We often hear that the most important critical success factor for our future economic prosperity is the quality of our educational system. But what really makes aneducational system effective remains debatable among educators, politicians and business leaders. As long as a country’s effort to improve the achievement level of its students remains nebulous the chances of success in upgrading its educational system will be minimal.

There is no shortage of concrete initiatives taken by educators and politicians to improve the tools that teachers need to deliver knowledge to their students. Well-maintained schools, modern IT equipment, as well as investment in education through the stipend system are undoubtedly tools that help motivate both teachers and students to achieve better results. But few argue about the need to engage the teaching profession more effectively by making them accountable for the results that they achieve.

Teachers are among the least appreciated professionals in most Western societies. They are often wrongly depicted as being pampered by perks not enjoyed by other professionals – like long holidays and short teaching hours. But this is just a caricature of reality. The missing link in most educational systems in most countries is the ability to measure and reward teacher effectiveness.

One of the big advantages of being a teacher is that for most of the time you are interacting with your students. Your bosses and colleagues rarely take up more than a small fraction of your working time. This phenomenon gives teachers a degree of independence in the way they carry out their professional duties, but it could also lead to insufficient scrutiny of the effectiveness of teachers in the classroom.

Like every other professional, a teacher needs to be held accountable for the results of his or her work. The thorny dilemma is the identification of the metrics that have to be used to measure results achieved by teachers.

So far teachers have been judged by their own academic achievements and their experience measured by years of service in the profession. Of course, none of these criteria tell us much on whether their students are learning anything. In many countries teachers’ unions have resisted attempts to measure student achievement as an indicator of teachers’ effectiveness. This is now changing.

Few argue aboutthe need to engagethe professionmore effectively

Experiments carried out in various US states have shown that when primary school pupils were assigned to better teachers they achieved more educationally, often progressed with their studies to university, earned better salaries, and were less likely to be teenage mothers. But this is only one aspect of assessing a teacher’s effectiveness.

Translating these positive elements into a performance-related pay policy on a national level is much more difficult. The recruitment, promotion and sacking of teachers will always be a complex process that cannot be reduced to a subjective ticking of boxes in a teacher’s annual assessment report. Educational leaders are unlikely to agree to some fuzzy metrics that either become a mere formality to reward practically all teachers, while teachers’ unions will resist tough standards that will reward only the high flyers in the profession.

The reality is that there is still no universally-accepted definition of what constitutes good educational achievement. Employers, for instance, look for qualities like ability to solve problems, creativity as well as strong work ethics in the students they want to employ. Many educators expect their students to be better citizens by understanding their role in society. Parents want their children to achieve high grades in their exams to enable them to have better and more financially-rewarding jobs.

Some countries are trying to make the teaching profession more accountable by insisting on better teacher training. The US-based National Council on Teacher Quality has described America’s teacher-training colleges as “an industry of mediocrity”.

In most countries teacher-training courses are often considered as a soft option usually taken up by less talented or less ambitious students.

This needs to change if we are to upgrade our educational system.

Finland provides us with a good case study on how to improve teacher effectiveness. A few decades ago this country’s political and social leaders realised that they needed to upgrade their economy from one based on basic primary industries like forestry to a modern technology-driven one.

The secret of Finland’s educational success was their policy to recruit as teachers the best graduates with the highest salaries paid by private industry.

This is the way ahead for a more accountable teaching profession.

johncassarwhite@yahoo.com