Review of the Teachers’ Service Commisssion Pilot Project on Teacher Appraisal and Development: implications for teacher education

Abstract

The environments in which teachers work, and the demands placed upon them by society are increasingly complex. Teachers strive to equip learners with a wide range of skills that they will require to take their place in a world that is in constant evolution; this hastens the need for the development of more competence-centered approaches to teaching, together with greater emphasis on learning outcomes. Learners are increasingly expected to become more autonomous and to take responsibility for their own learning. The learners in any class may come from an increasingly wide range of backgrounds and may have a very broad range of abilities. In this context, even initial teacher education of the highest quality cannot provide teachers with the knowledge and skills necessary for a lifetime of teaching. Teachers are called upon not only to acquire new knowledge and skills but also to develop them continuously. The education and professional development of every teacher needs to be seen as a lifelong task, and be structured and resourced accordingly. To equip the teaching body with the skills and competences needed for its new roles, it is necessary to have both quality initial teacher education and a coherent process of continuous professional development to keep teachers up to date with the skills required in a knowledge based society. As schools become more autonomous, with open learning environments, teachers assume greater responsibility for the content, organization and monitoring of the learning process, as well as for their own personal career-long professional development. Furthermore, as with any other modern profession, teachers have a responsibility to extend the boundaries of professional knowledge through a commitment to reflective practice, through research, and through systematic engagement in continuous professional development from the beginning to the end of their careers. Systems of education and trainingfor teachers need to provide them with the necessary opportunities. This in turn presents teacher education institutions, teacher educators and schools with fresh challenges when developing or implementing programmes for both student teachers and practicing teachers.

It is most probably against this background that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) came up with the Performance Standards for Teachers (PST) stipulated in the Teacher Appraisal and Development (TAD) manual (December, 2013). This document spells out a clear understanding of effective teaching which calls on various stake holders to focus on improving teaching and to have a clear vision of what effective teaching looks like.

Performance Standards for Teachers outline what teachers should know and be able to do. These Standards present a comprehensive picture of the elements of effective teaching organized around the domains of professional knowledge, professional practice and professional engagement. Schools and individual teachers are unlikely to be focusing on all areas of the Standards at once. Rather, the Standards should be seen as providing the basis and a common language for coming to a shared understanding of what effective teaching looks like in all schools.