Much has been written in the papers about teacher education in the past few weeks. Such public debate is most welcome: having competent teachers is a matter of national priority, and therefore of public interest.

It's not surprising that it is also a matter of interest and priority Europe-wide. In its attempts to reach the Lisbon target of becoming "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based society in the world", the EU has also focused on education and training, setting its member states three Concrete Future Objectives to be reached by 2010.1

The task of following up on these three objectives was distributed among specialised working groups, the very first of which focuses on improving teacher education.

The faculty has paid close attention to these and other developments in the preparation of teachers, drawing on - and contributing to - best practice available in Europe and beyond.

Over the years, it has also learnt a number of lessons about the training of teachers starting out. We would like to share some of these thoughts, in order to stimulate further reflection about the challenge of preparing competent teachers for tomorrow's schools.

1. First is a conviction that a key factor which distinguishes sound education systems is the extent of training that teachers have. There are of course other variables, including appropriate curricula, quality and range of textbooks, availability of educational resources, and accountability structures.

But one of the first questions that is asked when gauging the health or otherwise of a country's educational system is: Are your teachers trained to teach? Experience with a century and a half of educational reforms has taught policy-makers worldwide that plans for change will remain just that - plans, unless teachers are competent in implementing them.

In the developed as much as in the developing world, what is in question is not whether teachers need training, but how to give them such training effectively.

Of course, untrained teachers will attempt to teach, but they will tend to learn their craft through a trial-and-error approach, often to the detriment of their students. Teachers who have not been professionally trained are also more likely to fall back on the models of teaching they witnessed when they themselves were students.

Though exposure to good teaching through a "long apprenticeship by observation" can of course leave some positive effects - we have all had good teachers who we honour by emulating - sole reliance on this approach is woefully inadequate when, in a system like ours, we are trying to change our educational paradigm.

There is simply no logic in promulgating a cutting-edge National Curriculum that points the way towards a transformation of the educational system, only to then expect untrained or insufficiently trained teachers to implement it.

Given the demands of the NMC, the concern is that all routes into teaching provide prospective teachers with adequate training in teaching methods, with enough field practice experience, and with sufficient time to be socialised into the profession.

This is especially critical given that we do not have a mandatory induction teacher training period yet, i.e. a period whereby new teachers are attached to experienced colleagues who act as mentors, and who ease the transition to full professional life.

2. Secondly, not only is initial (i.e. pre-service) teacher training compulsory in most countries, but it is increasingly being extended to reach a wider range of teachers, and at different points in their professional life.

Many allow teachers to continue teaching, or to progress in their careers, on the condition that they regularly attend in-service courses. In many countries too, teachers and lecturers in the post-16 education sector are also expected to follow courses in pedagogy, as are adult educators, and trainers in industrial settings.

We have seen some of these positive developments in Malta: the teachers' warrant is granted subject to continued participation in teacher training and career progression at the Institute of Tourism Studies and at the MCAST is not possible unless one has certified pedagogical training.

In universities too, where the student body is increasingly heterogeneous, a key strategy to ensure quality has been the requirement of lecturers to follow courses in teaching. The underlying conviction here is, of course, that mastery of content (at Ph.D., Master's, or any other level) is a necessary but not sufficient element in the formation of a competent teacher.

3. Thirdly, most countries in Europe and beyond - with some exceptions among those suffering from a crisis in teacher supply - are extending the duration of teacher training.2 This is also true of countries whose curricula are marked by an 'encyclopaedic tradition', and who have tended to privilege content over pedagogy. There are various reasons for this. The following are a few of them:

* Education curricula have become broader and deeper in terms of the knowledge and skills they cover, with new areas (such as ICT) requiring teachers to have new and improved skills and competences. New curricula also reflect the complex societies they are embedded in, and teachers have to be trained to be inclusive of differences in their way of teaching, whether such differences are based on ethnic background, faith, or orientation to learning.

* The roles of teachers have become greatly expanded over the years.3 Teachers are expected to teach, to work in teams, to develop curricula, to act as first-line counsellors and social workers, to liaise with parents, the community and social partners and to link up with the world of work.

Due to decentralisation, teachers are increasingly expected to be responsible for the effective functioning of not just their classroom/s, but of their schools as well. In most countries, teachers are now invited to research their own learning environment, to contribute to the articulation and implementation of school development plans and to exercise leadership in the public sphere.

For teachers to be able to participate actively in this broader vision of the profession, they need to be able to handle the vocabulary and concepts that inform their work - and to be aware of the implications that different practices have in pedagogical and social terms, so that they can make a sound choice from among options.

Such changes - all of which are signalled by Malta's NMC - have important implications for initial and continuing training of teachers, be this in relation to the duration of courses, to the programme of studies, to the quality of supervised teaching practice, to the link with schools, to the socialisation into the profession and so on.

* Due to assumptions about the bonds between educational attainment on the one hand, and economic benefit and social inclusion on the other, there is increasing pressure on teachers to ensure that all students reach a minimum threshold of knowledge and competence.

This entails developing mastery of a broad repertoire of teaching approaches, corresponding to the different learning styles and cognitive orientations of students. The mainstreaming of learners with special needs also requires teachers to have advanced skills in the management of the learning environment.

* Recent theories of learning suggest that by far the greater majority of students can reach higher levels of education, if only the methods of teaching and of assessment that are used are appropriate. This places pedagogical expertise at the heart of the educational enterprise, and turns the spotlight on the teacher's ability - and responsibility - to improve learning achievement for all, and to combat early school-leaving.

4. Teaching in the 21st century is becoming more, not less complex and demanding, both in terms of the knowledge and of the skills that have to be drawn upon.

In this context, the debate about whether content (knowledge of subject matter) or pedagogy (knowing how to teach that subject matter, and to assess learning) is the most critical in making a good teacher is misguided. Both are essential, and neither on its own is sufficient, given the educational challenges that have to be faced by today's and tomorrow's teachers.

The question is how to combine the two, in order to make sure that teachers are sufficiently knowledgeable in the curriculum they need to teach, and in the ways of facilitating learning. The combination of content and pedagogy within a university institutional setting is a complex task, particularly for secondary and post-secondary level teaching, and the problems that arise are quite similar, irrespective of the country context.

Questions include: do you first teach content and then pedagogy (consecutive model of teacher training), or do you teach both at the same time (concurrent model)? What is the best way to ensure links between the two, especially in developing subject-specific methodology?4 Who controls the curriculum that leads to the formation of a teacher, and who determines what the content parameters for teachers should be? How do you deal with the tendency for some subject content experts to approach their area in an 'insular specialist' manner, when modern curricular approaches privilege 'connective specialisation'?

International experiences in addressing such questions suggest that there is no single best system, and that often what we find are institutional arrangements and accommodations, a compromise between principled decisions and the real politics of inter-faculty relations.

Malta is no exception in this regard although we do hope that, given the commitment all sides have to the shared goal of providing a sound education, the former rather than the latter prevails. Indeed, it is the faculty's duty to ensure that this is the case.

5. A fifth conviction that marks faculty views on teacher education is that it is simply wrong to assume that all that teachers need is mastery of the curriculum that they will teach at school - and a little bit more to top-up and remain ahead of their students. This is a one-dimensional view of knowledge, epistemologically erroneous, and hardly conducive to the creation of powerful learning environments.

Today, more than ever, teachers need to be strongly grounded in subject content. They need to be confident enough with the geography of their knowledge area (i.e. the 'substantive structure' of the domain they teach) in order to see the links between the parts, and to be able to keep abreast of developments.

They also need to be confident in using the research methods that produce new knowledge in their field (i.e. the 'syntactic structure' of the domain they teach) in order to help their students learn how to learn in a particular area.

Not having this depth and confidence has implications for teaching and learning: teachers, for instance, will tend to shy away from more effective (and democratic) interactive and open-ended methods if they constantly fear being challenged by student questions, and if they are anxious about being drawn into uncharted territory.

6. Finally, the foregoing points - and much of the discussion about teacher education in the newspapers - seems to suggest that a good teacher is the product of a happy balance between knowledge about subject content (savoir), and ability to exercise the skills that facilitate the learning of that content (savoir faire). There is a third dimension which is worth highlighting, and that is savoir être: i.e. what kind of person should the teacher be like?

There are certain qualities that are immediately associated with good teachers, such as ethical and upright conduct, unconditional commitment to the well-being of the student, positive regard, respect for difference, leadership, character, fairness, democratic demeanour, humility, and so on.

Of course, students, like all other citizens, will reflect the spirit of their age, and that spirit is marked by a passion for self-centred/consumer lifestyles that are often inimical to the kind of commitment and ethic of care that teaching requires. But this too is a challenge that the faculty, and indeed the whole University, needs to rise to - providing the appropriate institutional settings for humanistic values, intellectual rigour, and civic virtue to prevail.

References

1. These are: [a] improved effectiveness and quality of systems, [b] facilitating access for all, and [c] opening European education systems to the wider world.

2. See EURYDICE (2002) The Teaching Profession in Europe: Profile, Trends and Concerns - Report 1 - "Initial Training and Transition to Working Life". Brussels: EURYDICE European Unit.

3. Some would argue that teachers may very well be suffering from a role overload, rendering the profession unattractive, and leading to teacher shortages in some subjects. This does not seem to be an issue in Malta yet - and it would be interesting to ask why this is the case.

4. 'Subject-specific methodology' - and 'pedagogical content knowledge' - refer to the strategies associated with the teaching of a specific area of knowledge (e.g. the organisation and management of a science laboratory or a gymnasium for teaching purposes), and to the most effective ways of representing particular ideas (e.g. the most powerful analogies, images, illustrations, examples) that makes the subject more easily understood by learners.