Article Critique: Increasing the Supply of Secondary Teachers - Essay Example

?Running Head: Education An Article Critique of Increasing the Supply of Secondary Teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Stakeholder Assessment of PolicyOptions in Six Countries Name Course Title Name of Professor Date of Submission Introduction The role of teachers is critical to the process of knowledge transfer in schools. Hence the issue of teacher shortages is a major problem which necessitates policy response. In developing countries, especially in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, as stated by the World Bank (2006), the estimated supply of teachers is below the estimated demand needed for secondary education. According to the study of DeJaeghere and colleagues (2006), among the limitations are the short supply of qualified teachers and the lack of support and funding for pre-service and in-service trainings for potential and employed teachers respectively, which at present hamper the production of adequate numbers of competent secondary school teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Teacher recruitment, retaining, and retraining are the most crucial factors in secondary education identified by DeJaeghere and colleagues (2006). The World Bank (2006), OECD (2002), Lewin and Cailloids (2001), and other international organizations and researchers have emphasized the problem, causes, and implications of teacher recruitment, retaining, and retraining in secondary education in developing nations. As revealed in the study’s findings (1) high teachers’ attrition rate is mainly caused by unfavorable teaching requirements and conditions, lack of support and supervision from head teachers, and low salary, and (2) impediments in teacher preparation processes are lack of funding, support, and assistance from education officers and the government, thereby limiting the supply of qualified teachers for secondary education. DeJaeghere and colleagues (2006) recommended a number of policy options to reduce teachers’ attrition rate and hence increase the pool of potential teachers for secondary education in the six countries of Sub-Saharan Africa: (1) increasing supply through training (shortened pre-service preparation programs, increased supervision, training through distance education, teaching multiple subjects) and; (2) reducing attrition through teacher mentoring program, increased teacher-teacher interaction, bonus pay, and increased teacher supervision. These policy alternatives are expected to attract qualified secondary school teachers and motivate those who are currently employed to stay in their vocations. Background All the six Sub-Saharan African countries, namely, (1) Ghana, (2) Ethiopia, (3) Tanzania, (4) Guinea, (5) Madagascar, and (6) Uganda experience short supply of qualified secondary school teachers. Evidently, these countries have failed to provide satisfactory pre-service training for teachers to satisfy present demand. These countries do not have sufficient numbers of secondary school teachers as shown in the pupil:teacher ratio which is 20:1 (DeJaeghere et al., 2006, 516). These countries have been unsuccessful in substantially increasing the supply of their secondary school teachers because of insufficient resources and lack of support from education officers and the government. The problem of teacher shortage appears to be more severe in far-flung rural districts. These six countries are also in short supply of teachers in mathematics, science, and technology. Hence the report recommended obliging teachers to undergo training in other subject areas (DeJaeghere et al., 2006, 519). Some of the causes of high teacher attrition rates, as identified in the article, are impediments in teacher preparation processes and illness. Other factors suggested are inadequate helpful supervision, absence of opportunities for professional development, unethical treatment and handling of teachers, unfavorable working conditions, subjective employment of teachers, and low salary (Mulkeen, Chapman, DeJaeghere & Leu, 2007). Teachers reveal that, even though better compensations would promote improved performance, enhancement in working and service conditions are also extremely crucial in advancing retention, empowering teachers, and encouraging job satisfaction. Teachers reveal a great need for continuous in-service training, accommodating and helpful supervision, more resources for learning and teaching and greater professional guidance generally (Mulkeen et al., 2007). These factors are potential areas of policy intervention in enhancing recruitment, retaining, and retraining of secondary school teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Policy Analysis The policy alternatives given in the report of DeJaeghere and colleagues (2006) are focused on increasing the supply of teachers through (1) training options and, (2) improving conditions of service. The policy elements involved are obviously greater government spending on teacher training system and effective and humane practices of deployment and treatment of teachers. According to the literature, there have been a small number of policy interventions for recruitment, retaining, and retraining of secondary school teachers that have provided remarkable encouraging outcomes. This seems to have two major causes as shown in the report (Mulkeen et al., 2007): (1) coming up with an agreement about the strategies to enhance the quality and performance of teachers is hard, and (2) various stakeholders, such as teachers, head teachers, and education officers, advocate different strategies to enhance student performance and quality of education, each supporting the effectiveness of the specific strategy they prefer. This policy analysis will use three policy theories and models, namely, Kingdon’s multiple-streams framework, Fowler’s policy development cycle, and Cohen’s garbage can theory. The multiple-streams framework is founded on Cohen’s garbage can paradigm of organizational behavior. It perceives the process of policy intervention as made up of three streams of mechanisms and actors: (1) a problem stream composed of information about different issues and the advocates of different definitions of problem; (2) a policy stream consisting of the advocates of solutions to policy problems/issues; and (3) a politics stream involving policymakers (Sabatier, 1999). In the point of view of Kingdon, the streams usually function separately of each other, but this ceases to be the case when a ‘window of opportunity’ (Sabatier, 1999, 9) allows policy actors to combine the different streams. If the actors were able to do so, the outcome is important policy change. On the other hand, relying on the intricacy and implication of a particular policy, the participation of a number of professional people and thorough discussion with stakeholders can be needed so as to guarantee precision and strength. The general phases in Fowler’s policy development cycle are: (1) problem identification, (2) agenda setting, (3) policy formulation, (4) policy adoption, (5) implementation, and (6) evaluation (Sabatier, 1999). In Cohen’s garbage can theory, an organization is seen as a ‘garbage can’ where flows are mixed. The paradigm does not view the process of decision making as a series of stages. Rather, decisions are the product of separate series of occurrences. These are (1) problem points, (2) possible solutions, (3) participants, and (4) choice opportunities (Sabatier, 1999). In the case of increasing the supply of secondary school teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa, the government’s shortening of pre-service teacher preparation system opened the policy window for education representatives. Although this government policy offered a fundamental composition of the policy itself, the political stream revolving around the education system of the six Sub-Saharan African countries expanded those pieces of information, and in effect, policymakers broadened the expectations for teacher performance. Moreover, the problem of insufficient supply of secondary school teachers and high teacher attrition rates were not an issue of teacher preparation systems, but instead, an array of constituency organizations, such as the World Bank, and indicators challenged the efficacy of the secondary education systems of Sub-Saharan African countries. The policy analysis of DeJaegher and colleagues (2006) has summed up how stakeholders, namely, teachers, head teachers, and education officers, understood the problem of high teacher attrition rates and what outcomes came out from the policy responses. This framing of shortage in the supply of secondary school teachers, or teacher attrition, is theoretically distinct from other investigations where in stakeholders perceive retention as a useful policy intervention. In the case of Sub-Saharan countries, the noticeable actors in the government identify the major problem being the advancement of the quality and performance of secondary school teachers on a systems level, rather than on an individual level. Teacher retention is a consequence of promoting accountability into the institution of education. The teacher who fails to meet the expectations of performance and quality because of these policies is not the issue. Instead, that individual is the outcome of an effective accountability system; a high retention rate shows that the education system is effective. The issue of the values and usefulness of the strategies that the researchers engage themselves, such as improving job satisfaction of secondary school teachers by improved working and service conditions, was not existent within how the different education stakeholders establish the policy agenda. Hence, using Fowler’s policy development cycle the problem would be the power relationships and norms between the various stakeholders; the power relationship between teachers, head teachers, and education officers is such that the latter has the strongest influence on policy agenda, while teachers and head teachers are on the receiving end. The norms among these various stakeholders are different: teachers are concerned with the quality of education, hence they are unwilling to shorten pre-service trainings; head teachers are concerned with their supervisory task, hence they support the implementation of multiple subjects teaching; and education officers are concerned with cost and efficiency, hence they are eager to shorten pre-service trainings to reduce financial allocations for teacher education. Therefore, the agenda setting should be composed of all the stakeholders, not just individuals or organizations on the top. In terms of policy formulation and adoption, it is vital to take into account the issue of accountability at the individual level. Accountability at the systems level may not be effective in addressing high teacher attrition rates, since it seems that teacher motivation and satisfaction are emerging as the leading factors promoting high teacher retention rates. Policy implementation and evaluation should be on the ‘grassroots’, because as can be discerned from the development of the education system of Sub-Saharan African countries, top-down policy implementation and evaluation failed to yield the accurate outcome and interpretation of the limitations and strengths of the current educational policy. Future Actions To effectively solve high teacher attrition rates, or supply shortage of qualified secondary school teachers, the various education stakeholders in Sub-Saharan African countries should implement the following strategies: (1) The uppermost priority of the stakeholders should be to streamline the education system for learning and teaching success. This can be done by economizing schools and restructuring them, from school personnel and faculty members to the students. (2) Stakeholders should build and maintain competently satisfying career growth and development for teachers, from pre-service training through expert in-service training. Schools should remove obsolete deployment practices; they should develop and initiate mentoring courses for new education graduates and newly hired teachers, and they should build decisive and motivating career opportunities. (3) Stakeholders should make sure that the teacher preparation system satisfied students’ learning requirements and secondary schools’ teaching needs. Teacher preparation courses should establish and satisfy high standards of quality. Temporary, short-range methods of deploying teachers trigger high rates of teacher attrition and weaken the performance of teachers, hence the quality of teaching and learning. Where success is being achieved on these strategies it is due to the fact that policymakers and political leaders have exerted substantial, continuous dedication to the improvement of teacher performance and satisfaction that allow them to carry out a number of these policies concurrently. In order to strengthen this task, the education institution should build a partnership arrangement with the government to reinforce the attempts to enhance the quality of teaching and learning, and increase teacher retention rates. Policies of the education system and the state should focus on the following: (1) increase teachers’ salaries; and create rewards for school restructuring that promotes motivation, empowerment, and job satisfaction; (2) creation of a standardized measurement for teacher performance; (3) support teacher preparation programs; (4) enhance professional growth and development and its effect on teaching performance; (5) increase financial supports for teacher education programs proportionate to those of other specialized preparation courses; (6) enhance the access of new education graduates and newly hired teachers to mentors; (7) encourage teacher-teacher interaction; and (8) upgrade the qualifications of teachers in high- and low-achieving secondary schools. Some of these strategies are merely reiteration of those presented by DeJaeghere and colleagues (2006), yet others are based on the gaps and limitations of the article’s policies as stated in the section of policy analysis. References DeJaeghere, J., Chapman, D. & Mulkeen, A. (2006). “Increasing the supply of secondary teachers in sub-Saharan Africa: a stakeholder assessment of policy options in six countries,” Journal of Education Policy, 21(5), pp. 515-533. Lewin, K. & Cailloids, F. (2001). Financing Secondary Education in Developing Countries: Strategies for Sustainable Growth. Paris, France: International Institute for Educational Planning/ UNESCO. Mulkeen, A. (2009). Teachers in Anglophone Africa: Issues in Teacher Supply, Training, and Management. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Mulkeen, C., Chapman, D., DeJaeghere, J. & Leu, E. (2007). Recruiting, Retaining, and Retraining Secondary School Teachers and Principals in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. OECD. (2002). Teacher demand and supply: Improving teacher quality and addressing teacher shortages. Paris, France: Directorate of Education, OECD. Sabatier, P. (1999). Theories of the Policy Process. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. World Bank. (2006). Global Monitoring Report: MDG: Strengthening Mutual Accountability, Air, Trade, and Governance. Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Read More