Primary teachers ’undertrained'

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34047, 10 January 1976, Page 14

Primary teachers ’undertrained '

(.Neu Zealand Press .Association’ WANGANUI. January 9. Primary schoolteachers in New Zealand do not have [enough training and are academically ill-equipped for their task, according to the president of the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession (Mr Wilhelm Ebert).

>: A primary teacher should: lihave a full university educa-i : jtion as well as undertaking! education research' J and doing practical teaching,' I'he told the national confer-) ;|ence of the New Zealand! [Educational Institute in • Wanganui. 1 He discounted the theory; (that a tightening of qualifica-| itions would exclude many* (people otherwise suited to working with young children.' “Teaching is a profession, .and we must be profes-; jsionals to be any good.” Mr; Ebert said. “Just because a j person gets on well with 'children and can interest them and work with them, does not make them a (teacher. An excellent child--minder maybe, but not a) ! teacher. Graduate job “Today there is so much psychology to be learned and • so many new research papers to absorb, that it takes a university graduate to be any good as a teacher.” He considered the ideal system to be that of his own country. West Germany, where a prospective teacher! must have 15 years schooling,; including a university education, before being considered) for a three-year teachertraining course. Another trend Mr Ebert.) deplored was what he saw as! the excessive concern over the special requirements of' minority groups. > “I’m all in favour of special [schooling for minority; groups. For a more united! world it is necessary to! respect and not overwhelm them, but this work is being overdone,” he said. Thinking first It was not necessarily the l best thing to pander to minority requirements. For' instance. in Papua New) (Guinea there were 7001 i;languages. To teach them all) (equally would be impossible,, iso a decision must be made! ’ to have one only. ! “It helps thinking if a per-:) ,'son is proficient in one lan-, ' guage and has a good grasp; of it. I know people who are; , excellent linguists who speak! . five or six’ languages, but are; not good at thinking. This is important.” Mr Ebert confessed to I ; speaking "three and a half! languages.” He was elected to his pre-; isent position in Berlin last*

lisummer after 23 years work-i ■ling for school reforms and' ;!improved status for teachers; 11 internationally. ,1 After visiting schools and) examining their administra-) lition in many countries he) i felt that the "ideal school” 'would never be attained. I Motivation I “There needs to be a perimanent reform in schools., (with enough variety and' (places to experiment at all; . times,” he said. He has noticed a worldwide trend away from more! 1 permissive schooling. "It was' introduced as a bright, and idealistic scheme, but has broken down entirely in; Europe and the United [States, although the strict' authoritarian approach is! equally as bad. “We’ve finally reached a ( turning point in education. For too long it has been be-1 lieved that education depends; on particular methods. But: psychologists have now found ' that motivation is the great-, est force, and this can be given only by another human being and reinforced by the!

i example of a person who has [already achieved something.” i This new knowledge had led to a swing away from [technical aids, such as television in the classroom. [ “Many mistakes have been made here, and are unfortunjately still being made, par- [ ticularly in Asian countries,” Mr Ebert said.

‘‘Sophisticated technical aids have been dropped altogether in Europe, and it is now realised they should be used by the teachers, not the pupils.” Mr Ebert said the great benefit to education throughout the world had been the lengthening of the period of compulsory schooling. although the gap was still too wide between developed and developing nations. Now it remained for classroom sizes to be lowered to about 25 pupils a teacher.