Ei-iE

The latest Teaching and Learning International Survey has proven what organisations like Education International have been saying for a long time, that collaboration on management decisions with teachers and educators is the key to high quality education.

As the largest international teachers’ survey, theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) targeted more than 100,000 lower secondary teachers and school leaders from 34 countries and economies to find out more about the working conditions and learning environments in their schools.

Education International (EI) has welcomed the TALIS 2013 results that specifically highlight the conditions under which teachers carry out the most important part of their job, namely teaching and facilitating active learning. Education International has been actively consulted throughout the development of TALIS and has provided feedback and recommendations, including a detailed response to the survey’s findings.

As the Chair of EI’s OECD Advisory Committee, Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), says that TALIS gives teachers a voice to determine what needs to be done to improve education.

“This, and so many other international surveys, presents a clear road map for what teachers and their students need - evidence-based interventions for disadvantaged students, high-quality teacher preparation, time to collaborate, sufficient resources and respect for the profession,” said Weingarten.

The 2013 edition of TALIS focuses on five main topics:

-          School leadership

-          Teacher training

-          Appraisal of and feedback to teachers

-          Teachers’ pedagogical beliefs, attitudes and teaching practices

-          Teachers’ reported feelings of self-efficacy, their job satisfaction and the climate in the schools and classrooms in which they work

In its response to the survey, EI was disturbed to discover that less than a third of teachers believe that teaching is valued as a profession by society. However, TALIS has revealed that if teachers feel in control of their professional lives in and outside school and if they have high levels of job satisfaction and self-efficacy, then their belief that society values teaching is much stronger.

According to EI, the survey should have powerful implications for government policy by showing that a valued education profession means that people in society most committed to making a positive difference to young people’s lives will want to become teachers. On the contrary, in what may be the most important message from TALIS, policies which undermine the self-confidence of teachers are self-defeating for the quality of education.

This is second time TALIS has been carried out since the inaugural survey in 2008. The OECD has already begun planning for the next TALIS, to be conducted in 2018.