The “Initial Teacher Residency Program” will be given on a pilot basis to 250 volunteer teachers with less than three months of experience
The training will be carried out by 85 mentors in 60 educational centers selected based on their experience and diversity
The poor results of Catalan 6th grade primary and 4th ESO students in the latest tests of basic skills were a trigger of weight so that the Department of Education take measures to reverse this situation. One of them is the teacher training, considered a key factor for the educational success of students. Within this framework, the ‘conselleria’ has presented this Monday a pilot project for rehearse a kind of MIR for recently graduated teachers, similar to the residency that medical graduates must complete in order to practice. Currently, 19 of the 27 countries of the European Union have a teaching internship program similar.
The pilot project, baptized with the name of ‘Sensei. Initial teacher residency program of Catalonia’is he first of its kind in the entire stateit will begin to apply the academic year 23-24 and will last until 24-25. Will be volunteer and it will not replace any of the current training and education methods. Currently, future teachers are studying or college degrees or, the graduates of specialties, the master. In both cases, the studies include practices in educational centers.
Educació has planned, for this experiment, 250 places: 150 in primary and 100 in secondary. The main requirement to access the program one year duration is to have like maximum three months of experience teacher. The idea of the Department is that the teachers who access the program are ‘virgins’, without vices or habits already created. “The objective is to train the teacher who is starting out in teaching and establish in a practical way the six key competencies to respond to the challenges of the Catalan educational system”, they have insisted from the ‘conselleria’. These key skills are knowledge of the Catalan educational context, educational practices (projects, cooperative work…), classroom management, evaluation , socio-emotional management and professional development.
For Cuevas, this is a decisive element for the future development of a teacher’s work: “If in the first two years they do not consolidate skills such as classroom management, it will be very difficult for them to reach other skills such as digital,” he stressed.
Mora and Cuevas have stressed that “the countries with the best and most equitable educational results have initial teacher residency programs.” “It is key to improving global educational results,” Cuevas stressed. Likewise, the ‘conselleria has highlighted as another objective that of contributing to the job satisfaction of teachers.
Participants in this training will teach with support for half a day, for which they will be paid, and the other half will follow a theoretical and practical training program that will include seminars, workshops or visits to other centers. The salary aspect It is an extreme that has raised doubts among the unions that, in principle, welcome the project because they consider that the training of teachers and access to the profession is a matter that must be addressed. “Who can afford to give up half their salary?” Rosa Maria Villaró, from CCOO.
The training will take place in 60 selected centers and they will give it 85 mentor teachers. Educació will choose the schools and institutes based on two elements: diversity to include, for example, highly complex centers, and their experience in educational innovation. And the mentors, whose teaching load will be reduced by up to 50%, will also be selected based on their experience in the new learning methods. Each mentor will be responsible for a maximum of three students.
Could the Sensei replace the current master? “It is an option”, has admitted the secretary of Educational Transformation of the ‘conselleria’, Nuria Mora. “We launched and tested this plan. Then we will see how it works and we will discuss what we do”, added the general director of Innovation, Digitization, Curriculum and Languages, Joan Cuevas. The discussion, once experienced the program, will be approached with the Ministry of Universitieswho is the one who has powers over university curricula.
When presenting this plan, Mora and Cuevas have defended the idea that Educació wants “all new teachers to receive the same training to provide them with the same skills”. “We will have to see if Sensei compensates for other formations, but first we have to try it. Then we will talk to the ministry,” Cuevas insisted.
The pilot program will cost 11 million euros, 95% of which will be financed with funds from the European Union. Educació has estimated the cost of implementing the Sensei in the whole of the Catalan educational system at 160 million euros.
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A coordinating body, in which the deans of Catalan universities, a group of experts, a technical monitoring group and the Catalan School Council will participate will analyze how the program works. They will be in charge of considering whether the Sensei should be mandatory, as is the MIR for doctors, if he can replace the master’s degree and how to extend it to the system as a whole.
At the same time, Educació will review and update the permanent training plans for all teachers.