By: Shahid Qureshi
No Education system could be better than what thestandard of its teachers. Teachers are the lifeblood of any education system andan important variable input that determines student performance. The poor performance of our students on learning outcomes in the national assessment tests conducted every year is often attributed to the declining quality of teachers besides a host of many other factors.
To find clues to this issue, the policy makers must observe countries that consistently rank high in international student comparisons. Pertinently the success of many high performing systems like Finland, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong or Shanghai in the international student comparisons is often attributed tothe quality of their teachers. Finland has excelled in the PISA country ranking for the first decade since its inception and has retained good position in the ranking table ever since. We must, as a first, focus on the quality of say Finland’s teachers and teachertraining programmes that they have.
Our teacher’s recruitment system is predicated on the idea of academic ability while thesuitability of teachers is determined by their academic performance. For us, best teachers are those who are academically best. However, the teacher selection system in the most successful systems around the world isn’t based on the same premise as ours. Statistical and empirical studies conducted by the high performing countries have amply demonstrated that academic brilliance isn’t a good predictor of teaching aptitude.
Studies have found that effectiveness of teacher has been predominantly a interplay between qualities, attitude and traits which are non-academic in nature. Academically best students are not necessarily the best teachers. High performance in an academic area of course determines one’s prospects for success in higher studies in the relevant area but does no way guarantee success in teaching profession. Successfuleducation systems should be more concerned about finding the right people with character, aptitude, passion, professional commitment and specific traits to becomecareer-long teachers.
Effective teacher selection then boils down to identifying ex-ante individuals whoare likely to be effective teachers. It is perhaps noteworthy to know thatthe high performance education systems (HPES) aren’t particularly obsessed to enrol the academically highestachieving students in their teacher training programs. There is nodenying that subject knowledge is important for teachers. However, the scores in academics are only usedto screen out the academically worst performing applicants in the pre-selection phase.This means, Finish system seems to view academic ability as just complementary to teachers’ desirable qualities but not the main selection criteria of teachers.
Success in the teaching aptitude have been found to onlycorrelate with test performance in language and communication skills. The foremost purpose of the teaching aptitude test should therefore be to gauge motivation, commitment, interpersonal communication skills, and introspective ability. These findings provide unique insight and guidance into the teacher selection process in Finland.
Itseems that teacher education programs are not interested in getting the academicallymost successful candidates in their programs, instead using the aptitude test to selectprincipally on non-academic ability.
Is the Finnish model successful in selecting goodteachers? In otherword’s does the aptitude test predict teacher effectiveness? Whilesuccess of Finland in PISA may suggest so, it remains an openempirical question for us and should become a serious researchagenda back home in India.
Author is an Educator by profession.
shahidlangate@gmail.com
