Tertiary Update Vol 13 No 38

The New Zealand Teachers Council today released new approval, review and monitoring processes and requirements for initial teacher education programmes. These will apply to all teacher education providers in New Zealand – universities, wānanga, polytechnics, institutes of technology and private training establishments.

Among the council’s recommendations is a requirement that anyone supervising a student teacher in a formal school setting must themselves be a registered teacher.

TEU national president, Dr Tom Ryan welcomed the new processes, saying it is good to see that the council listened to the views of actual teacher educators during the review process.

Dr Ryan says that in recent years TEU has had concerns that some academic staff in schools of education who do not have formal teaching qualifications have been pressured into supervising student teachers on their placements.

“Teaching is an applied professional qualification where practice is just as important as research. We would not expect academics who lack nursing qualification to be supervising student nurses in hospitals. Likewise, it is only reasonable that student teachers doing practicums with children should be supervised by registered teachers”

In the recent past some institutions have defended their practice of requiring teacher educators without a practising certificate to supervise students with the claim that it falls within the ambit of their [the institutions'] exercise of academic freedom.

However, Dr Ryan rejects this claim, saying that according to international understanding, academics should claim academic freedom only in areas where they have professional expertise. That is, it is those teacher educators with a practicing certificate who have the rights and responsibilities of academic freedom, rather than their employing institutions.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Waiariki prepares to shrink under govt cap
2. Joyce says we need more students, but he won’t be paying
3. Awanuiārangi settles with crown for $14m
4. Funding cuts for ITOs?

Other news

Corporate heavyweights lashed out at the poor funding of Australian universities, warning that student-to-staff ratios were at “ridiculous” levels. There are currently more than 20 university students to one member of staff, compared with less than 13:1 in 1990. “The student to academic staff ratio is ridiculous,” ANZ chairman John Morschel told The Australian and Deutsche Bank Business Leaders Forum in Sydney – The Australian

Students may have to pay five times the current degree course cost at England’s top universities if the cap is removed on tuition fees, research suggests - The BBC

The Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR) and the Scholars at Risk Network (SAR), together with partners worldwide, have undertaken a series of workshops to raise awareness of academic freedom and related values – including access, accountability/transparency, academic freedom/quality, autonomy/good governance, and social responsibility - SAR/NEAR

The Council of Trade Unions is warning that the proposed 90-day fire-at-will law change could be used to discriminate against GLBT employees. The CTU has told Parliament’s Industrial Relations Select Committee that even though discrimination on the basis of sexuality is illegal, employers will not have to give a reason for dismissing someone during the trial period - GayNZ

Both Sally and Polly do the same work.  But Polly is a Professional Teaching Fellow, which means she must get her work signed off by someone else.  Read TEU University of Auckland Branch’s comic telling of Polly’s story here – TEU University of Auckland Branch.

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TEU Tertiary Update is published weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Tertiary Education Union and others. You can subscribe to Tertiary Update by email or feed reader. Back issues are available on the TEU website. Direct inquiries should be made to Stephen Day, email: http://scr.im/stephenday