Teachers for All â GCE policy briefing (566KB) - VSO

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The World Bank has clearly been instrumental in promoting just this approach to cost cutting,although its actual position (as represented in its published research and in the annual WorldDevelopment Reports) is curiously schizophrenic. On the one hand, in their World DevelopmentReport 2004 they clearly and explicitly recommend the use of ‘para-teachers’ – justifying their useon the grounds of greater community involvement, reduced costs and the apparent absence ofconflict with teachers’ unions:‘Madhya Pradesh, India, has seen substantial improvement in test scores, completionrates, and literacy. Community involvement is strong in recruiting teachers, gettingnew schools built, and encouraging neighbours to enrol their children. Parents havebeen helped by the ability to hire local, less-than-fully-trained teachers at a fractionof standard pay scales for government teachers—with better results. This last aspectof the program complicates scaling up. The ability to avoid confrontation with publicsector unions has been a great advantage. Will teachers’ unions allow suchrecruitment to become standard?’ (World Bank, 2004a:72).On the other hand, the World Bank has published research from four countries: Togo, Peru,Ecuador and Indonesia (Alcázar et al, 2004), which plainly contradicts the World DevelopmentReport stance. This research concludes that the employment of ‘contract teachers’ has a directcausal link to a decline in the quality of teaching – due to reduced attractiveness of the profession,leading to lower quality applicants, and increased absenteeism as a result of fewer incentives andlower job security.Togo‘…students of regular teachers systematically outperform those of contractual teachers, even aftercontrolling for prior achievement, household-, school- and classroom characteristics. Variation inteaching methods, absenteeism, and resentment over “unfair” pay across contract types do notexplain the performance gap. Instead, our findings suggest the reforms triggered a reduction insupply of high quality teacher entrants’ (Vegas and De Laat, 2003:1). ‘If, indeed, the negative effectof contractual teachers is mostly due to a decline in the quality of those choosing to enter teaching,the long-term negative effects of this policy change could be enormous’ (Vegas and De Laat,2003:25).Peru‘There are two types of teachers in Peru’s public education sector: regular (“nombrados”) and nonregular(“contratados”) [contract teachers]. The two regimes differ in important ways. Inparticular, while regular teachers enjoy very high job stability, non-regular teachers are hired for aspecific period (normally a school year), and their contracts may or may not be renewed for thenext period. In addition, regular teachers enjoy various benefits—including vacations, leaves ofabsence, and pensions—that non-regular teachers do not receive… non-tenured teachers wereabsent at significantly higher rates than tenured ones… Their higher absence rate… may reflecttheir low attachment to the post or lower expectations of staying in the job... If a contract teacher isuncertain about her continued employment, the optimal allocation of her time may include someincome-earning efforts outside of school… Since the school has not made a long-term commitmentto the teacher, the teacher may feel less attachment to the school, and less responsibility for thewelfare of students’ (Alcázar et al, 2004:12-37).As can clearly be seen, donors and international financial institutions appear wilfully reluctant toabsorb the truth that the major cost of achieving the education MDGs will be the cost of payingteachers. Yet the vast majority of poor countries face the same challenge: to achieve the educationMDGs they must both increase the number of children in school and improve the quality of theeducation they receive. Professionally trained, well-motivated teachers are absolutely pivotal tothem accomplishing this. All development partners should be working together to formulaterealistic plans for reducing poverty, with teachers at the heart of them – so that every child canknow a teacher.66
The answer to the World Bank’s question (‘Will teachers’ unions allow such recruitment to becomestandard?’) is therefore very obviously a resounding ‘no’. Teachers’ unions will not, and should not,allow the recruitment of para- or contract teachers to become standard. Indeed EducationInternational has been, and remains, one of the strongest opponents of the long-term use of suchprogrammes.Breaking the deadlock: teachers will deliver Education For All‘We will have time to reach the Millennium Development Goals – worldwide and inmost, or even all, individual countries – but only if we break with business as usual.We cannot win overnight. Success will require sustained action across the entiredecade between now and the deadline. It takes time to train the teachers, nurses andengineers; to build the roads, schools and hospitals… So we must start now. We mustmore than double global development assistance over the next few years. Nothing lesswill help to achieve the Goals’ (Kofi Annan, cited in United Nations, 2005).The Global Campaign for Education believes that every primary school child deserves to be taughtby a qualified teacher in a class of no more than 40 pupils. In order to achieve this, a major effortby all stakeholders will be necessary to deliver a professionally trained, well-supported and highlymotivated teacher workforce fit for the challenges of achieving Education For All. In particular,donors and international financial institutions must now, before it is too late, recognise thecentrality of the teacher workforce to the entire EFA project and should work together withgovernments of poor countries to enable them to find, and keep, the teachers that childrendesperately need.Summary of recommendations on the costs of quality teachingPoor country governments must:• develop long-term and ambitious plans for achieving Education For All, including developingprojections for year-on-year increase in teaching force to 2009 to accommodate all children inschool and in classes of under 40 pupils• allocate at least 3% of GDP to basic education and 20% of the budget to education• abolish user fees in education while mobilising sufficient domestic and external finance toexpand systems and improve quality• work with teachers’ unions to establish transition mechanisms so that within five years,untrained and contract teachers can be absorbed into the profession• target national education plans at those most excluded from education, including girls, disabledchildren, or children from ethnic minorities, living with or affected by HIV & AIDS, ordisplaced or affected by conflict and/or natural disaster. Flexible education policies anddedicated resources are needed to ensure that difference and diversity are valued, thatdiscrimination and prejudice are actively combated, and that gender, class and racial equalityare promoted. Aid must be directed at supporting inclusion, which is the best strategy toachieve quality education for all children.The IMF and World Bank must:• encourage governments to develop long-term education strategies based on robust projectionsof human resource needs to enable all children to enter school and be taught in a class no morethan 40 pupils• work with governments and donors to ensure that poor countries are afforded the maximumfiscal space to enable the expansion of the teacher workforce• formally rescind the 3.5 x per capita GDP indicator in the Education For All Fast TrackInitiative framework.Rich country governments must:67
Page 2 and 3:
CONTENTSAcknowledgements 3Acronyms
Page 4 and 5:
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONSAIDS Acqu
Page 6 and 7:
(EFA) goals 7 demand even greater e
Page 8 and 9:
service training should be coordina
Page 10 and 11:
Recommendations on the costs of qua
Page 12 and 13:
2. THE WORLD DESPERATELY NEEDS MORE
Page 14 and 15:
Cameroon‘Four teachers for six cl
Page 16 and 17: themselves two majors cause of the
Page 18 and 19: 1. attend the funerals of friends o
Page 20 and 21: Jamaica‘Jamaica is another stop o
Page 22 and 23: There are also often marked regiona
Page 24 and 25: communities (Seel, 2003). There is
Page 26 and 27: 3. A GOOD TEACHER IS A TRAINED TEAC
Page 28: lessons or control classes. As a re
Page 31 and 32: ISCED 4: Post-secondary, non-tertia
Page 33 and 34: Minimum standards for primary teach
Page 35 and 36: use of learning materials; they mus
Page 37 and 38: and Sperling 2004:65). Such beliefs
Page 39 and 40: were similarly narrated about how H
Page 41 and 42: secondary qualification and one or
Page 43 and 44: environments, and promoting greater
Page 45 and 46: Housing, travel, health and other i
Page 47 and 48: Teachers need effective management,
Page 49 and 50: elsewhere) are conspicuous by their
Page 51 and 52: from organisations that have a duty
Page 53 and 54: ‘…reduces corruption and improv
Page 55 and 56: decentralisation processes - leadin
Page 57 and 58: women have adequate arrangements fo
Page 59 and 60: professional development programmes
Page 61 and 62: even where public spending matches
Page 63 and 64: Investment in education should be s
Page 65: Vicious circles: the role of condit
Page 69 and 70: REFERENCES1. ActionAid Internationa
Page 71 and 72: 38. GCE/ActionAid (2005b), Deadly I
Page 73 and 74: 76. UNESCO (2006b), The Role of Tra
show all

Teachers for All â GCE policy briefing (566KB) - VSO

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?

Teachers for All â GCE policy briefing (566KB) - VSO