By Jitka Licenik and Roman Zakaluzny
Since 1974, Ontario teacher education has been the sole responsibility of university faculties of education.
Prof. Johanne Bourdages, dean of education at the University of Ottawa, says “Teacher education programs across the province have been evaluated by the Ontario College of Teachers. It is not clear why the teacher qualifying test is needed when teacher education programs have been deemed of good quality by the body which certifies them.”
Prof. Sharon Cook of the University of Ottawa says, “Our students have demonstrated a real commitment to education, with heaps and heaps of volunteer work just to get in the door. They are very able students.” She estimates that the average of successful candidates sits between 84-88 per cent, depending on the program. Students must earn 60 per cent in all courses to stay in the program, including two five-week classroom practica.
Prof. Cecilia Reynolds of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) says that getting in to their program is “very hard, almost harder than medical or law school.”
If education students are high quality and the programs are good, why is the government implementing the teacher qualifying test and recertification?
Prof. Magda Lewis of Queen’s believes the provincial government could be trying to “deprofessionalize” teachers. By testing and retesting teachers’ technical skills, Lewis feels the government could be saying that the faculties are irrelevant.
“It’s important to prepare [teachers] intellectually. We need to get away from the notion of teachers as technicians and view them as professionals.”
Cook isn’t that skeptical. She believes that teacher qualifying tests and recertification are a “matter of a profession” and that the current “climate of distrust” between the government and teachers means that “any change is seen as a studied attempt to victimize teachers.”
OISE/UT professor Ken Leithwood says the program is not the government’s way of saying education faculties are graduating incompetent students.
“Other professions have testing programs for their graduates,” he says. “Law would be the most obvious, I don’t think anyone is saying that they aren’t doing a good enough job.”
But Cook isn’t fretting. “If our students are as solid as I know them to be, this test won’t hurt them. Teacher testing is not something to get oneself into a lather over.”