The following is an interview with Lamija Tanović, of the Education in Action Foundation, on the topic of the education of teachers, held by Rubina Cengic for školegijum.ba


"After graduation, teachers are not ready to enter the classroom, because they did not encounter a number of topics important for teaching during their university education. This conclusion came from a survey conducted among teachers, by the Education in Action Foundation at the beginning of their work on the Tabla project.

The survey showed that most students of teacher training colleges, whether in the field of STEM or the humanities, are not familiar with the occupational standard and the qualification standard of the teaching profession, nor with the expectations of future teachers during their undergraduate studies; with didactic-methodical procedures in teaching children with developmental disabilities; with didactic-methodical procedures in teaching gifted students, but also, most did not process the links between their own and other subjects during their studies.

The Tabla project should, in one of its four segments, improve the primary education of teachers, which is being worked on by the Education in Action Foundation. It is about the initial education or basic education of future teachers, which means improving the work of the faculties that educate them.

The project envisages that these activities be carried out in the Herzegovina-Neretva and Sarajevo Canton, and in the Republika Srpska. 

 

What is the knowledge that teachers must have?

In addition to learning their field well (language or history or geography or mathematics ...), they must learn how to be good teachers for their students. There are a lot of new competencies and skills that need to be mastered, which are popularly called the characteristics of education for the 21st century. These are primarily creativity, innovation, critical thinking, willingness to cooperate, but also problem-solving, data collection and communication.

 

What does initial education mean? Is it a better preparation for future teachers and where will it require change?

Initial education is a basic study in which a teacher receives his/her diploma. We conducted a survey with current teachers, and based on their answers, we stated what we assumed as professors from teacher training colleges — our students, when they finish their studies, are not ready for the classroom. Then we made a quantitative and qualitative analysis of existing study plans and programs to determine how many classes they have that prepare them for the profession, and what content is taught in those classes, because the future teacher can learn his profession well, but must learn to transfer that knowledge to his students. It turned out that it is not logical for teachers of language, physics, history, chemistry and the like to listen, in scope and content, to different pedagogies, psychology and didactics, although there is no reason for it to be so different from faculty to faculty, from one study program to another. The University of Mostar has balanced this well; most of their study programs have common subjects in which teacher competencies and skills are achieved in both scope and content, which is quite logical. Then we looked at how many ECTS credits these subjects carry, and here we found big differences. Namely, no one without five years of study should enter the classroom, whether it is 3 + 2 or 4 + 1, ie without a total of 300 ECTS credits, of which at least 60 credits comes from subjects concerning teacher competencies. Now it is very diverse, and everything needs to be standardized. The qualitative analysis looked at the relationship between the program and learning outcomes. We have noticed that in some cases, this connection does not exist, and the programs of some subjects do not have outcomes at all. Thus, we have made 16 important documents that faculties must now accept and apply. We have created a standard of the teaching profession — what a person must know and be able to do in order to be considered capable of practising this profession in accordance with the set standards, ie he must acquire a certain level of knowledge, skills and beliefs to efficiently, safely and adequately do their job. We have also created a standard of teacher qualification, which is a set of competencies of a certain level, scope, profile and quality, which is proven by a certificate or diploma, or other public document issued by the competent institution. Teacher education is very specific because it has two equally important parts, which we call the teacher and professional module. In the subjects of the professional module, the teacher learns a discipline that is his speciality, for example, German language, or history or chemistry. In the subjects of the teacher module, the teacher should learn how to teach and cooperate with his students, evaluate them and pay enough attention to each, which is not identical for each student.

The teacher module has three submodules, ie three groups of subjects: one is psychology, pedagogy and didactics, the second is the methodology and school practice, and the third is communication, rhetoric, information technology, project creation, and many other skills and knowledge needed to be a teacher. Each submodule has its own learning outcomes. Of these three, two are identical for every teacher, and only the methodology is different for different subjects. We have proposed a minimum of 60 ECTS credits for submodules and their subjects, and faculties will determine the number of subjects in each submodule and whether they will have, say, one or two psychologies, provided that all learning outcomes from that submodule are achieved in those subjects. Thus, the three main documents are the Occupational Standard, the Qualification Standard and the Teacher Module. In addition, we have a number of documents that deal with other important aspects of the Bologna study programs. For example, the distribution of ECTS credits, which in our country is made without research, and for that, there are clear rules and an exact allocation algorithm for study cycles, modules, submodules and individual subjects. These rules rely on the student's workload and his actual work, and on the study program, modules, subjects, or learning outcomes. We also noticed a problem with elective courses, that are now called just that, but are not the result of choice, and we would like them to be really elective, not only at the level of the study program, but also at the level of a group of related study programs, and at the faculty and university level. There is also the possibility of winning additional ECTS credits and the possibility of expanding the student's qualifications. Teacher study programs have another specificity which is not sufficiently used at all universities; two-subject studies that provide greater employability, as well as greater opportunities for staffing in schools. That is why we have elaborated on this area in detail in our documents.

 

You are doing all this on the basis of old curricula in primary and secondary schools, although in some parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, work is underway on reforms that may open up new requirements for teachers?

We are working on study programs for teachers and we do not look, in detail, at what is currently being done in schools. We assume we know this because we all know the curricula of high schools that work with different programs, and elementary schools are standardized. We are attached to the current situation, and we want a teacher for the existing situation, that is, one who will be better prepared for his job at school, regardless of which program he works on.

 

Have you been involved in grading?

Yes! The assessment methodology is very detailed. It is important for us to encourage teachers to learn how to learn in an inclusive environment. Some study programs have inclusion, but only with those who don’t run fast enough, and some, like math and physics teacher training, only work with the particularly talented. We need an individual approach for everyone, depending on how quickly they can master the tasks. At university, I have always advocated for transferring subjects and collision, because students are sometimes stopped by several subjects, completely blocked. I don't think everyone can run at the same speed, someone goes slower and will need more time than others, but they can achieve very good results. Students should be facilitated and enabled to transfer subjects. It’s an inclusive environment for me.

 

When you talk about inclusion, do you mean working with children with disabilities or the different needs of each student?

I mean the diversity of each student. Our analysis shows that in the teacher training programs that we analyzed (75 study programs in the first, and 45 study programs in the second cycle), there are very few special subjects on inclusion. In some places we found only some lessons: something for the gifted. And at the Pedagogical Academy, there are many lessons on working with children with special needs. However, we advocate a much broader approach to inclusion, that each student is approached individually because not everyone runs at the same speed. Finns, for example, have two teachers in each class and one works with the faster students, and the other with the slower ones. At one of our seminars, we had a lecturer from Finland who was working on her doctorate in education in BiH, and she gave us a lecture on the specifics of Finnish education. They have a very strict selection for enrollment in teacher training colleges: they choose the best for that study, the teaching profession is highly valued, they have good salaries, reputation in society, and all the benefits to do it the best possible way and to be satisfied with the profession.

 

Who should accept and incorporate into their work what you have created and proposed?

Our target group is ministries, educational institutes and universities, but for now, we do not have the desired response. Ministries are key in this work. They have announced that they will study, in detail, what we are suggesting, and the faculties say that they cannot do anything until the ministry approves them or gives us instructions. 

Our task is to produce adequate documents which envisage the improvement of the way we educate teachers, and to present all this to ministries and universities in several seminars and workshops. But something very interesting happened: we realized that USAID and Save The Children, within the Tabla project, on the one hand, and the European Union with funds from IPA projects within the Employment Education, on the other, are doing similar things, and the initial education and education of existing teachers are identical in both projects, with the EU working throughout BiH. Now there is a possibility to link activities. We hope that all this will be implemented throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 

Why do you work only in two cantons and in RS, and how did you choose those two cantons?

This is a question for donors and facilitators, for USAID and Save the Children. It is probably assumed that in the future they will learn from each other.

 

What is your impression of the knowledge that children bring to college?

It is different, there is a wide range of knowledge and it is difficult to generalize it, especially because post-war generations work in smaller groups, say 60, unlike the pre-war ones, where there were 350 or 400 students and we could get statistics. I had a student who didn’t have physics the last two years of high school, and he came to study physics. When I asked him how he was going to do it, he told me that in high school they taught him how to learn. That guy finished physics as the best student, which means that — if we teach them how to learn — there can be no shortage of success. There are perfect children from the Third Gymnasium, from the Bosniak Gymnasium, from one of the madrasas...It is difficult to make statistics, but the Second Gymnasium is great for the STEM group of subjects, the First for languages ​...It surprises me that children come to university, taught to ask, not to yell, and not to complain, whatever they do to them. Even if they received a schedule with two classes at the same time, they did nothing.

 

The Tabla project includes four areas of action: initial education of future educators, education of teachers who are already in practice or lifelong learning, equipping schools throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and raising public awareness of the importance of education and the need for modernization. In addition to the Education in Action Foundation, the Slovenian Institute for Education is working on this project in cooperation with several BiH education experts and the Peacebuilding Network. The project is funded by USAID, and Save The Children is in charge of its implementation."

Tabla project

Childhub

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