Juliet Perrin, who is an early years educator in Thailand with the Regents School, replied to this week's assignment with interesting information.
In Thailand there is very little continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers, and so educators struggle to stay current. The schools that are interested in flying in a professional for CPD courses, cannot afford to do so for their limited number of educators, and sadly there is little collaboration between the schools to share costs and resources.
She explained that in order to stay current, teachers have to be self motivated enough to read journals and online resources. Her concern was that there isn't any hands on CPD available. She also explained that they had in-house CPD courses but she was not sure of the quality.
Juliet had also worked in Turkey and she found that it was the same issue there, where she had very limited CPD courses to attend. Her experience of going back to her native country, England, after her work in Turkey, was that she "was out of the loop".
I would also like to share with you my experience with regards to teacher excellence in an international setting, because I work in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). When we established the nursery that I currently manage, in 2006, there was only one nursery that offered a Montessori certificate but no college, vocational school or any institution at all that qualified teachers or assistant teachers. That was very limiting and we had to recruit, train and develop teachers based on several criteria, but rarely could we demand qualifications.
In addition, there was no professional development opportunities at all, and so we initiated our own monthly courses/workshops to educated ourselves and stay current. We often invited colleagues such as speech therapists, occupational therapists, physicians, and others to share their expertise with us. In addition, if a teacher was passionate about a topic or issue, we asked her to conduct a workshop and educate the rest of us.
Now nine years later, there are two institutions that offer certificates for teachers, in the city. Both institutions offer a large variety of workshops on a monthly basis as well, there are several conferences annually for education and our governing body has required that all staff are qualified and offered professional development annually.
What a huge leap forward for the early years education sector in Dubai, and how wonderful it has been to watch this happen. Now the task at hand is assessing the quality of these courses, and the implementation in every program of the government regulations.
My discussion with Juliet was that although many criteria for an excellent, high quality teacher are the same world wide (passion, dedication, creativity, patience, knowledge and so on); the professional development aspect of professionalism, in my opinion, should be region specific.
If the UK, or the US has 'hot topics' that all teachers must learn about, they may not be hot topics elsewhere in the world - and vice versa. What may be a current issue in Dubai, may not be so in Thailand, or Prague or the USA.
If I hear from my other international contact in Prague, I will update my blog.
In Thailand there is very little continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers, and so educators struggle to stay current. The schools that are interested in flying in a professional for CPD courses, cannot afford to do so for their limited number of educators, and sadly there is little collaboration between the schools to share costs and resources.
She explained that in order to stay current, teachers have to be self motivated enough to read journals and online resources. Her concern was that there isn't any hands on CPD available. She also explained that they had in-house CPD courses but she was not sure of the quality.
Juliet had also worked in Turkey and she found that it was the same issue there, where she had very limited CPD courses to attend. Her experience of going back to her native country, England, after her work in Turkey, was that she "was out of the loop".
I would also like to share with you my experience with regards to teacher excellence in an international setting, because I work in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). When we established the nursery that I currently manage, in 2006, there was only one nursery that offered a Montessori certificate but no college, vocational school or any institution at all that qualified teachers or assistant teachers. That was very limiting and we had to recruit, train and develop teachers based on several criteria, but rarely could we demand qualifications.
In addition, there was no professional development opportunities at all, and so we initiated our own monthly courses/workshops to educated ourselves and stay current. We often invited colleagues such as speech therapists, occupational therapists, physicians, and others to share their expertise with us. In addition, if a teacher was passionate about a topic or issue, we asked her to conduct a workshop and educate the rest of us.
Now nine years later, there are two institutions that offer certificates for teachers, in the city. Both institutions offer a large variety of workshops on a monthly basis as well, there are several conferences annually for education and our governing body has required that all staff are qualified and offered professional development annually.
What a huge leap forward for the early years education sector in Dubai, and how wonderful it has been to watch this happen. Now the task at hand is assessing the quality of these courses, and the implementation in every program of the government regulations.
My discussion with Juliet was that although many criteria for an excellent, high quality teacher are the same world wide (passion, dedication, creativity, patience, knowledge and so on); the professional development aspect of professionalism, in my opinion, should be region specific.
If the UK, or the US has 'hot topics' that all teachers must learn about, they may not be hot topics elsewhere in the world - and vice versa. What may be a current issue in Dubai, may not be so in Thailand, or Prague or the USA.
If I hear from my other international contact in Prague, I will update my blog.
Dear Zeina,
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of interesting information in your post this week! I think that the increase of professional opportunities for early childhood professionals is a reality world wide . I remember how difficult it was years ago to find appropriate training opportunities.
Ana
I find it interesting that in some countries there is little continuing education or professional development for teachers. I am also curious about how many teachers there are per how many children are in need of teachers? Is there also a shortage of teachers in these countries? It sounds like Dubai has made strides and that the other countries should follow the example of Dubai.
ReplyDelete