Reformed K-6 teacher preparation in Burkina Faso: characteristics, perceptions and aspirations of the first three cohorts (2020-2024)

• In Event: Teacher Prepreration and Student Achievement in Afrikan Schools

Proposal

CONTEXT

The teaching profession has been a center of attention in most countries since the 2000s, regardless of their income levels. This is the result of a worldwide research-based consensus that teaching is the strongest school level determinant of student achievement (e.g., Blömeke and Olsen, 2019; Burroughs et al., 2019; Cusset, 2011; Darling-Hammond, 2000; OECD, 2005; UNESCO, 2004; UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2006). It is also the result of international commitments, since 1990, to making the right to (quality) education a reality for all. As of 2015, the sustainable development goal to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all (SDG 4) is the framework for policy, programming and practice in the education sector around the world. This commitment poses formidable challenges to developing countries, in particular with respect to teachers. How to ensure a regular supply of (qualified) teachers is a daunting question for most education systems, especially those facing teacher shortages.

When confronted with teacher shortages, education systems typically use two strategies to influence both supply and demand: 1) relaxing qualification requirements in order to widen the recruitment pool and/or 2) increasing the learner-teacher ratio (Santiago, 2002; UNESCO, 2014). In this paper, we analyze the case of Burkina Faso, a country that has recently raised the basic qualification requirement instead. Indeed, as of October 2020, one must hold a high school diploma (13 years of schooling) to be admitted into initial K-6 teacher education in Burkina Faso. This is a major policy shift given that the entry requirement had been the lower secondary diploma (10 years of schooling) since 1960, the year the country gained independence from France. The policy shift led to the design of new curricula for prospective pre-school educators and primary school teachers, with implications for teacher educators and who can lead the new initial teacher education institutions (ITE). The new ITE program is two years long: one year of coursework and a year long internship in primary schools across the country. Foreseeable systemic changes in (i) the characteristics of future teachers and, by extension, the transformation of the teaching force, (ii) the management of the teaching profession and schools, and (iii) the teacher labor market overall, offered us a longitudinal research agenda.

GENERAL OBJECTIVE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In previous papers (Authors, 2021, 2023), we dealt with the reform’s origins, design process and key orientations, the new curricula, the institutional changes involved, and the characteristics, perceptions and aspirations of the first cohort of teacher candidates. In this paper, we add the second and third cohorts to the analysis. Our general objective is to find out if the striking findings from the first cohort hold for the latter two. This involves answering the following questions: Who are the teacher candidates recruited in 2021 and 2022? How do they compare to the first cohort in terms of gender, family background (parents’ occupations and educational attainment), their own educational attainment, experience in the ITE program, professional aspirations, and likelihood of quitting teaching?

METHODOLOGY AND SIGNIFICANCE

To answer these questions, we conducted three surveys as follows: at the end of each year for the second cohort (targeted N=1202), just as we did for the first cohort, and at the end of the first year of the third cohort (targeted N=947). The questionnaires comprise 25 and 27 items for first year and second year teacher candidates respectively. Respondents had the choice between paper-and-pencil completion or Word processing.

In keeping with the first survey, we will first perform descriptive analyses, with the objective of producing an overall portrait of the second and third cohorts. We will then undertake cross-analyses in order to identify potential associations between different variables for each of the two cohorts. Finally, we will compare the findings with those of the first cohort, with a view to identifying significant trends over the years, in relation to the variables listed in the second question posed above.

A striking feature of the first cohort is that it was male-dominated. Administrative data showed that this was the case for the second cohort as well, but to a lesser extent. We are therefore particularly interested in the gender composition of subsequent cohorts as this may lead to equity concerns in the teaching force in the future. The association between likelihood of quitting K-6 teaching and educational attainment, field of study in higher education, professional aspiration and gender is also of interest to us. We will also examine family background, which we inadvertently did not include in the initial survey. The anticipated findings will allow us to make recommendations to the reform designers and to the leadership of the ITE institutions, and suggest leads for further research.

The context and scope of the reform lend significance to our work. So does its contribution to the knowledge base on ITE in developing countries, in French-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa in particular. Our findings should be of interest to policy makers and professionals in charge of implementing new ITE programs in Burkina Faso and elsewhere. International organizations who provide support to improving ITE, teaching and learning in such countries should also be interested in these findings.

Authors

• Martial Dembélé, University of Montreal

• Mathias Kyélem, Ecole normale supérieure de Koudougou

• Michel Samy Diatta, University of Montreal

• Adriana Morales Perlaza, Université De Montréal

• Genevieve Sirois, Université TÉLUQ