Too Many Teaching Graduates, Not Enough Good Teachers: Thai Talk

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THAI TALK
Too many teaching graduates, not enough good teachers
Suthichai Yoon
The Nation


Education Minister Pongthep Thepkanachana

BANGKOK: -- As we keep hearing reports about how Thai students are lagging behind in academic performance compared to their counterparts in the rest of the region, the Education Ministry has just released a report suggesting that we are producing too many teachers.

Too many low-quality teachers, that is. And that indicates that the hope of improving our schooling standards can't possibly be very hopeful, at least in the near future.

A senior official of the Education Ministry said recently that in four years' time, all teachers' colleges throughout the country will produce a total of 240,000 graduates. That number far exceeds the projected demand, and there is little doubt that things will get more complicated when the quality of schooling is measured in a professional way - which isn't the case at the moment.

Education Minister Pongthep Thepkanachana has been quoted as saying that a large number of those who graduate from teaching colleges do not end up as teachers. That's because there isn't a system whereby the annual demand for teachers can be monitored or measured. Nor is there a clear plan for universities to produce teachers of the quality required.

In other words, the country's system to produce a desirable number of qualified teachers is at best haphazard. Nobody, it seems, is in charge.

That reminds me of a Bill Gates "annual letter" as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, part of which dwelt on this particular issue in the US:

"In the past few years, the quest to understand great teaching has been at the centre of the public discussion about how to improve education in America. But for the country's 3 million teachers and 50 million schoolchildren, great teaching isn't an abstract policy issue. For teachers, understanding great teaching means the opportunity to receive feedback on the skills and techniques that can help them excel in their careers. For students, it means a better chance of graduating from high school ready for success in life.

"But what do we mean when we talk about great teaching? In my experience, the vast majority of teachers get zero feedback on how to improve.

"That's because, for decades, our schools have lacked the kind of measurement tools that can drive meaningful change. Teachers have worked in isolation and been asked to improve with little or no feedback, while schools have struggled to create systems to provide feedback that's consistent, fair and reliable.

"That's why the Gates Foundation supported the Measures of Effective Teaching, or MET, project. The project was an extraordinary, three-year collaboration between dozens of researchers and nearly 3,000 teacher volunteers from seven US public school districts who opened their classrooms so we could study how to improve the way we measure and give feedback about great teaching

"Earlier this month, the MET project released its final findings. The report confirmed that it is possible to develop reliable measures that identify great teaching.

"The project also found that using multiple measures to understand a teacher's performance - including classroom observations, student surveys and growth in student achievement - provides a richer and more reliable picture of a teacher's strengths and areas for improvement than any one measure alone.

"Some critics say a strong evaluation system costs too much. The foundation and others have estimated that it could cost between 1.5 per cent and 2 per cent of the overall budget for teacher compensation and benefits to implement a feedback and evaluation system based on multiple measures of teaching performance.

"But such an investment in great teaching would be small compared to what is being spent now on professional development that too often shows little results. And if lessons learned from addressing equally complex challenges in other sectors are any guide, investing in a reliable system to measure and support effective teaching will pay rich dividends.

"Knowing how to identify and measure great teaching is a huge step toward providing better feedback and support for teachers and building a better education system for all our children - but it's just one step. The challenge now is to use this information to give teachers the tools, resources and support they need to do their best work.

"As schools become better equipped to provide tailored, constructive support, teachers will become empowered to be students of their own teaching. Creating that kind of environment - one that supports teachers' professional growth and better prepares students for life after high school - is worth the investment."

In Thailand, before we can talk about installing a proper "feedback system" for teachers to improve, the very basic question of knowing how many teachers are needed each year has first to be tackled in a professional way.

The problem lies in the fact that teachers' colleges respond to students' desire to study teaching courses - not necessarily because they want to become good teachers but mostly because it's the easiest way to get a college degree.


-- The Nation 2013-03-21

[somtampet]

We darent even talk about the quality of european teachers,trying to teach english to thai kids

[nev]

We darent even talk about the quality of european teachers,trying to teach english to thai kids

Why just target european's, are you saying Americans Canadians Australians New Zealander's are better quality?

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Yes, Western teachers of poor quality, often with no teaching experience or qualifications, combined with poor quality Thai teachers (as stated in the above article) results in a sorry state of affairs for the Thai education system.

But not to worry because every kid passes anyway.

As you were...

Edited March 21, 2013 by TheScarf

[Hawkman]

We darent even talk about the quality of european teachers,trying to teach english to thai kids

There are some shocking ones, most definitely. However, there are some very, very good ones too. Teachers get a bad rap on this site, which I think mainly comes down to jealousy or bitterness for some reason. I'd rather see westerners over here trying to make a difference, than some retiree chasing women half his age or some layabout who nurses a bar stool all day.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't have the rubbish western teachers here, and you do get them; I'm not a perfect teacher by any stretch, I make mistakes like anyone, we're human. The problem is a lot of schools are more interested in employing a young handsome looking, fun teacher, than a teacher who know's his/her stuff but doesn't have age on his side.

[Locationthailand]

Western teachers who come her are motivated by travel and not longevity. Having said that I had met some fabulous high quality teachers here who run rings around their Thai counterparts. But the article is about Thai's teaching Thai's. As the quality of education here is questionable at best in the public school system, the graduates will at best be substandard overall. The Minister is correct.

[Hawkman]

Yes, Western teachers of poor quality, often with no teaching experience or qualifications, combined with poor quality Thai teachers (as stated in the above article) results in a sorry state of affairs for the Thai education system.

But not to worry because every kid passes anyway.

As you were...

Spot on.

I once worked for a Government school, in my first stint here. Came to the end of the year exams - which I was notified about 10 minutes before it started (thanks!) - and I had failed about a good 35% of all my students. Why? I had either, never even seen them throughout the whole term or hadn't even bothered to turn up for my lessons for that week. Not that you could do a proper speaking exam anyway, due to classes of 50 in size and only about 35 minutes to play with.

The Thai head of the English department looked really annoyed at my scores, took them off me and passed everyone. Even for students, who had bunked off all term. What kind of message does that send to both the bunkers and the ones that try hard?

It's not just some teachers that need changing, it's the Thai education mentality, culture and heads that need a whole cleansing.

Anyone ever read some of the English exams like O-Net? Full of mistakes and inaccuracies or unlikely to be used English. They need proper Native Speaker professors writing these exams, not Thais. I'm not Thai bashing, I'm just being honest, they need to stop worrying about losing face or worrying about giving into Foreign influence and get someone else to produce these exams and write up their curriculum or Thais will continue to have poor English skills.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Hawkman

[sirchai]

We darent even talk about the quality of european teachers,trying to teach english to thai kids

Why just target european's, are you saying Americans Canadians Australians New Zealander's are better quality?

Because of a small minded guy?

[Thai at Heart]

"That's because, for decades, our schools have lacked the kind of measurement tools that can drive meaningful change. Teachers have worked in isolation and been asked to improve with little or no feedback, while schools have struggled to create systems to provide feedback that's consistent, fair and reliable.

This is quite hilarious since anecdotally, we hear that everyone passes. If you don't give students proper grading, what hope does anyone have of working out who are good or bad teachers, or if the curriculum is a mess, or other factors are coming into play. This endless hand wriging when the situation is a obvious as the nose one's face, is getting quite tiresome.

As for complaining about the quality of foreign teachers, there is an age at which kids need to get professional English teachers, but until that point, if they can't get the basics of speaking, reading and writing, (which can be achieved by a non-professional following a curriculum), they can't progress anyway, irrespective of how professional a teacher may be.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Thai at Heart

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Yes, Western teachers of poor quality, often with no teaching experience or qualifications, combined with poor quality Thai teachers (as stated in the above article) results in a sorry state of affairs for the Thai education system.

But not to worry because every kid passes anyway.

As you were...

Spot on.

I once worked for a Government school, in my first stint here. Came to the end of the year exams - which I was notified about 10 minutes before it started (thanks!) - and I had failed about a good 35% of all my students. Why? I had either, never even seen them throughout the whole term or hadn't even bothered to turn up for my lessons for that week. Not that you could do a proper speaking exam anyway, due to classes of 50 in size and only about 35 minutes to play with.

The Thai head of the English department looked really annoyed at my scores, took them off me and passed everyone. Even for students, who had bunked off all term. What kind of message does that send to both the bunkers and the ones that try hard?

It's not just some teachers that need changing, it's the Thai education mentality, culture and heads that need a whole cleansing.

Anyone ever read some of the English exams like O-Net? Full of mistakes and inaccuracies or unlikely to be used English. They need proper Native Speaker professors writing these exams, not Thais. I'm not Thai bashing, I'm just being honest, they need to stop worrying about losing face or worrying about giving into Foreign influence and get someone else to produce these exams and write up their curriculum or Thais will continue to have poor English skills.

Yes, I had a similar experience with kids passing who hadn't turned up for class all year. 4 kids in that class, I didn't even know their names as they turned up so infrequently. It didn't matter though, they still got a pass.

It's a ridiculous situation and is unfair to the students in my class who genuinely worked hard all term. What can you do though? You've almost just got to turn a blind eye.

Interestingly, when I showed the scores of the kids who didn't pass (I think there were about 12 out of 40) to the Head of English, she took it almost as a personal insult.

I did enjoy large parts of my time 'teaching' here but I'm glad I'm out of it now.

[nev]

We darent even talk about the quality of european teachers,trying to teach english to thai kids

Why just target european's, are you saying Americans Canadians Australians New Zealander's are better quality?

Because of a small minded guy?

Was thinking that, he should havew just said Western Teacher's and not bracketing the Europeans as the lower quality ones.

[Hawkman]

Yes, Western teachers of poor quality, often with no teaching experience or qualifications, combined with poor quality Thai teachers (as stated in the above article) results in a sorry state of affairs for the Thai education system.

But not to worry because every kid passes anyway.

As you were...

Spot on.

I once worked for a Government school, in my first stint here. Came to the end of the year exams - which I was notified about 10 minutes before it started (thanks!) - and I had failed about a good 35% of all my students. Why? I had either, never even seen them throughout the whole term or hadn't even bothered to turn up for my lessons for that week. Not that you could do a proper speaking exam anyway, due to classes of 50 in size and only about 35 minutes to play with.

The Thai head of the English department looked really annoyed at my scores, took them off me and passed everyone. Even for students, who had bunked off all term. What kind of message does that send to both the bunkers and the ones that try hard?

It's not just some teachers that need changing, it's the Thai education mentality, culture and heads that need a whole cleansing.

Anyone ever read some of the English exams like O-Net? Full of mistakes and inaccuracies or unlikely to be used English. They need proper Native Speaker professors writing these exams, not Thais. I'm not Thai bashing, I'm just being honest, they need to stop worrying about losing face or worrying about giving into Foreign influence and get someone else to produce these exams and write up their curriculum or Thais will continue to have poor English skills.

Yes, I had a similar experience with kids passing who hadn't turned up for class all year. 4 kids in that class, I didn't even know their names as they turned up so infrequently. It didn't matter though, they still got a pass.

It's a ridiculous situation and is unfair to the students in my class who genuinely worked hard all term. What can you do though? You've almost just got to turn a blind eye.

Interestingly, when I showed the scores of the kids who didn't pass (I think there were about 12 out of 40) to the Head of English, she took it almost as a personal insult.

I did enjoy large parts of my time 'teaching' here but I'm glad I'm out of it now.

Yes, I had the same problem, feeling sorry for the kids who did want to learn. These schools are a mess. It isn't "teaching", it's more like babysitting or trying to control the zoo.

I teach at a language school now, which is well run by a lovely Thai family and I prefer the teaching here many times over; but I myself am moving away from teaching and though I will miss some aspects (watching a student improve is a great feeling), there are parts I won't miss at all (lazy spoilt brats who don't want to be there and just forced into it by their parents).

But back to the topic, they really do need to change their mentality with the passing system, really is a joke. As, when I prepare students for IELTS, you get the odd kid, who thinks there must be some secret way they can pass by skipping the studying part; and boy, do they get a shock.

[sirchai]

Around 50% of my grade six kids wouldn't have passed, as I followed them from 2nd term grade four until the end. So, I made their grades in a way that nobody was to blame. As usual. Minimum scores for those who couldn't even write their names.......

Felt sorry for the best kids in English,as their grades were not far away from those who couldn't speak, read or write.

Would I have failed some of them, I'd also have failed me, as they believe it's the teachers fault if a child doesn't get it.

If they don't change their system, ASEAN will show them what's going on. But it's already too late now.

Even many of the new generation, just graduated, major English can't speak an understandable English.

You'll never get rid off the corruption, as it seems to be part of Thai culture. Would they send those guys who want to become English teachers abroad to an English speaking country for 4 years, they would speak English and have a different view of life.

In eight years of teaching here, I've met around 15% Thai English teachers you could have a decent conversation with. The majority is to shy and scared shitless to say something wrong.

Our English teachers' meetings are always conducted in Thai, guess that says it all.

Edited March 21, 2013 by sirchai

[mike123ca]

Last term, I had 15 classes of which 10 belonged to a Thai teacher, I would show up every 2nd week and work on

conversation. My other 5 classes were mine. There was no Thai teacher except for me. At the end of the term, I've

fail 20 students. I had to enter the grades into the computer system for all 5 classes.

If any of the failed students get a passing mark, it was someone else above me overrode the assigned grade.

[Johnnie99]

Just to add my tuppence-worth, I know quite a few Thai English Language graduates (from Thai universities) who cannot string a sentence together (we all know why so don't state the obvious). However I also know a lot of Thai English teachers who are excellent at teaching grammar. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[brubakertx]

Yes, Western teachers of poor quality, often with no teaching experience or qualifications, combined with poor quality Thai teachers (as stated in the above article) results in a sorry state of affairs for the Thai education system.

But not to worry because every kid passes anyway.

As you were...

Spot on.

I once worked for a Government school, in my first stint here. Came to the end of the year exams - which I was notified about 10 minutes before it started (thanks!) - and I had failed about a good 35% of all my students. Why? I had either, never even seen them throughout the whole term or hadn't even bothered to turn up for my lessons for that week. Not that you could do a proper speaking exam anyway, due to classes of 50 in size and only about 35 minutes to play with.

The Thai head of the English department looked really annoyed at my scores, took them off me and passed everyone. Even for students, who had bunked off all term. What kind of message does that send to both the bunkers and the ones that try hard?

It's not just some teachers that need changing, it's the Thai education mentality, culture and heads that need a whole cleansing.

Anyone ever read some of the English exams like O-Net? Full of mistakes and inaccuracies or unlikely to be used English. They need proper Native Speaker professors writing these exams, not Thais. I'm not Thai bashing, I'm just being honest, they need to stop worrying about losing face or worrying about giving into Foreign influence and get someone else to produce these exams and write up their curriculum or Thais will continue to have poor English skills.

Ditto!

[comserve]

I have a sister-in-law (my wife's sister) who is a local teacher.

She started off as a mathematics teacher but one day the school found that they needed an english teacher, and she was selected.

She has been teaching English for some years now but she NEVER speaks English to me! I think she is too embarrised to actually speak English to a native English speaking person. (I bet all of her students pass their exams though!!)

[Kitbaikitmah]

The article reads like a common above average lower mathyom assignment.

Rewritting the question (10 for comprehension)

Cut and paste. (5 for research, 0 for supported insightful analysis and argument leading to conclusion)

Left-field conclusion based on MY culture (20 for perception of own reality...priceless insight for the teacher)

Writes name in English (5)

Five paragraph essay with intro topics and conclusion (10)

Total: 50 (pass)

Next paper, no name...ahem!

I was generous but for what reason were 30+ points lazily wasted? (analyse the key words..always!)

[Thafoma]

This is one of Gate´s comment quoted: "... Teachers have worked in isolation and been asked to improve with little or no feedback, while schools have struggled to create systems to provide feedback that's consistent, fair and reliable...¨

- That is exactly the case in Thailand. Teachers (specially foreign) have worked in isolation. And they are just randomly observed by Thai administrators in their classes (sometimes a notice is given beforehand), but never given any feedback on where or which to improve. And at the end of the year or semester, the teacher is told that a new contract won´t be given because he did not pass the observation. And who were those conducting the observation? How many of them (if there are) are really qualified to administer such test for their teachers? Are they not the same teachers or administrators who graduated from the teachers´ colleges who could not even produce quality teachers? Will you please stop insulting your foreign teachers who had to go through real struggle of passing their exams and requirements from other countries that do not implement the stupid ¨no fail policy¨ system.

Here is another point: In Thailand, before we can talk about installing a proper "feedback system" for teachers to improve, the very basic question of knowing how many teachers are needed each year has first to be tackled in a professional way.

- The problem lies in the fact that teachers' colleges respond to students' desire to study teaching courses - not necessarily because they want to become good teachers but mostly because it's the easiest way to get a college degree. -

- Where is the real problem here? People who are interested to take teaching courses or degrees are interested to become good teachers, or if they won´t use it to be good and efficient in other fields of interest that they may choose after graduation. Stop blaming the students. It is the education system, the school or colleges and their system (if there is a system at all), along with their inefficient teachers that are to be blamed. Here is just one of the thousands of examples and cases. There were some students who were useless in their class and were supposed to be expelled but were allowed to stay for three years to complete their grades 10 to 12. Why did I say useless? They were always absent and if they were in school, they were either walking along the corridors all day or talking and sleeping in their classes if they were forced to be in there by the school administrators (which only happened a few times). Do you expect these to pass even a simple quiz? No!!! But they were allowed to pass. They were required to do their exams resits but their 50% passing scores were already submitted to the administration prior to the resits. About three weeks before the end of their grade 12, they were boasting that they were accepted at one well-known university in Thailand. A little research had found out that the university has two systems. One for the legitimately good students who really passed their entrance exams and one for the useless students but who can afford to pay. Both are accepted. And the reason for this is that the school also needs to boost their budget. Oh yes, they have a system after all but a system of how to make more money. I just hope that these two groups of students will not be in the same classrooms just as they were when they studied in a so-called prestigious private high school, where good students were used to represent the school in many academic competitions. And the bad students declared that those brilliant competitors are their classmates. Again, stop blaming the students when you don´t even have a system that works. Some foreign students who were lured by Thailand´s seemingly attractive educational advertisements regretted coming here. Until that ¨no fail policy¨ system exists, education in Thailand will not be able to be internationally competitive.

[Ian Curtis]

Quote; "all teachers' colleges throughout the country will produce a total of 240,000 graduates"

What am I missing here? In my day you had a degree before going on a teachers' training course. If you didn't, then you finished up with a Certificate of Education but I suppose just about anything is called a degree these days?

As head of maths and physics years ago in blighty I would only consider someone with either a single honours degree in maths (from a red-brick university) for teaching A-level and beyond, a combined maths-physics degree for A-level in either subject and a teaching certificate for teaching up to O-level so long as they had done maths or physics as a special subject with their course.

I get the impression that for schools nowadays, just about any old degree will do - God help the kids eh!

[culicine]

Yes, Western teachers of poor quality, often with no teaching experience or qualifications, combined with poor quality Thai teachers (as stated in the above article) results in a sorry state of affairs for the Thai education system.

But not to worry because every kid passes anyway.

As you were...

Spot on.

I once worked for a Government school, in my first stint here. Came to the end of the year exams - which I was notified about 10 minutes before it started (thanks!) - and I had failed about a good 35% of all my students. Why? I had either, never even seen them throughout the whole term or hadn't even bothered to turn up for my lessons for that week. Not that you could do a proper speaking exam anyway, due to classes of 50 in size and only about 35 minutes to play with.

The Thai head of the English department looked really annoyed at my scores, took them off me and passed everyone. Even for students, who had bunked off all term. What kind of message does that send to both the bunkers and the ones that try hard?

It's not just some teachers that need changing, it's the Thai education mentality, culture and heads that need a whole cleansing.

Anyone ever read some of the English exams like O-Net? Full of mistakes and inaccuracies or unlikely to be used English. They need proper Native Speaker professors writing these exams, not Thais. I'm not Thai bashing, I'm just being honest, they need to stop worrying about losing face or worrying about giving into Foreign influence and get someone else to produce these exams and write up their curriculum or Thais will continue to have poor English skills.

Yes, I had a similar experience with kids passing who hadn't turned up for class all year. 4 kids in that class, I didn't even know their names as they turned up so infrequently. It didn't matter though, they still got a pass.

It's a ridiculous situation and is unfair to the students in my class who genuinely worked hard all term. What can you do though? You've almost just got to turn a blind eye.

Interestingly, when I showed the scores of the kids who didn't pass (I think there were about 12 out of 40) to the Head of English, she took it almost as a personal insult.

I did enjoy large parts of my time 'teaching' here but I'm glad I'm out of it now.

Don't sweat it. Everyone in this country knows a GPA of 1 means that the student more than likely failed. If I get a hard working student who can get a '1' by themselves with no retest, I'll try to push them to 1.5.

[culicine]

I have a sister-in-law (my wife's sister) who is a local teacher.

She started off as a mathematics teacher but one day the school found that they needed an english teacher, and she was selected.

She has been teaching English for some years now but she NEVER speaks English to me! I think she is too embarrised to actually speak English to a native English speaking person. (I bet all of her students pass their exams though!!)

You can bet very few of her students speak english too...as 95% of their lecture is in Thai anyway.

[Ijustwannateach]

This kind of dialogue is the start of a circle that goes around and around over decades in this country and others. Unfortunately, it leads to 'measurement tools' that give bureaucrats more power while doing little to affect teaching. I'm of the view (as many educational research experts are) that good teaching is at least as much of an 'art' as it is a science. In that respect, it defies uniform scientific measurement. However, bureaucrats who want to tick boxes and have things by numbers will do so because it justifies their jobs and having numbers seems to mean something to them- it's the old case again of looking for the lost wallet under the statistical light because that's where you can 'see'. Look for more calls to 'redevelop' the standardised tests yet again and institute more 'teaching testing' as a way to show something about 'quality'.

Undoubtedly there are problems in Thai education, and some of those problems are related to quality of teachers. Perhaps they should look at their own question and wonder why there are so many teaching graduates but fewer LONG TERM high-quality teachers? Teachers are nurtured, in my view, not produced en masse. There are a whole variety of investments that need to be made in long-term teacher quality, including mentoring, self- and mutual- evaluation and reflective exercises, and yes, financial reward, that go into producing quality teachers.

Does anyone remember a few years ago when they were pensioning off all the 'old' teachers? Don't suppose they lost a lot of hard-earned experience there, did they, now? But let's complain about the empty barn now that we left the door open.

It doesn't help that the education ministry is the most revolving door ministry of them all.

[Rolo Tomazi]

I've come to the conclusion that the Thai education system is beyond repair. If it would be a building I'd say: knock it down, clear the site, start new - with a different contractor!!

I don't know where to start, it's almost all wrong: the class sizes; the books and other materials; the Thai teachers who don't even speak English; the teaching methods, some teachers use microphones, talk 80% of the time and whoever wants to listen or repeat a senseless sentence does it, the rest goofs off. Do nothing, attract no attention, make no mistakes - you'll get into next grade automatically, in a few years it's over. Teachers sitting outside the classroom, chatting and eating fruit, the kids either copy something they don't understand into their notebooks or play. Then there are sports fests, dancing events, shows performed, preparations for some event, it feels like a youth camp, not a school. And why are there always ten boys playing football, ten girls singing or dancing, kids running around without supervision - aren't they supposed to be in class? Sound systems that don't work, copies of books from Singapore written in the 70s, hardly readable because the copier is not working right, the AC and light is gone during power outages, kids who feel sick are lying on the floor, slightly retarded kids are mixed with sane ones, cats eating the lunch leftovers and pee in the library, books that are way too difficult must be used because they were ordered and it takes years to change that order, teachers get fired for a misunderstanding, no explanation, the toilet stinks like worse than in a zoo, cement tables are broken, the steel bars sticking out....

And always this "mai pen rai" attitude, relax, everything will be okay. If you have some good ideas, suggest improvements, they laugh at you!

The only way Thailand will ever get out this situation would be to farm out the whole business. There is no way it will improve from within. Hire a foreign Education Minister; all Thai teachers must have lived and worked as a teacher in a western country for at least one year to have a clue what teaching is about. These mostly elderly women who pose as teachers in Thai government schools have no idea what teaching/learning is or how to teach effectively. Or why can most 15-year-old students not answer a simple question or build one straight sentence?

Of course I realize how preposterous and impossible this suggestion is, that's why I'm saying that I have no hope for a change (to the better) here in Thailand.

End of post - over and out.

[cigar7]

As is the case in many problem areas in Thailand, there is a lack of leadership and standards from the Government and enforcement of standards.

Every teacher in a government school should be licensed by the government, and pass examinations in order to be licensed. Also a bi-annual in-class review should be conducted for every teacher, with the possible outcome of being suspended or fired.

In government schools, I understand that every pupil passes every subject every year. If a pupil does not pass, the teacher is at fault. This needs to change so that it is not viewed as the teacher's fault when a pupil fails to learn.

Edited March 25, 2013 by cigar7