Twenty-First-Century Teachers and Beyond: The Way Forward

Abstract

The chapter examines the complexity of the world for which we are preparing our school students, acknowledging some of the world's current problems that were raised earlier. This forms a basis for discussing implications for education in twenty-first Century schools and what this might mean for teacher recruitment and retention and the demands placed upon them. In particular, it explores career change teachers’ capacity to renew and value add to the profession, in both curricular terms and with regard to skills and attributes such as management and organization, managing budgets and the like. We contend here that all education, if it is not to be a waste of public funds, should precipitate change, and we foreshadow the potential career changers have to effect change in their schools, having experienced non-school environments. This will be reprised in more detail in the final chapter.