Initial Teacher Training - the elephant in the room
As part of our advocacy work, we have collected and presented feedback from teachers and trainee teachers on the literacy curriculum components of initial teacher education programmes in New Zealand.
We hope this report will help the Teaching Council, NZEI and Ministry of Education to evaluate the design and settings around ITE programmes in New Zealand so that teachers graduate ready to teach using the most up-to-date and effective methodologies across the curriculum, but especially in literacy.
We received 237 responses. Our survey was open for one month from 29 November to 28 December 2021 and was promoted through Facebook.
Read the report here.
Summary of feedback
Almost all respondents, including those, who have graduated in the last 5 years felt very ill prepared to enter a classroom and teach children to read and write. Almost 60% rated their literacy training as either very poor or poor. Some even said they received no training in literacy at all.
Many commented that they found the literacy learning in their programme to be outdated and needs to focus on up-to-date research - not what we have already done for years. Many wanted to see the science of reading and structured literacy the core content to be taught.
Many also felt that the training as not nearly as detailed or practical as they needed and most recommend that the teaching of literacy should comprise between 25% and 40% of a teaching qualification as it is the foundational skills for all other areas of learning.
Many felt that the one year diploma was not long enough and should be extended to two years, or that teaching only be a 3 or 4 year degree course. Some also wanted to see teaching be a Masters level course only and pointed to overseas models.
Teachers in the field wanted opportunities to influence the content of programmes and more accountability and transparency from universities on the content and quality of programmes.
