Dialogue: Monitoring body will raise standards in classrooms

Education Minister TREVOR MALLARD says the Government's proposed Education Council will play an important role in improving the quality of teaching.

Nurses have the Nursing Council, doctors have the Medical Council, veterinarians have the Veterinary Council. Yet for the 50,000-plus teaching staff working in schools or licensed early-childhood education services, no extensive professional quality standards body exists.

It is a deficiency that the Government plans to address through legislation later this year by replacing the Teacher Registration Board with an Education Council. After all, achieving high standards is one of the most important aspects of an education system.

The quality of the teaching is the most crucial element that determines the quality of learning within an institution. The latest and greatest computers and enough books and resources to fill several libraries do not compensate for poor teaching.

The Government has a responsibility for supporting high standards in schools. But to support high standards in teaching also requires buy-in from the sector. The Education Council will be largely driven by the teaching profession.

Teachers (including principals, who I consider part of the teaching profession) will be asked to directly elect registered members, and the two main unions will also nominate members.

The council will take a key role in leading the profession in both quality and disciplinary matters, in much the same way as the Nursing Council does in that profession. It will provide a vehicle for raising the public profile of the profession and for supporting the profession in taking a greater responsibility for its own quality standards.

This is a long overdue advance to what ultimately has the potential to make a significant difference to the standards in the average classroom.

Quality in any profession starts well before the individual starts work - it starts with the kind of training that is provided.

A major part of the council's job will be to monitor standards of training courses. Teachers will qualify for registration status only if they have satisfactorily completed an approved course.

Once a teacher is registered, the council will take on much of the role performed by the existing board but with enhancements. For example, processes for reregistration will be strengthened to better monitor teacher performance and behaviour and to include ongoing requirements - such as a new requirement to make sure that teachers undergo regular professional development.

Nearly a third of teachers began teaching more than 25 years ago when classrooms and teaching methods were quite different. Yet while most teachers undertake professional development, it is not a requirement, and the approach across the entire sector is sporadic.

Another significant proposed change is mandatory reporting of teacher misconduct or incompetence.

Under existing legislation, employers are required to advise the Teacher Registration Board where a teacher is dismissed or resigns within 12 months of being given written notice that the school board was dissatisfied with, or intended to investigate, any aspect of the teacher's behaviour or performance.

There are instances where the employer does not give written notice of its concerns to the teacher, or enters into a confidential arrangement to avoid reporting, and the teacher moves on to teach at another school. The South Auckland teacher who admitted having sex with one of her students is perhaps the most high-profile recent example of this.

The Education Council legislation will clarify the reporting obligations of employers. The council should also be able to investigate complaints more widely and give a greater range of sanctions, such as suspending a teacher during an investigation or specifying conditions of practice. That approach works well within nursing but the Teacher Registration Board can only register or deregister.

Coverage will be extended to the early-childhood sector and the council will also carry out the function of mandatory police and character checks for all workers in schools and early-childhood centres.

More widely, the Education Council will be required to keep up with international and national developments in teaching and promote best-practice in teaching throughout the sector.

This week I am sending copies of the consultation document to all schools. These are not radical suggestions, but they are significant and I hope schools will take the opportunity to respond.

Over the past 15 years, there have been a lot of changes in school administration. I want to focus back on what's happening in classrooms and look at ways to constantly improve the quality of teaching. The Education Council is an important part of that process.