Tackling problems in education requires long-term strategies

Teaching Matters: A recent study published by the international consultancy firm McKinsey and Company aims to cast light on why the world's top performing school systems perform so much better than most others and why some educational reforms work while others do not.

As is the case with many studies in the field of comparative education, some of its findings should carry the usual health warning. All schools work in, and to some extent reflect, the cultural milieu of the wider society in which they find themselves. As such one must always be careful in assuming that the experiences of one system transfer into those of another.

Notwithstanding this caveat, the study arrives at one key conclusion, ie that the quality of an education system ultimately revolves around the quality of its teachers. As the study puts it, the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. The essential point of the study, therefore, is the issue as to how a system ensures the development of a quality teaching profession and how it enables it to do its work. While the study deals with the first of these issues well, it is less complete on the second.

With regard to the first point, the study argues, for instance, that higher performing school systems consistently do three things well: they get the right people into teaching; they develop these people into effective teachers; they put in place systems and targeted supports to ensure that each child benefits from the excellent instruction.

It draws attention to the absolutely pivotal role of the teacher in the learning progress of the child. It cites evidence to suggest that students placed with high performing teachers will progress three times as fast as those with low performing ones. It shows furthermore that reverses in the child's education in the early years arising from protracted periods with low performing teachers are largely irreversible in later life.

It concludes that teaching quality is based on four pillars. These are a high overall level of literacy and numeracy; strong interpersonal communication skills; willingness to learn; and motivation to teach. These are provided for in the quality of the intake into teaching in the first instance and in the subsequent monitoring and professional support thereafter.

Ireland can be gratified with the quality of the intake into teaching at both primary and second levels. Primary intake is based on Leaving Certificate points, with the minimum points requirement being typically about 450 points. This places them in the top category of Leaving Certificate performers, where only about 17 per cent of students do better than them.

Entry to second-level teaching is largely confined to graduates who take a one-year teacher training programme after completing their bachelor's or master's degree. Places are limited and awarded on a competitive basis. Within the NUI colleges, places are allocated on a points system based on third-level grades. Typically entrants will have attained an honour's degree; many will have done a master's programme and have completed some teaching on a non-permanent basis at some time previously.

It is hardly satisfactory, however, that whether at primary or second level, these teachers could conceivably go through a lifetime in teaching and undertake no further professional development in their role. While in reality these will be a tiny minority, it is increasingly important that a national programme of continuing professional development for teachers be developed.

It is self-evident that the task of improving the quality of the Irish teaching profession and thereby lifting the quality of the school system generally means that the problem of the underperforming teacher must be addressed. This should be addressed in the first instance through such a national system of continuing professional development. It is unlikely, however, if this alone will deal with the problem. Many of the most significant failures in modern Ireland have resulted from weak systems of accountability and the failure on the part of those in authority to oversee and intervene adequately where such intervention was necessary. As the McKinsey study shows, no system can transcend the quality of its teachers. It is clearly imperative that there are mechanisms in place to deal with the issue.

If this is to happen, a number of things need to be put in place. There must firstly be a shared interpretation among all concerned as to what constitutes quality and performance in teaching. An agreed mechanism for the monitoring of performance must also be developed. These must be accompanied by a readiness on the part of the State to put in place the necessary supports in terms of ongoing training and professional development for teachers and an agreed, voluntary exit strategy for individual teachers.

Irish society has been well served by its teachers and its teacher unions. As in some of the examples looked at by McKinsey, we extract more from our system than many other countries who spend more than us. Each day, in excess of 800,000 students are met in more than 3,000 schools by about 60,000 teachers. Industrial relations are effectively managed in the system where the teaching unions combine the difficult twin briefs of making a major contribution to the development and the thinking in the system overall, while also representing their respective members.

It is in the area of the under-performance of individuals that the inherent tension between these twin briefs can become most acute. A start can be made by recognising that even in a system where high performance is the norm, individual variation from the norm is inevitable. And if it is inevitable we have a clear responsibility to address it.