Colleges of Ed. Welcome Teaching Council Proposal

"High quality and consistent standards in teachers education are what our Colleges of Education represent, so we welcome the Minister's constructive response to the ERO report," said Dr Ian Hall, Chair of the Association of Colleges of Education, New Zealand (ACENZ).

"The Colleges of Education support the idea of a single, unified professional body for teachers and keenly anticipate the promised consultation on the Minister's idea of a New Zealand Teaching Council. We will have resolute views to express on the make-up of the council, and on how the proposed three-yearly evaluation of teacher education programmes should be done", said Dr Hall.

"ACENZ has been concerned about the lack of a single, authoritative approval system for pre-service teachers education course. We've been expressing these concerns to NZQA, the Minister, and publicly for at least a couple of years", said Dr Hall.

"Almost two thirds of New Zealand's future teachers are currently in Colleges of Education and we are determined that our courses will remain the most authoritative and professionally successful in the country. College of Education graduates will be consistently high quality classroom practitioners," said Dr Hall.

"The proliferation of teacher education providers over the last 10 years has raised the need for consistent, across the board quality measures".

"As well as talking about our wish for more consistency, and about producing teachers with recognisable high quality, we have been active too," he said.

A single professional body for all teachers, with a unified code of ethics, was the subject of a forum convened by ACENZ five months ago and attended by all the key education groups.

"We believe we have support from the teacher and school trustee organisations on these issues - and we know that the Teacher Registration Board is at least as determined as we are to see these ideals become reality," he said.

"The Colleges of Education believe that the government's need to be assured about high quality and consistent teacher education could be largely met if there was a single professional body for teachers", said Dr Hall.

The Minister's proposed New Zealand Treaching Council sounded like a step in that direction, he said.

"Such a council would need to be based in legislation, with the ability to set unified standards and a single code of ethical practice, and have strong links to pre-service and continuing teacher education."

For more information: Dr Ian Hall, tel: 03 343 7724; fax: 03 348 4311

ENDS

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