Reflections on teaching and learning

PATTANAPONG HIRUNARD

This challenge represents the focal point of discussions at the recent three-day regional seminar on the status of teachers, organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (Unesco). About 50 participants - including ministry officials, education leaders, and representatives of teacher organisations, from more than 10 countries in the Asia-Pacific region - participated in the seminar.

The seminar discusses main forces and factors that directly affect the status of teachers and influence the decisions of new graduates to choose teaching as a lifelong career. More specifically, the region has an urgent need to develop a set of strategies for teachers that provide them opportunities for career advancement, professional growth, and competitive compensation based on expertise and qualifications, says Unesco's Asia-Pacific Programme of Education for All (Appeal) coordinator, Hameed Hakeem.

A regional goal

According to the Unesco Institute of Statistics (UIS), the Asia-Pacific region, at 26.8 million, is home to approximately half of the world's supply of teachers. Yet, the region needs to produce 7.5 million more qualified teachers in order to reach the Education for All (EFA) goal by 2015. To meet this goal, however, does not mean countries should proceed with producing more teachers. Quality, rather than quantity, of teachers is more of a concern. "In most countries, the lack of qualified teachers to teach present and future generations of children has reached crisis proportions," says Hakeem.

"Even in countries that are economically better off, only a few of the costly school reform efforts seem to have the scope, force and focus to attract high calibre talent to the teaching profession, and then reward and motivate the talent to stay," he adds.

More often than not, education reforms drafted at the policymaker level create a burden at the implementation level on teachers; thus, worsening their working conditions rather than improving them. Prof Chen Yin-Cheong, from Hong Kong Institute of Education, attributes a lack of social dialogue between policy makers and teachers or teacher organisations as the main reason.

"Policies are implemented mainly from the top down over a short timeframe," Prof Chen says. "The results are declines in the status of the teaching profession, a loss of competent teachers, and damage to the quality of teaching and learning."

The student-to-teacher ratio, for example, is an indicator of teachers' working conditions. In the region, the ratio at the primary school level varies from as high as 65:1 in Afghanistan and 55:1 in Cambodia to as low as 15:1 in Brunei and 20:1 in Malaysia. In order to provide quality education, however, the class size should not exceed 40, according to the Unesco Institute of Statistics.

Another crucial indicator is teachers' salaries. According to the World Bank, the state should spend up to 3.5 percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita on the salaries of teachers. In Asia, this spending varies between 0.28 percent in Indonesia to 2.05 in The Philippines.

On teacher training, Lucio Sia, programme specialist from Unesco headquarters Division of Higher Education, says that the majority of teachers in developing countries have upper secondary education. In Lao PDR, for example, 45 percent of primary teachers have less than upper secondary education, which is the country's minimum standard to enter the profession.

On a positive note, the majority of teachers in Vietnam, Cambodia, and China meet the minimum professional requirement of upper secondary education. And in countries that require at least tertiary education, almost all teachers meet the requirement.

The local scenario

In Thailand, despite the relatively small average class size of 25 students to one teacher, the teacher shortage remains a serious problem. Dr Siriporn Boonyananta, deputy secretary-general to the Office of the Education Council, Ministry of Education, attributes the career prospect and the government's early retirement programme as the main reasons for the shortage.

"Between 2000 and 2004, we lost more than 70,000 teachers through early retirement, but the state only replaced 20,000 positions," she says. To solve the immediate shortage problem, she adds, the ministry tries to promote a sharing of resources, including teachers, among schools within the same Educational Service Area.

"Rather than aiming for all schools to be equipped with a complete set of educational facilities, the sharing of resources among these schools will ensure that schools have equal access to equipment and facilities," Dr Siriporn adds.

Equally important, the career prospect for teaching fails to attract young, motivated people to enter the profession. "Before taking up teaching, these people ask whether or not they can support themselves through teaching.

"To young students 17-18 years old, the prospect of taking up teaching as a career fails to interest them because they can't see a clear path for career advancement," she says. "What we have yet to do is bring back the feeling of honour to the profession, either by providing them appropriate salary and benefits or bright career prospects."

Towards education for all

Despite the current state of the profession, Prof Chen remains optimistic that the region will meet the EFA challenge by 2015. To him, the period between now and 2015, in particular, offers a unique opportunity to meet the EFA challenge. "In most countries, with the exceptions of Brunei and Cambodia, the school age population is declining," says Prof Chen, citing UIS figures.

"One implication is that, by 2015, most countries in the Asia-Pacific region will have a decreased demand for teachers. With this, more resources will be available to provide a better quality of teaching and learning, in terms of student-to-teacher ratio, and also in terms of teacher qualifications," he adds.

Whether or not this optimism pays off depends largely on how each country allocates the saved resources, which can be used to enhance teachers training and improve the basic qualification of teachers, or reduce the student-to-teacher ratio and hire more teachers to take care of individual needs in the classroom.

"I think, the reasonable scenario is that we use the saved resources to enhance basic conditions for our children," Prof Chen says, referring to providing equal access to basic education to all children. "Part of the saved resources can go to implement limited changes in the facilities, curriculum, or policies," he adds.

With Education for All as the long-term goal, the regional seminar on the status of teachers provides an opportunity for leaders and administrators to reflect on the country's current position, and also to reflect on what still needs to be done in order to realise this common goal. More importantly, any policies or decisions made at the top level should take into consideration the voice of people at the implementation level, particularly teachers and teacher organisations.

The most important thing is the future of the children and what they will become as a result of these policies.

The Asia Regional Seminar on the Status of Teachers: Attracting, Developing, and Retaining Effective Teachers took place from August 1-3 in Bangkok. For more information on the seminar, contact Unesco Bangkok at 02-391-0577. To access the Unesco Institute of Statistics (UIS) reports, visit www.uis.unesco.org/publications/teachers2006 .

Education for All Education for All (EFA) is a movement born out of the 1990 World Conference on Education in Pattaya, Thailand. During the conference, participating member countries pledged to provide access to primary education for all children and reduce adult literacy by the end of the decade. However, the common goals resulting from the Jomtien conference were met with several shortcomings. The EFA 2000 Assessment, which examined the status of basic education in 180 countries and evaluated the progress achieved during the 1990s, revealed that despite progress in actual numbers, illiteracy rates remained at exactly the same proportion a decade earlier. In April 2000, the World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, established a new set of goals to achieve quality basic education by 2015. More than 1,000 participants from 164 countries joined the forum and afterwards adopted the Dakar Framework for Action, which included: 1. ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory quality primary education; 2. achieving a 50 percent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults; 3. eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015. For more information on the Education for All movement, visit www.unesco.org/education/efa/index.shtml .