Life After the RAE Research and Teacher Education.
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Transcript of Life After the RAE Research and Teacher Education.
Life After the RAE
Research and Teacher Education
Education UOA – the good news
C 2000 individual entries81 institutions75% ‘international’One quarter had a quality profile in which
50% or more was internationally excellent or world leading
The Good News
‘It is clear that the best departments can compete on equal terms with the strongest departments anywhere in the world…The high international standing of education in UK universities was strongly endorsed by the international members of the main panel’
But…..Education – one of the largest social
sciences
Excellent But….
Nearly 3000 people not entered at allMany of those institutions – even highly
successful ones – had a hidden and sometimes long tail.
Some very small entries - 30% of entries listed fewer than 10 category A staff – median number is 13
81 institutions entered – there are 97 ITE education in the UK
6 of those entered don’t do ITE therefore 22 HEIs that offer ITE not entered at all
Variation of entry rates by institutions across different parts of the UK
Scotland – all but one ITE institution entered and overall numbers were large
Northern Ireland – 3 out of 4 ITE institutions entered
Wales – 6 entries out of 7 institutions but only 37 individuals
England – over 25% of ITE institutions not entered and early 20% of ITE in England goes on outside HEIs entirely .
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
6
11
6
8
3
7
2
6
2
1996 2001 20080
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
104
77
37
321
162
258
44 39 38
Numbers Submitted in Successive RAEs and Institutions Submitting
Wales
Scotland
N.Ireland
Year
No.
Subm
itte
d
A further concern – research capacity
‘Of the 7,000 new students during the period, less than 4% were funded by OST/Research Council studentships….Given the significance of research council studentships for ensuring the long term future of the discipline the 4% figure is strikingly low’
%age of academic and research staff with PhDs
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Education Psychology
Source HESA 2005/6
Challenges and implications
Maintaining a commitment to research based professional education.
Challenges and implications
The key challenge for Teacher Education now and in the future is to answer the question: ‘What is the essential contribution of HE?’ Developing and maintaining a scholarly culture is essential.
Topics and methods
‘Some more traditional areas were less strongly represented than previously e.g. … teacher education’
Why might that be the case? Panel noted a ‘broadening of
the field’o HE o Community and domestic
arenaso Applied linguisticso Some expansion of the
psychological fieldo Methodology – more
sophisticated quantitative analysis and increased use of longitudinal studies
o Evidence based systematic reviews.
Explanations
The neo-liberal university
Coming together of human
capital theory +
economic rationalism
‘Driving these changes is a redefined internal economy in which under-funding drives a ‘pseudo-market’ in fee incomes, soft budget allocations for special purposes and contested earnings for new enrolments and research grants’ (Marginson 2007)
Research funding is a highly sensitive market
£316 million in total – staggering £101K per head
£182 government – 57%Research councils £55 million 17% (including
TLRP’s £38m)
Government money is strongly policy drivenTeacher education itself, as I have argued
elsewhere, is no longer the key policy issue that it was for government funding
Agendas have moved on
Can see evidence of the research economy in the neo-liberal university
From government Evidence based policy movement with its emphasis on
large scale data sets ECM
Other sources Applied linguistics ‘Foundation’ disciplines
A highly sensitive market
Two worries arise from the dominance of government funding
‘The quality of the best government sponsored and targeted research was excellent - both rigorous and effective in informing policy and with enough funding to sustain large multi-disciplinary teams over many years. However, other areas suffered in quality through being too closely tied to shifting government and government agencies’ priorities, tight timescales, a focus on description rather than analysis and limited theorisation. This loosened the links with social science and sometimes involved over-simplistic assumptions about teaching and learning.’
The other worry
Educational
research! We
don’t need that.
Researching Teacher Education
No longer a significant funding priority for UK governments
But
Highest priority internationallyTony Blair’s biggest educational legacy
Teachers Matter
‘All countries are seeking to improve their schools and to respond better to higher social and economic expectations. As the most significant and costly resource in schools, teachers are central to school improvement efforts. Improving the efficiency and equity of schooling depends, in large measure on ensuring that competent people want to work as teachers, their teaching is of high quality and that all students have access to high quality teaching’. (OECD 2005, 1)
The McKinsey Report (2007) says:
Three things matter most:
1. Getting the right people to become teachers
2. Developing them into effective instructors
3. Ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child
Getting the right people to be teachers
36,000 more teachers 10% increase in starting salaries TV campaign Entry requirements raised Diversification of routes GTP Teach First
Developing them into effective instructors
Initial teacher training and early professional development are key:
Internationally a strong interest in increasing government control of the structure and content of ITE
‘All of the better school systems we studied had integrated the practicum into their training programs. Boston England, Finland and Japan went further in increasing the amount of intensive practical support to new teachers and in finding ways to ensure that the support they are given is effective’
Ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child
The Strategies + Targets + Performance Related Pay
Researching teacher education
The continuing agenda. 10 key questions for teacher
education in England
Question 1What is the role of ITE in improving the quality
of teaching and learning in our schools?
Question 2Is the teacher supply model fit for purpose?
Can it deal with:the impact of the economic downturn on
supply;hidden and suppressed shortages;implications of changing gender and age
structure within the profession;local pressures on school funding;impact of the collapse of the housing market
on job mobility?
Question 3How do we get the right routes into teaching?
32 different routesDo they really bring different populations into
teaching?What is the right balance of different
populations entering the teaching profession?Is the quality the same for each route?Why do these routes have to be so separate –
why are SCITT and EBITT still set up ‘in opposition’ to HEI based routes?
And what, if anything, is the essential contribution of HE?
Question 4Do we get the best quality intake into the profession?
Is it time to abandon the BEd or dramatically increase its quality?
Question 5What do we know about the current quality of
provision?
The vast majority of programmes are now rated by Ofsted/TDA as ‘good’ -
To what extent are courses different in terms of their aims, objectives, practices and outcomes?
Question 6Is our quality control fit for purpose?
Can the current approach to quality control (standards, regulatory assessment frameworks, self assessment documents ) actually enhance quality beyond ‘good’?
Question 7Is there a link between teacher education quality
and educational research?
Question 8Who are our teacher educators?
Question 9What makes for effective initial teacher education?
Research shows: (a) expertise is very closely bound up with
tacit thinking that in the normal course of events is not put into words; and
(b) expertise is highly personal and it is highly complex
The contradiction
The weakness of the professional knowledge base of teaching itself
Question 10
How do we promote more innovation in the system?
What sorts of innovation might prove productive?