Abstract
The human species being essentially perfectible and educable, the primacy of education is a recurrent theme in the classic sources of pedagogic thought. It has been endowed with the status of a human right, and key is a word often used to indicate the paramountcy of the right to education. Nevertheless, while it is largely recognized that education is the great “social equalizer” and that achieving both educational “excellence” and “equity” is one of the most critical problems of our times, education systems are not keeping up with increasingly multicultural and rapidly changing societies. They need radical reforms. A reform is not radical enough if it does not grasp the roots of what is failing. In addition, it must be systemic and holistic, taking into account the interaction of education with the whole society since human rights are essentially indivisible and interdependent. Although teachers are the real genius of the everyday alchemy of education quality, two terms are frequently used with respect to the status of the teaching profession worldwide: “decline” and (lack of) “recognition”. The minimum that may be said is that it is uncared for: it is uncared for when Governments do not care for it and it does not care for itself. The quality of the teaching profession is neither cheap nor evaluable in snapshot, but what is at stake in education is priceless. Finland’s education system is example of a human rights approach to education quality, driven by a highly qualified and ranked teaching profession. It epitomizes the compatibility between equity and quality, inclusiveness and competitiveness, thus making more evident, by contrast, how miserable neoliberal education politics is.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0/8774217173a3fde0c1256a10002ecb42/$FILE/G0110177.pdf.
- 2.
www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/e06a5300f90fa0238025668700518ca4/05af86414ce903c9c1256e3000357284/$FILE/G0410332.pdf.
- 3.
- 4.
This Summit “was the first to bring together ministers of education and teachers’ union leaders from many countries to the same table” (p. 3). A second took place in New York in 2012; the third met in Amsterdam in 2013; the fourth in Wellington, New Zealand, in 2014; the fifth is scheduled to take place in Banff, Alberta (Canada), in 2015.
- 5.
This Report accounts for research carried out in 25 school systems in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East, between May 2006 and March 2007. The schools visited were selected to represent the world’s top ten best-performing school systems, according to the results of the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment), launched in 1997 by OECD to assess the educational systems, but it also included others that are improving rapidly, some of them in developing countries (Bahrain, Brazil, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), which are adopting successful approaches.
- 6.
- 7.
This OECD study, titled Teachers matter: Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers, accounts for the results of a major survey conducted by its Directorate for Education, over the years 2002–2004, in collaboration with 25 countries in all continents but Africa. It is about the recruitment, preparation, career and working conditions of school teachers.
- 8.
- 9.
www.oecd.org/edu/school/TALIS-2013-Executive-Summary.pdf
TALIS is so described in A Teachers’ Guide to TALIS 2013:
The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is a large scale international survey that focuses on the working conditions of teachers and the learning environment in schools. TALIS, a collaboration among participating countries and economies, the OECD, an international research consortium, social partners and the European Commission, aims to provide valid, timely and comparable information to help countries review and define policies for developing a high-quality teaching workforce.TALIS examines the ways in which teachers’ work is recognized, appraised and rewarded, and assesses teachers’ participation in professional development activities. The study provides insights into teachers’ beliefs about and attitudes towards teaching, the pedagogical practices that they adopt, and the factors related to teachers’ sense of self-efficacy and job satisfaction. TALIS also examines the roles of school leaders and the support they give their teachers.
The first cycle of TALIS was conducted in 2008 and surveyed teachers and school leaders of lower secondary education in 24 countries. In 2013, 34 countries and economies participated in TALIS. (www.oecd.org/edu/school/TALIS-Teachers-Guide.pdf)
More than 100,000 teachers and school leaders at lower secondary level (for students aged 11–16) took part in the OECD survey, but it should be noted that TALIS cannot be seen as a “global ‘selfie’ by teachers”, to the extent that from Central & South America only Mexico, Chile and Brazil participated, and none country from Africa.
- 10.
This was done in the USA, in the State of New York, in 2012, where a teacher recognized as teacher of the year by the Parent Teacher Organization earned a score of 7 out of 20 points. Her school Principal wrote: “Despite the judgment of the New York State Education Department, Ashley remains a model teacher in our school: beloved by students and parents, respected by colleagues and supervisors” (Valerie Strauss, “Meet Ashley, a great teacher with a bad ‘value-added’ score”. (Retrieved April 2013 from www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/meet-ashley-a-great-teacher-with-a-bad-value-added-score/2012/09/13/27836e4e-fdb7-11e1-a31e-804fccb658f9_blog.html).
- 11.
- 12.
In this connection, an OECD Report (2011a) remarks:
Unions are sometimes perceived as interfering with promising school reform programs by giving higher priority to the unions’ ‘bread and butter’ issues than to what the evidence suggests students need to succeed. But the fact is that many of the countries with the strongest student performance also have strong teachers’ unions, and the better a country’s education system performs, the more likely that country is working constructively with its unions and treating its teachers as trusted professional partners. (p. 56).
- 13.
“Finnish schools have become a kind of tourist destination, with hundreds of educators and policy makers annually travelling to Helsinki to try to learn the secret of their success” (OECD 2011b, p. 118).
- 14.
‘How GERM is infecting schools around the world?’, published in The Washington Post on 29 June 2012 (www.pasisahlberg.com/blog).
Pasi Sahlberg is the author of Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland (Teachers College Press 2011) that has earned him the 2013 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education (USA). He also received the 2012 Education Award of the Trade Union of Education in Finland. He wrote:
Since the beginning of 2000, I have given more than 250 keynote addresses and 50 interviews about the Finnish educational system around the world. My estimate is that this means talking to some 50,000 people directly and many more through published stories and news. Numerous conversations with people who are interested in education like I am have greatly advanced writing this book. Following are some of the questions that have been asked over and over again: “What is the secret of Finnish educational success?”, “How do you get best young people into teaching in Finland?”, “How much does lack of ethnic diversity have to do with good educational performance there?”, “How do you know that all schools are doing what they should when you don’t test students or inspect teachers?”, and “How did Finland save its education system during the economic downturn in the 1990s?” (Sahlberg 2011, p. 2).
- 15.
- 16.
“How GERM is infecting schools around the world?”, published in The Washington Post on 29 June 2012 (www.pasisahlberg.com/blog).
- 17.
Class teachers are those who teach a class in grades 1–6 in basic education. Subject teachers are those who teach only a discipline or specialized area in grades 7–9 in basic education and at upper secondary school.
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
Retrieved June 2014 from https://theconversation.edu.au/finnish-education-guru-pasi-sahlberg-in-conversation-full-transcript-9836.
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
In this connection, a UK Report notices:
The transition from an industrial society to a knowledge society has brought about an unprecedented level of wealth, meaning that people can move beyond thinking about survival to thinking about their subjective well-being.
Values have shifted from an emphasis on physical and economic well-being to individual freedom and self-expression (amongst others).
This new focus on subjective well-being is combined with unparalleled availability of information due to the exponential growth of technology in the past quarter of a century. (Spada 2009, p. 6).
- 29.
The process is steered by a broad-based group chaired by the Minister of Education and Science that includes representatives from eight political parties; delegates from the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Board of Education; four to five representatives from research fields, who are also members in the theme area working groups; delegates from the Trade Union of Education in Finland, the Association of Finnish Principals, the Association of Finnish Independent Education Employers, the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors, the Association of Finnish; involvement of Local and Regional Authorities, the Finnish Parents’ League and secondary school student organizations.
The steering group coordinates two working groups focusing on the following themes: 1) the significance of competence and learning in terms of societal development, and 2) motivation for learning, school satisfaction and teaching arrangements and methods. (See: www.minedu.fi/OPM/Tiedotteet/2014/02/perusopetus.html?lang=en).
- 30.
The Future is Finnish—such was the title of a text published on the Newsweek website on May 23, 1999… (www.newsweek.com/future-finnish-166786).
References
Aho, E., Pitkänen, K., & Sahlberg, P. (2006). Policy development and reform principles of basic and secondary education in Finland since 1968. Washington: The World Bank, Education Working Paper Series, No 2. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099079967208/Education_in_Finland_May06.pdf
Anderson, L. (2004). Increasing teacher effectiveness. Paris: UNESCO, International Institute for Educational Planning. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001376/137629e.pdf
Asia Society. (2011). The international summit on the teaching profession—Improving teacher quality around the world. http://asiasociety.org/files/lwtw-teachersummitreport0611.pdf
Asia Society. (2012). The 2012 international summit on the teaching profession—Teaching and leadership for the twenty-first century. http://asiasociety.org/files/2012teachingsummit.pdf
Asia Society. (2014). The 2013 international summit on the teaching profession—Excellence, equity, and inclusiveness—High quality teaching for all. http://asiasociety.org/files/2014teachingsummit.pdf
Barber, M., Donnelly, K., & Rizvi, S. (2012). Oceans of innovation—The Atlantic, the Pacific, global leadership and the future of education. London: Institute of Public Policy Research. (www.ippr.org/images/media/files/publication/2012/09/oceans-of-innovation_Aug2012_9543.pdf)
Barber, M., & Mourshed, M. (2007). How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top. McKinsey and Company. www.mckinsey.com/locations/UK_Ireland/~/media/Reports/UKI/Education_report.ashx
Bourdoncle, R. (1993). La professionnalisation des enseignants: les limites d’un mythe. Revue Française de Pédagogie, 105, 83–119.
Darling-Hammond, L., & Rothman, R. (2011). Lessons learned from Finland, Ontario, and Singapore. In L. Darling-Hammond, & R. Rothman (Ed.), Teacher and leader effectiveness in high-performing education systems (pp. 1–11). Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education and Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. www.all4ed.org/files/TeacherLeaderEffectivenessReport.pdf
European Commission. (2012). Supporting the teaching professions for better learning outcomes. Commission Staff Working Document—Accompanying the Document: Communication from the Commission—Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes (SWD (2012) 374 final). Retrieved July 2014 from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=SWD:2012:0374:FIN:EN:PDF
Ginsburg, M., & Megahed, N. (2009). Comparative perspectives on teachers, teaching and professionalism. In L. Saha, & A. Dworkin (Ed.), International handbook of research on teachers and teaching (pp. 539–556). Berlin: Springer.
Kant, I. (1803). On education (‘Über Pädagogik’, Translated by Annette Churton, with an Introduction by C. A. Foley Rhys Davids, M.A.). Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., Publishers, 1906. http://archive.org/details/kantoneducationu00kantuoft
Kupiainen, S., Hautamäki, J., & Karjalainen, T. (2009). The Finnish education system and PISA. Helsinki: Ministry of Education. www.minedu.fi/export/sites/default/OPM/Julkaisut/2009/liitteet/opm46.pdf?lang=en
LeCompte, M. (2009). Trends in research on teaching: An historical and critical overview. In L. Saha, & A. Dworkin (Ed.), International handbook of research on teachers and teaching (pp. 25–60). Berlin: Springer.
Leslie, Ch. (Ed.). (2013). Towards a royal college of teaching—Raising the status of the profession. London: The Royal College of Surgeons of England. Retrieved July 2014 from http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/news/pdf/AQA-NEWS-TOWARDS-A-ROYAL-COLLEGE.PDF
MacBeath, J. (2012). Future of teaching profession. Education International Research Institute, University of Cambridge—Faculty of Education, Leadership for Learning—The Cambridge Network. http://download.ei-ie.org/Docs/WebDepot/EI%20Study%20on%20the%20Future%20of%20Teaching%20Profession.pdf
National Center on Education and the Economy. (2007). Tough choices or tough times—The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce—Executive Summary, Washington. www.skillscommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ToughChoices_EXECSUM.pdf
Niemi, H. (2012). The societal factors contributing to education and schooling in Finland. In N. Niemi, & A. Toom, & A. Kallioniemi (Ed.), Miracle of education—The principles and practices of teaching and learning in finnish schools (pp. ix–xi, 19–38). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
OECD. (1990). L’enseignant aujourd’hui —Fonctions, Statut, Politiques. OECD Publishing.
OECD. (2005). Teachers matte—Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers. OECD Publishing.
OECD. (2011a). Building a high-quality teaching profession—Lessons from around the world—Background Report for the International Summit on the Teaching Profession. OECD Publishing. Retrieved January 2013 from www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/internationaled/background.pdf
OECD. (2011b). Strong performers and successful reformers in education—Lessons from PISA for the United States. OECD Publishing. Retrieved June 2014 from www.oecd.org/pisa/46623978.pdf
OECD. (2012). Strong performers and successful reformers in education—Lessons from PISA for Japan. OECD Publishing. Retrieved June 2014 from www.oecd.org/edu/school/programmeforinternationalstudentassessmentpisa/49802616.pdf
OECD. (2014). Equity, excellence and inclusiveness in education—Policy lessons from around the world. OECD Publishing, by Andreas Schleicher. Retrieved June 2014 from http://teachfirstnz.org/images/uploads/Documents/OECD.pdf
Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. (1998). A class act—Inquiry into the status of the teaching profession. Canberra: Senate Employment, Education and Training Reference Committee. www.aph.gov.au/~/media/wopapub/senate/committee/eet_ctte/completed_inquiries/1996_99/teachers/report/report_pdf.ashx
Pearson. (2012). Lessons in country performance in education—2012 Report. London: The Learning Curve, Economist Intelligence Unit. http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com/the-report
Pochard, M. (2008). Livre Vert sur l’évolution du métier d’enseignant—Rapport au ministre de l’Éducation nationale. Paris: La documentation Française. Retrieved January 2013 from http://lesrapports.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/BRP/084000061/0000.pdf
Rousseau, J.-J. (1993a). Émile (Translated by Barbara Foxley, Introduction by P. D. Jimack). Vermont: Everyman (2004).
Saha, J., & Dworkin, A. (Ed.). (2009). International handbook of research on teachers and teaching. Berlin: Springer.
Sahlberg, P. (2011). Finnish lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland. New York: Teachers College Press.
Spada. (2009). British professions today: The state of the sector. www.ukipg.org.uk/executive_group_resources/spada-british-professions-today.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Monteiro, A.R. (2015). Most Far-Reaching Lessons from Studies, Reforms and Reports Concerning Education Systems and the Teaching Profession Worldwide. In: The Teaching Profession. SpringerBriefs in Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12130-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12130-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12129-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12130-7
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)