Teacher training failing
Review finds many new teachers unprepared as NZ’s education performance slides
Adamning review has found a widespread lack of confidence in the capabilities of newly trained teachers as New Zealand’s educational performance declines.
The Education Review Office (ERO) review found many trained teachers are walking into their first jobs feeling unprepared for managing students’ behaviour, helping students with learning needs or using tests and data to assess student achievement.
“Despite a substantial government investment of more than $80 million in initial teacher education in 2016, ERO has found a lack of confidence in the selection, professional education and capabilities of many newly graduated teachers,” the report says.
“These concerns, while not universal, are widespread, and are compounded by systemic issues such as variation in initial teacher education programmes and components of theory and practice.”
The report comes two days after a global study found that the average reading level of Kiwi 10-year-olds has dropped to its lowest level on record.
“In the period from 2000 to 2015, we have witnessed a decline in New Zealand’s performance as a nation in the critical areas of reading, mathematics and science,” the report says.
“The status accorded to the teaching workforce is a critical element in those education systems identified as high performing, such as Finland, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong.
“These countries assure the quality of entrants to teacher education, place a strong emphasis on accreditation of initial teacher education programmes, and place significant emphasis on the transformation into the profession through mentored induction and assessment of readiness to teach.”
In New Zealand, teacher training was confined for many years to colleges in the six university centres, but was deregulated in the 1990s and teachers can now train at 25 institutions.
ERO chief review officer Nicholas Pole said the large number of institutions made teacher training “quite disaggregated”, but ERO found no agreement on which institutions were not performing.
“We asked principals which providers are better, but we didn’t get any consistency,” Pole said.
ERO surveyed 279 recent graduates in early childhood education and 561 recent graduates in schools via an online survey and in-depth interviews.
The online survey was generally positive. For example, over 80 per cent of newly trained school teachers were confident that they knew what they needed about both subject content and teaching methods.
But when interviewed, many said that what they had learnt did not link to what they experienced in practical placements in schools.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins said training needed “much more of a practical component”, and training institutions should be required to recruit trainees to meet shortages in subjects such as maths, science and te reo Maori.
Hipkins plans “some things in there for teacher training” in a preChristmas package aimed at tackling teacher shortages, especially in Auckland.