Curriculum and teacher quality are two essential pillars of any school education system. In New Zealand, both pillars are shaky.  

The current curriculum, implemented in 2007, provides teachers with little guidance on what to teach. Universities, which have largely overseen teacher education since the early 2000s have done a poor job of equipping new teachers for the classroom. 

Education Minister Erica Stanford has set a blistering pace in her efforts to rebuild these key elements of education infrastructure. Having set curriculum reform in motion, Stanford is now turning her attention to teacher education. She faces a difficult puzzle. 

The Teaching Council, a legislated professional body, currently oversees teacher education. The Council also currently sets and maintains the Standards for the Teaching Profession.  

Teachers must satisfy the Standards, which set out criteria for their competence and conduct. Teacher education programmes must therefore prepare their graduates to meet the Standards. 

Unfortunately, the Standards do not require teachers to demonstrate that they can teach effectively. That means universities are under no pressure to ensure teacher education is effective.  

In theory, the Standards should be owned by the profession, through the Council.  The trouble is that the Council has shown no inclination to reflect evidence-based practice in the Standards. Teachers do not have to prove that they can cause students to learn. 

Stanford has proposed shifting oversight of teacher education from the Teaching Council to the Ministry of Education. The proposal has met with howls of outrage. Teachers’ unions and the Principals’ Federation have said the plan is “tantamount to political interference.” 

While teacher unions bear partial responsibility for the dire state of the teaching profession, they have a point. The Ministry answers to the Minister, not to the teaching profession. Stanford will not be Minister forever and her successor might take a very different view of teacher education than she does.  

As an interim measure, Stanford’s proposal is defensible. In the longer term, though, a more durable solution is desirable.  

Communities of schools could be enabled to develop registration criteria under a legislated quality assurance framework. Ideally, those communities would also run teacher education programmes.  

Performance measures could be used to hold them accountable and show which criteria were most successful. Supporting resources could be funded by savings from a downsized Ministry.  

That would leave responsibility for teacher education in the hands of the profession while creating incentives to improve quality.