In reply to Jim McTamney ( Letters, February 16), I have long believed that Ministry of Education staff, like staff in private enterprise, should have to undertake "refresher" courses at regular intervals in order to stay "on top of their game".
The courses would take the form of two weeks fulltime as a classroom teacher, and would include lesson and resource preparation, assessment, reassessment, data entry and significant amounts of social work.
I have always felt certain that, at the conclusion of such a course, officials would return to their policy-making with a greatly enhanced understanding of what today's student is actually like, and of what works best for him or her in terms of learning.
And that would not be, in very many cases indeed, double-sized classroom with multiple teachers, "self-directed" learning, huge use of technology just for the sake of it, a curriculum with a disproportionate gender or race bias.
Just think of all the money that could be saved if schools were not forced to implement massively costly MOE "initiatives" that are based on educational theory. The savings could be used to pay teachers a competitive salary. End of the teacher shortage.
