The Politics of Responsibility: Teacher Education and Persistent Underachievement

• In Event: The Politics of Policy in Teacher Education: International Perspectives

Abstract

Objectives and Significance to the Field

Differential achievement by groups of students is an international problem which takes on particular significance in New Zealand. While New Zealand's top students achieve comparatively well (OECD, 2010), there is a larger than average gap between our high achieving students and our low achieving students. Students from poor communities, indigenous Maori students and Pasifika students are over-represented in this low-achieving group. Government policy is focused on changing this situation, and teacher education is seen by policy makers as instrumental in this effort.

Perspectives and Analyses

This paper situates current changes to teacher education within New Zealand's wider social and political context. By analyzing official and broader political discourses around raising achievement, this paper describes and critiques the role assigned to initial teacher education in addressing the ‘failure’ of the education system to lift achievement levels for underserved students.

Maori education provides a useful site for considering the influence of education policy on teacher education. Education of Maori students takes place in both mainstream and Maori-language settings in New Zealand. Self-determination drives the Maori immersion movement, underpinned by the belief that education is the key to social change (McMurchy-Pilkington, 2001). Recently, research about the experiences of Maori students in mainstream classrooms has led to a policy and professional development emphasis on cultural competence, high expectations and relationships with students as levers to academic achievement (Bishop & Berryman, 2010). In 2010, the Education Ministry introduced National Standards in literacy and numeracy, with the express intention of raising achievement for Maori and other underserved groups.

The influence of these factors, and the persistent underachievement they strive to address, is felt in teacher education through recent policy initiatives such as new requirements for the programmes approvals (NZTC, 2010). More substantial change is proposed in a report commissioned by the Minister of Education on improving the quality of teachers (MoE, 2010).

Findings and Implications

The implications of this paper reach beyond the New Zealand context. The tension between self-determination and government intervention and oversight, is experienced by groups of people around the world. How to recruit, educate and retain teachers whose experience and cultural knowledge matches those of their students is also of concern internationally. However, document analysis indicates that in New Zealand the policy response to such issues tends to concentrate on ITE entry and programme requirements. Such a technical focus may not only restrict the ways in which teacher education can respond to demands for educational reform, but may also reduce opportunities for diversity in the teaching profession.

Teacher preparation is faced with a serious challenge in carrying out its assigned role in raising achievement for students currently not well served by the education system. Defining the knowledge, understandings and dispositions that new teachers will require in order to implement strategies implied or demanded by policy is the first step, but of greater concern is how these aspects can be thoughtfully addressed in initial teacher education.

Authors

• Lexie Barbara Grudnoff, The University of Auckland

• Fiona Ruth Ell, University of Auckland