KEY COMPETENCES OF VET TEACHERS - PROJECT RESULTS

Tatiana Babrauskiene, FLESTU-LETUETUI-ETUCE Training SeminarVET in Lifelong Learning – the role of teachers’ unionVilnius, March 29-31, 2011

TRANSFORMING VET TEACHINGVocational teachers and trainers are essential

to supporting skills development in the workforce…

In many countries vocational teachers have a low professional status which is accompanied by a fragmentation of the profession through the variety of existing profiles and multiple ways of teacher training and recruitment. In addition their skills and competencies are not updated and their salaries are sometimes too low and the workload too big.

FROM THE GOOD TO THE BESTLDV - PARTNERSHIP - PROJECTLLP-LDV-PRT-2009-LT-0092

The professionalization of teachers and trainers is a key objective of European cooperation in the area of education and training.

QUESTIONNAIRECompetence Profile of

Teachers/Trainers in Vocational Education Training – VET - in Europe

ARE WE DIFFERENT?English: Teacher Trainer

Lithuanian: Mokytojas

MokytojasTreneris - Sport

Italian: Insegnante

Formatore – AIF(= Associazione Italiana Formatori)

Finnish: Opettaja Opettaja – Kouluttaja (Adult ED               - Valmentaja (Coach-Sport)

German: Lehrer (theory at school)

 Ausbilder (practice in an enterprise)

 

Similarities and differences between VET teachers and trainers – divergence or convergence?

In response to the evolving of the VET system clearer professional profiles of VET teachers should be developed and stronger focus to increasing VET teachers’ own skills and competences given.

WHAT’S NEW AND CHALLENGING FOR VET TEACHERS? Competence requirements to VET teachers are

changing. Curriculum development and designs in the process of being decentralised, and teachers are becoming more directly involved in curriculum planning, often in cooperation with enterprises.

The requirements to skills and competences of trainees are also developing and the pace of change is increasing.

Teachers should increasingly orient themselves towards working in self-reflective development teams, building among other things on well-developed relations with relevant networks of enterprises. Another challenge is the necessity to co-operate with employers and local stakeholders.

THE COMPETENCES IDENTIFIED ON THE BASIS OF THE TASK PROFILES OF IVET TEACHERS ARE:

  Administration: knowledge and understanding of QA

systems, ability to record individual student progress; Pedagogy: ability to use a wide range of teaching

strategies, ability to use learning theories, ability to use reflective practice to improve teaching skills, ICT;

Development: ability to evaluate through feedback and reflection, ability to update subject-specific knowledge;

Quality Assurance: ability to produce accurate records, ability to contribute to quality cycles, ability to reflect on evaluate professional performance;

Networking: ability to liaise with external bodies such as schools, employers, careers services etc.

CHALLENGES The school world and the VET education

system cannot alone bear the responsibility for the provision of vocational education and training.

VET teachers need a strong support of systematic and ongoing professional development.

Policy makers should take more responsibility for ongoing and non stopping reforms.

Teachers’ trade unions need to play a major role in supporting the professional development of teachers and trainers, and be involved in policy formation in this area at all levels.

SOME RECOMMENDATIONS A deep and active involvement of the SP in the

development and provision of VET is very important; good partnerships between SP and VET schools are to

be developed and maintained; the SP should be encouraged to take upon themselves

an important role in the on going developments of VET; the SP should strengthen their capacities for

contributing actively to VET development. At the system level, this may mean the participation in the projects, the establishment of networks, methods and tools which can provide information on, possibly emerging, skills needs and competence requirements in specific segments of the labour market, and channel this information into the policy making process.