All teacher training colleges should take national exams at the end of their training to assess whether their students have learned enough to be allowed to stand in front of the classroom. The Education Council wrote this in an advice to the cabinet and the House of Representatives on Friday.
There is now “insufficient certainty” whether all teacher training courses train skilled teachers, the report states. “The signals we have are that there are major differences between the graduates of the different teacher training courses,” says Louise Elffers, chairman of the Education Council.
Teacher training courses do test the competence of their students, but they all do this in their own way and at their own time. The Education Council believes that not only national final tests should be developed that check the theoretical part of the training, but also guidelines for the assessment of the practical part of the training, such as internships.
“We think it is quite possible to describe the core of being a teacher,” says Elffers, “because what a good teacher must know and be able to do is basically uniform.” This concerns, for example, subject-specific, subject-didactic and pedagogical knowledge that can be tested with central exams. There are of course differences between subjects. Elffers: “The tests for Dutch teacher training are different than for teacher training or mathematics teacher training. But nationally, for example, all second-level Dutch teacher training courses should administer the same final test.”
Entrance exam
The Education Council believes that the law should describe more clearly what knowledge and skills prospective teachers should have. “There are already legal competence requirements, but they are too broadly defined,” says Elffers. “For example, the law states that a teacher must have knowledge of certain didactic theories, but not exactly which ones they must be.” If it becomes clearer to the courses what their students need to learn, they will automatically adapt their teaching material accordingly, the Education Council expects. “The government does not have to interfere with that.”
We think that the gates of teacher training can be opened wider
The Education Council is not afraid that the introduction of national teacher examinations will result in fewer students attending teacher training courses. If that were to happen, the teacher shortage would increase even further. “We think that the gates of teacher training can be opened wider,” says Elffers. “If there is a test at the end of the training that guarantees the competence of prospective teachers, no more tests are needed prior to the training.”
Ten years ago, entrance exams were introduced for teacher training colleges for students who registered after secondary vocational education or senior general secondary education. Their knowledge of subject subjects, such as geography and history, is tested. Elffers: “Research shows that the influx has decreased significantly since those tests were introduced.”
386 trails
Every year, around 60,000 people in the Netherlands train to become teachers. There are about 386 routes to that profession. In addition to training to become a teacher in primary education, of which the teacher training college is the best known, there are training courses to become a teacher in secondary education and secondary vocational education.
You can follow these courses at a college or university, at bachelor’s or master’s level, full-time and part-time, and there are also accelerated pathways and lateral entry routes. In addition, there are teacher training courses that train people to teach at religious schools and for schools with a specific pedagogical signature, such as Dalton, Jenaplan, Vrije School and Montessori.
The advice from the Education Council is not about the question of whether it is desirable that there are so many different routes to becoming a teacher. “That was not the question the minister asked us,” says Elffers, “but we think that, with the major shortage of teachers, it is very good that there are many different routes to becoming a teacher. So that anyone who is interested and has the potential to become a teacher can find a training course that makes this possible. What is important is that you can guarantee that at the end of the training someone has developed sufficient core qualities to stand in front of the classroom, regardless of which route they have followed.”