The Department of Education is providing scholarships to primary and secondary school teachers to undertake an undergraduate or graduate degree. Teachers can apply for a scholarship of €7,000/year to improve their level of education. The Ministry of Education believes this will also improve the quality of teaching in the Netherlands.
Reform of the teacher service law will increase base salaries and provide extra pay to teachers who help with other school-related activities. The regular workload of a teacher will be increased from 20 to 22 teaching hours per week to 24 hours/week. Teachers in academic lower secondary schools will start with a higher salary (€ 2,420/month) than before (€2,223/month), but the salary will increase slower than it has to this point. Apart from extra pay for subjects like English, teachers can receive extra payment (from €90 to 450) if they take on additional tasks (e.g., student advisor, administrative tasks supporting the principal). Historically, teachers have not been compensated for this kind of work. However, it is still unclear how much money will be available for each school. Although a 2008 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that Germany ranks second in the world for starting teacher salary as percentage of per capita GDP, improving compensation for teachers has been an important reform effort, as this article highlights about teacher salaries in Berlin.
One percent of Dutch primary schools have a status of “academic schools.” These schools have contracted with research departments to establish research activities in their schools which are cooperatively implemented by primary school teachers and researchers. The results of this research are expected to directly benefit the quality of teaching and learning in these schools, as the schools enrolled in the program share data with one another. The Department of Education sponsors these activities as a means to improve the quality of elementary education.
Since the 2006-2007 school year, students with a first language other than German have participated in language training courses at school. These courses have been offered to groups of more than eight (8) students for eleven (11) hours per week. For this purpose, the Government has provided 440 posts, equivalent to 9,500 hours of work and costing €23.9 million (approx. $30 million). Because evaluations have indicated the program’s positive impact, the Austrian government will invest a further €47.8 million (approx. $60 million) in the project up to 2014.
Two educational researchers, Heiner Barz and Manfred Weiß, are interviewed and discuss whether private schools create divisions in society or are pioneers of school reforms. The researchers, who have opposite opinions about private schools, argue about performance of pupils, PISA results comparing private and public schools, social equity, and school funding. According to Weiß, “Private schools are not better when you consider the composition of the student body. Therefore, OECD has recently come to the conclusion that private schools are not the solution to raise the performance level of a country.” But, Barz retorts: “It’s not so simple. Schools must do more to teach than knowledge. Equally important is the school climate, cooperation with parents, the satisfaction of the students.”
Debate around English educational policy makers plans to adopt aspects of policy from Singapore, mostly due to Singapore’s continued and consistent performance in testing (especially Mathematics), abound. Ruth Merttens, a professor of primary education and the Director of the Hamilton Trust, argues the importance of local and national context when looking to apply policy across borders and warns against the adoption of policy that undermine the strengths within the English approach to teaching and learning. Regarding memorization, for example, she writes, “I and many others in education enthusiastically advocate both a greater emphasis on memorisation and rote-learning within the mathematics curriculum, and also for more time in the school day to be given to mathematics. However, we are aware that this focus on memory runs counter to prevailing cultural mores, where the need to ‘learn things by heart’ is increasingly diminished by the ubiquitous presence of hand-held and ever-accessible technology. Control of these cultural behaviours is not, alas, within the remit of schools.”
What’s going on in Ontario’s schools? Part One contains responses to this question from a teacher, an administrator, and two parent leaders; Part Two includes contributions from Professor Michael Fullan, a professor emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto and current special advisor to the premier and minister of education in Ontario, and readers. Professor Fullan writes, “Unfortunately some countries in a hurry to address the issues get the solutions wrong. I call these mistake ‘wrong drivers for whole system reform’. Drivers are policy and strategy instruments designed to ’cause’ improvement in the system. A wrong driver is one that does not work; a right driver is one that does produce improvement. In our work on system reform we have been sorting out what drivers work and which ones do not. This is our conclusion: excessive accountability, individualistic strategies designed to increase human capital, technology and ad hoc policy solutions waste valuable time and resources and often make matters worse.” Other respondents point to support for teachers and involving students in the creation of assessments as reasons for the success of Ontario schools.
For the first time in 40 years, the Ministry of Education has released a white paper on strategies for developing lower secondary education in Norway. The aim is to enhance motivation and learning outcomes for all students. The strategy plan runs from school year 2012/13 through 2016/17.
The curricula for the following eight new electives will be ready in June:
– stage and performance
– media and information
– production of goods and services
– physical activity and health
– design and redesign
– practical research
– practical technology
– international cooperation
While it acknowledges that class size matters, the New Zealand government has adopted the position that the quality of teaching is more important. Leveraging on the research findings of the Grattan Institute report that raising teacher quality is more effective than reducing class size, New Zealand would allow class size to increase so as to save money to boost teacher quality. All trainee teachers will be expected to possess a post-graduate qualification, and teachers will be assessed under a new performance management system. Performance-based pay might be a possibility under the new measures to be adopted. Despite the government’s stance, parents and unions remain worried about the proposal.
International Education News 
Singapore
Schleicher, A. Today (25 May 2012)
Andreas Schleicher sums up and distills lessons arising from his visit to schools and educational institutions in Singapore as a Visiting Professor. According to Schleicher, “If I had to summarise what I learned in one sentence, this is a story about political coherence and leadership as well as alignment between policy and practice; about setting ambitious standards in everything you do; about focusing on building teacher and leadership capacity to deliver vision and strategy at the school level; and about a culture of continuous improvement and future orientation that benchmarks educational practices against the best in the world.” But, according to Schleicher, Singapore can learn much from the rest of the world as well. For example, Singapore could learn how to unleash greatness from Finland and overcome social disadvantage from Ontario, Canada.
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