Professional standards for continuing education teachers: Urgent requirements from practice

GD&TĐ - Difficulties and shortcomings in evaluating, using and developing the team of continuing education teachers pose an urgent need for a separate set of professional standards that accurately reflect the characteristics, thereby standardizing and improving the quality of the team.

Occupational standards gap

Mr. Le Van Hoa - Director of the Center for Continuing Education - Information Technology, Foreign Languages ​​of Quang Tri province, said that continuing education facilities are assigned to perform many diverse tasks to meet the needs of people for continuing education and lifelong learning.

The organizational structure, functions and tasks of each facility depend on the learning needs of the locality and many different age groups, so the teaching staff is difficult to be uniform. However, in a regular education facility, the teaching staff is often divided into two main groups: Teachers teaching literacy programs, continuing education at junior high school and high school levels and vocational teachers.

In reality, only general education teachers and vocational teachers have been evaluated according to specific professional standards. However, the cultural teachers in regular education institutions, although recruited from full-time students or transferred from general education institutions, are not evaluated according to professional standards. This is an inequality that needs to be overcome soon.

Currently, the general education program for high school is basically unified and equivalent to the general education program; general education students study the same textbooks, take the same high school graduation exam as general education students, and are evaluated the same.

However, due to the different scale of high school students in continuing education centers, some units have only a few dozen students. Therefore, the structure of teachers in continuing education facilities is also different. Some units have only 1 to 2 teachers for each subject, making it difficult to create a professional learning environment. Teachers are not evaluated systematically according to professional standards, so they are at a disadvantage and at risk of falling behind in their skills.

From the above analysis, Mr. Le Van Hoa affirmed that it is necessary to issue professional standards for teachers in continuing education institutions. This not only motivates teachers in continuing education institutions to strive for professional expertise and skills, but also creates fairness in evaluating the team. This is also the basis for flexible transfer of teachers between general education and continuing education, contributing to solving the problem of local surplus and shortage of teachers.

According to Mr. Hoang Tien Dung - Director of Hai Duong Center for Continuing Education - Foreign Languages, Information Technology (Hai Phong City), currently, teachers teaching continuing education programs follow the professional title standards of junior high and high school teachers corresponding to the continuing education program they are assigned to teach.

At the same time, this team must meet the professional title standards of junior high school teachers or high school teachers prescribed in Circular No. 03, 04/2021/TT-BGDDT (amended and supplemented in Circular No. 08/2023/TT-BGDDT).

Applying the professional title standards of junior high school or high school teachers to continuing education teachers is still "forced", because this team has its own characteristics of both teaching culture and vocational training, career guidance; while teaching, they must also regularly undertake administrative and business tasks.

This is also the reason why there is no specific training course for continuing education teachers, which affects the quality of the team. Therefore, Mr. Hoang Tien Dung affirmed that issuing specific professional standards for teachers of continuing education institutions is an urgent requirement.

Photo illustration INT.

Add specific criteria

Studying the draft Circular regulating professional standards for teachers of continuing education institutions, Mr. Tran Quang Tu - Director of Ba Tri Vocational Education - Continuing Education Center ( Vinh Long province), highly appreciated the clear structure, with the regulation of tasks, qualifications, and capacity standards according to each title rank.

The draft has included typical tasks of continuing education, such as eliminating illiteracy, popularizing, investigating local learning needs, practicing at enterprises, providing career counseling, participating in production/service group activities. The tasks of higher levels demonstrate professionalization with requirements for compiling programs and learning materials; assessing, evaluating, and testing expertise; developing center strategies; being a core teacher, reporter, etc.

Commenting on the draft, Mr. Tran Quang Tu said that it is necessary to detail the digital transformation capacity of managers and teachers at vocational education and continuing education centers. Currently, the draft only states "the ability to apply information technology" in a general way. Along with that, it adds the capacity to know how to build digital lectures, digital learning materials, operate LMS systems, organize online classes, manage electronic records, and design guided self-study activities for students.

“The criteria for evaluating continuing education teachers should be quantified more clearly. The draft includes some general criteria that are difficult to self-evaluate; for example, “building professional prestige”, “having in-depth knowledge”, “deep understanding of the psychological characteristics of learners”. I think that it is necessary to describe with specific evidence: Professional products, number of hours of in-depth teaching, evidence to support students...

At the same time, add criteria to support special learners, such as older learners, dropouts, learners with limited intellectual capacity, learning capacity, etc. At the same time, clarify the relationship between continuing education standards and general teacher standards to create consistency when there is a need to rotate between the two fields," Mr. Tran Quang Tu proposed.

According to Mr. Dang Ngoc Thang - Director of the Center for Vocational Education - Continuing Education Doan Hung (Phu Tho), promulgating professional standards for teachers of continuing education institutions affirms the position of continuing education, creates a unified legal framework to evaluate and improve the quality of the team, meeting the requirements of developing open education and lifelong learning.

Commenting on the draft, Mr. Dang Ngoc Thang said that it is necessary to add criteria reflecting the characteristics of continuing education, such as flexible classroom organization, organizational forms, and diverse learners; add requirements on the capacity to coordinate cultural and vocational training; at the same time, expand the criteria for applying information technology and digital transformation in teaching and learning.

According to the draft Circular regulating professional standards for teachers of continuing education institutions, professional ethics standards for teachers of continuing education are generally regulated.

Regulations on training and fostering standards are inherited from current regulations for each professional title of grade III, II, I for general teachers and vocational education teachers teaching at elementary level. Standards on professional competence, skills, and criteria to ensure teachers can perform assigned tasks according to job positions.

Source: https://giaoducthoidai.vn/chuan-nghe-nghiep-giao-vien-gd-thuong-xuyen-yeu-cau-cap-thiet-tu-thuc-tien-post759384.html