choice satisfaction, future time perspective, and professional aspirations, have clear potential to inform teacher educators and policy makers regarding the factors influencing pre-service teachers’ engagement with the teaching profession and professional development aspirations.     

Teaching profession career ladder programme in Turkey: implementation,outcomes and challenges

Turkey has implemented various programmes to increase the quality of in-service training for K–12 teachers with varying success. One of the most recent state-wide implementations of these programmes is the Teaching Profession Career Ladder Programme (TPCLP) that was put into practice in 2005. This study investigates teachers’ views related to the implementation of the TPCLP. A detailed account of the application process and teachers’ views towards the implementation will generate suggestions to raise the effectiveness of the implementation. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews. Analysis of data revealed that teachers hold direct intensive criticism towards many criteria of the TPCLP, particularly the examination. Furthermore, they have mixed perspectives as to whether the programme is effective. This study shows that career ladder implementation failed to contribute to continuous professional development of teachers and the quality of the education process in K–12 schools.     

The development of strong career learning environments: the project ‘Career Orientation and Guidance’ in Dutch vocational education

Schools are increasingly acknowledging their responsibility to guide students in their career development. However, the guidance that is provided in the Netherlands, as well as in other Western countries, focuses for the most part on helping students towards their academic achievement, and not on helping them to develop competencies to manage their own career. In order to promote this type of career guidance, 37 secondary vocational schools in the Netherlands participated in a project that offered a training programme, aiming to teach teachers how to conduct career dialogues with students. The programme offers expert guidance to integrate a dialogical approach to career guidance and a more enquiry- and practice-based curriculum in the school’s vision and policy. In this article, the results of semi-structured interviews with 50 teachers who participated in the project are presented. These interviews were conducted right after the start of the project, to study how teachers perceive the initial situation regarding career development in their schools, as well as their perception of the initiated plans and ambitions for development, both in their own learning environment and the learning environment of their students.     

Supporting and inhibiting the well‐being of early career secondary school teachers: Extending self‐determination theory

This paper reports an original examination of the well‐being of early career secondary school teachers in England, which extends the evidence bases relating to early career teachers’ working lives, teacher well‐being, self‐determination theory and performativity, respectively. Drawing on a secondary analysis of qualitative data generated for four separate empirical studies between 2005 and 2013, in a context in which teachers’ work was subject to unparalleled external regulation, the authors examine the extent to which the well‐being of early career teachers can be explained by self‐determination theory, which posits that well‐being is enhanced when innate psychological needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy are satisfied. The findings suggest that satisfaction of these three basic psychological needs is a necessary but not sufficient condition for optimising the well‐being of early career teachers, which is dependent upon the interaction of a wider range of individual, relational and micro‐, meso‐ and macro‐environmental factors. Amongst the recommendations for policy and practice, policymakers and school leaders are urged to uphold their duty of care to newly and recently qualified teachers by doing their utmost to create conditions for the optimisation of such teachers' well‐being. Several specific means of bringing this about are proposed, together with a checklist for those concerned to support the well‐being of early career teachers.     

学缘关系对大学教师学术职业发展影响的实证研究——以H大学为个案

本文基于H大学2003-2006年的职称评审数据,采用Logistic回归分析方法,探讨学缘关系对大学教师学术职业发展的影响。研究发现,尽管人力资本仍是学术职业发展最重要的内在逻辑,但学缘关系对大学教师学术职业发展的影响日益显著。学缘关系越丰富的大学教师,取得学术职业发展的可能性越大;不同种类的学缘关系对大学教师学术职业发展的影响程度不同,在控制其他因素的条件下,本科、硕士与博士在同一所学校就读并留校任教的大学教师学术职业发展可能性最大,具有硕士学缘关系的大学教师学术职业发展可能性最小。基于上述结论,本文提出深化教师聘任制度改革、完善职称评审制度与加快学术劳动力市场建设等一系列政策建议。     

我国中小学教师工资等级研究

我国现行的中小学教师工资等级表存在着等级间重叠度高、高低等级间级差较小、涨幅不合理等问题,难以有效激励教师追求专业水平的提升。本文根据薪酬设计的理论和方法,并结合中小学教师职业发展特点,尝试设计了一个具有以下特点的工资等级表：一是基于教师专业成长的阶段划分了五个工资等级与之相适应,体现教师职业发展的特点;二是根据市场工资线设计了第三个等级的中间值,保证了工资水平的外部竞争力;三是采用等比级差法设计等级间中位值,实现了级差随等级增加而增加;四是遵循新的工资理念,设计了合理的等级间工资重叠区间;五是结合教师职业生涯周期,建立了教师工资的正常增长机制。     

英国基础教育教师招聘与留用战略探析

教师队伍建设是关乎国家未来的重要任务,因此教师的招聘与留用极其重要。针对当前英国基础教育领域中存在的教师供需失衡问题,英国采取了一系列教师招聘与留用策略,包括创造良好的学校文化氛围,提高对新入职教师的支持,提高教师职业吸引力,并进一步拓宽教师入职的渠道。英国开发专门的教师供应模型预测教师需求,从政策层面营造校园文化,加大投资吸引转行教师等举措都颇具新意,然而具体策略的投资回报率等还有待进一步观察。     

ICT use in the teaching of mathematics: Implications for professional development of pre-service teachers in Ghana

Included in the contemporary mathematics curricula in Ghana is the expectation that mathematics teachers will integrate technology in their teaching. However, importance has not been placed on preparing teachers to use ICT in their instruction. This paper reports on a study conducted to explore the feasibility of ICT use in mathematics teaching at senior high school levels in Ghana. Interviews and survey data were used for data collection. Preliminary results showed that mathematics teachers in Ghana do not integrate ICT in their mathematics instruction. Among the major perceived barriers identified were: Lack of knowledge about ways to integrate ICT in lesson and Lack of training opportunities for ICT integration knowledge acquisition. To overcome some of these barriers, opportunities of a professional development arrangement for pre-service mathematics teachers were explored. Findings from the study revealed specific features of a professional development scenario that matters for ICT integration in mathematics teaching in the context of Ghana.     

男性幼儿免费师范生职业动机调查分析及对策研究--以江苏徐州幼专为例

招收男性幼儿免费师范生是江苏省2010年5月实行的一项试点工作,意在鼓励优秀男生当幼儿园教师,创设幼儿园男性教师补充机制,切实解决幼儿园师资队伍性别结构失衡问题;形成良好的幼儿教育生态环境,促进幼儿快乐健康成长。江苏省教育厅对免费师范生实行的一系列激励政策,掀起了报考幼师学校的高潮。在此背景下,通过对男性幼儿免费师范生职业动机的调查分析与研究,可以探讨如何在教育的过程中更有针对性地因材施教,从而提高性男性幼儿免费师范生对学前教育更全面的认识与热爱。     

美国教师聘任管理改革探析

美国教师聘任管理权力架构清楚、权责分明,立法管理教师聘任环节程序规范、决策审慎,"集权式"和"市场式"相结合的教师资格标准保障新进教师的质量,聘任的双重合同有效保障了教师的合法权益,教师职级制度体现了专业能力与岗位、薪酬的对应,这些举措有利于促进教师的专业发展。借鉴美国经验,我国教师管理改革应明确各级政府、学校和教师在聘任管理中的权利、责任与义务,改革并完善相关法律规定,建立按照学校和学科分类、非终身、开放式的职业资格认定制度,建立基于标准的晋升考试与考核评价制度,建立教师退出机制。     

‘If you’re wrong for the place you just don’t survive’: examining the work of early career teachers in context

ABSTRACT

This article presents evidence from across the segregated secondary school system in NSW, Australia, through the close analysis of three cases of teachers’ work in contrasting schooling contexts. Through this comparative approach, the relationship between school context and the work of the early career teacher is foregrounded, troubling views of teaching as reflecting a certain kind of life cycle in which early career teachers in particular are seen to be subject to pressures such as stress and burnout. In contrast, I argue that specificities of context, exacerbated by a market-based policy approach which has driven greater levels of differentiation between schools, have particular consequences for teachers, both in the nature and scale of the challenges with which they are faced. In demonstrating how teachers’ work is affected by context, I also speak back against recent, often ill-defined discourses of ‘classroom readiness’ and ‘teacher quality’, which emphasise the roles of teachers and teacher educators rather the systems within which they work.     

Reframing the teacher profession as a dynamic multifaceted profession: A wider perspective on teacher quality and teacher competence frameworks

Many countries in Europe use some kind of competence framework to define the quality of teachers. They typically formulate one level of teaching quality which defines the competence level that teachers must have acquired after completing initial teacher education. In addition, most countries provide limited career structures that define career opportunities within the teacher profession itself, resulting in a profession where often the only option for career progression is to move to leadership positions. Competence frameworks that create opportunities for vertical and horizontal career structures can make being a teacher a more attractive profession. They offer teachers opportunities for ‘career crafting’ and professional growth and supply school leaders with tools for more elaborate career guidance. In this article, we present a framework that was developed in the Netherlands to support teacher growth and teachers' career development. It has been used as a starting point for creating a shared language and understanding of the teacher profession and as a catalyst for dialogue between teachers and school leaders on professional growth. We elaborate the main characteristics of the resulting model, its limitations, the feedback that has been collected and how this feedback has been incorporated in how the model is used and discussed by teachers, school leaders and teacher education institutes. Finally, we argue that the strength of the framework can be explained by the way it acts as a boundary object, inspiring mutual learning and dialogue between different activity systems (of teachers, school leaders and teacher educators).     

免费义务教育政策对马拉维和加纳的影响初探——基于公平与效率视角的分析

马拉维和加纳分别干1994年和1996年开始实施免费义务教育政策,它们的实施方式存在一定的差异,从而也使得在实施免费义务教育后10年内的教育规模和质量有所差别,同时也使得两国义务教育体系的公平与效率也产生了差异,主要体现在入学率、师生比、留级率和升学率等指标上.