Papers

Date: 2014.04.25

Posted by Adem Taşdemir (Turkey)

Message: This article is important in terms of summarizing the current situation on teacher training in Turkey. I think that Ministry of Education in Turkey has been taken very vital steps on teacher training since 1998. During this time, some risks of these steps have been occurred in terms of regulation of learning environment. They could be listed as follows;
- The status of Faculties of Education
o being inability to update itself/inability to renew itself faster
o having incoordination between ministry of education and faculties of education
o being construction of faculty of education in many cities and inadequate infrastructure.
o being inadequate number of faculty members
o being uncomfortable the workload of faculty members
o having the number of theoretical courses and their incompatibility with schools
o having limited number of the practice/ pedagogy courses and some problems on implementing
o being lack of Pedagogic Content Knowledge (PCK) in courses.
o having quick certificate programs for teachers
- The status of in-service training programme
o being inability to cover the current needs (i.e., ICT, PCK)
o being lack of control mechanisms
o being far removed from the perspective of lifelong learning and ICT.
- The status of teacher competencies
o being more expected competencies from teachers, especially from the primary-school teachers.
o being need for teacher training in many different disciplines.
o able to move easily some teachers in other disciplines.
- The status of recruitment of teachers
o being just focus on test system for evaluating of the pre-service teachers' performances
o taking into service a lot of teachers who didn't have specialization. For example, in 1996, a lot of primary-school teachers were inaugurated by this way.
- The status of schools and the national schools programmes
o being heterogeneity of schools (geographical, cultural, ie.).
o having uniform curriculum prepared according to centralism
- The status of families
o being imbalance income and educational levels among families in the regions
- The social status of the teaching profession
o decreasing prestige of teachers in society

Date: 2014.03.28

Posted by Mariusz Jarocki (Poland)

Message: The document starts with an observation that education is absolutely essential since the existence of human being and effectiveness and efficiency of a educational system depends on a harmonious interaction among a student, a teacher and a schedule towards an aim. In teacher education, industrial countries are applying effective and sufficient applications which are continuously improving. The paper describes Turkish experiences in the matter. Although they are specific because of historical reasons, we can easily generalize them. Now the authors consider applications of teacher training in Turkey, implemented in teacher schools, institutes, academies and faculties or other schools. The authors mention government programs, focused on increasing skills of teachers and evaluation of their achievements. Unfortunately, mostly the applications were unsuccessful - the teachers which were trained are still problematic nowadays. One of the main problems is the insufficiency of lecturers. Teachers are also not vocational autonomous in Turkey. The document ends with some conclusions and suggestions, in my opinion, at too high level of generality. The document is strongly related to the project aim but I need little more detailed descriptions and conclusions.