Teacher Certification and Licensing: A step towards quality education in Pakistan

The National Education Policy formed in 2009 stipulates this strategy to improve education standards

ISLAMABAD:

Undoubtedly, pupils’ alarmingly low learning levels reflect on the quality of the national education system and their teachers. Though the list is not exhaustive, some of the key issues related to the quality of existing teachers in Pakistan stem from systemic gaps such as a politicised system of recruitment and deployment; irrational teacher educators’ deployment in teacher education institutions; insufficient resources and continuous professional development (CPD) opportunities, and the absence of a robust quality assurance (QA) mechanism.

Policy outlines 

Raising the quality of education has received substantial attention as it has been brought to the forefront of the education reform agenda in the recent past. Resultantly, it was the crux of the student-centred National Education Policy (NEP) 2009.

Based on the premise that pupils’ academic achievement is closely associated with quality teaching and governance, the need for capacity building of teachers and quality assurance in education was stipulated by the NEP. Two key strategies have been identified by the policy and endorsed by provincial governments to achieve this purpose, teachers’ licensing and the introduction of National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) 2009.

The NPST provides a framework and potential mechanism for teachers’ performance assessment, based on acquisition of competencies detailed in the Standards, mainly pedagogical skills and the ability to facilitate effective learning. The rationale behind the policy initiative was to formulate a system that rewards excellent practice, innovation, attracts high achievers to the profession and sustains motivated teachers.

Certified teachers

Teacher certification is usually mandatory in most countries and is used as a means of capacity building of those who enter the profession. The benefits of teacher licensing include increased assurance and confidence of parents and pupils in the teachers’ knowledge, attributes, professionalism, skills and training.

Moreover, other stakeholders, such as education managers will have access to a large pool of suitably qualified teachers. At a higher management level, education departments and institutes of teacher education would be able to regulate and manage teachers and have accurate data for deployment, subject specialisation and strategic planning. Similarly, planning for continuous professional development and structured career development path for serving teachers would be streamlined.

Aspiring teachers would benefit from the certification initiative the most. They will be able to demonstrate their professionalism while feeling secure and confident that they meet the universal and transparent standards and competencies. Standardisation in the profession would help them use their licence to teach in public and private sectors.

Existing teachers were also taken into account in devising the policy which stipulated a phased approach to the implementation of licensing. The process would be initiated with new teachers for acquisition of Quality Teacher Status (QTS) and encourage existing teacher workforce to upgrade their qualifications. Newly-developed continuous professional development programmes or in-service Associate Degree in Education (ADE) and BEd (Hons) would be bridging courses for facilitating serving teachers.

The challenges

Introducing teacher licensing at the provincial level as an integral part of systematic implementation of NEP posed considerable challenges. The absence of accurate data of serving teachers required the development of a reliable teacher mapping/projection system. Moreover, teachers’ deployment and hiring would be affected due to licensing, while motivating serving teachers to upgrade their qualification would require incentives such as linking licensing with a developmental and motivational career path as well as continuous professional development opportunities. For the latter, collaborating with CPD service providers to develop provincial frameworks for teacher certification and ensuring quality trainings are provided in teacher education institutions (TEI) was another challenge. Extensive capacity building of teacher-educators staff and governance of teacher training institutes would be essential to meet the requirements of the licensing framework.

Above all, to effectively manage and regulate the licensing initiative the establishment of a body or an agency that has the capacity to develop strategic measures for teacher education and quality teaching procedures would be crucial. The organisation would be required to undertake research and collaborate with other strategic bodies responsible for curriculum and textbook development to recommend future direction for CPD. Thus, creating synergy within the education system would be necessary to achieve the desired teacher education goals. It was anticipated that suitably trained and experienced team to staff such an organisation would be another challenge for the provinces.

To overcome some of these challenges the first priority was ensure serving teachers and their unions were on board in the process and that their apprehensions are addressed through open consultation and policy dialogue. Implementation of the education policy after the devolution of education to the provinces was a tall order. The provinces were not sufficiently prepared for this large-scale structural change. Nevertheless, all provinces have undertaken these reform initiatives. The Provincial Teacher Education Strategies 2013 have been developed and are in place to guide teacher education reforms in all provinces.



Among the provinces, Sindh has taken the lead in implementing teacher certification and licensing whereas a roadmap has been developed in Punjab. Azad Jammu & Kashmir established the Teacher Certification and Licensing Authority in 2011 albeit it is not functional yet.

In Sindh, an apex and regulatory body, Sindh Teacher Education Development Authority (STEDA), was established in 2012 to coordinate Teacher Education Development. The key function of these authorities is to help raise standards of education through teacher accountability by which teacher training service delivery would also meet the accreditation requirements.

STEDA will facilitate teacher licensing, modify teachers’ recruitment and service rules to ensure merit-based hiring takes place. So far, the STEDA has formed a committee for teacher education provincial coordination and initiated the implementation of capacity building for quality assurance, while its policies and tools have been prepared and a Teacher Certification and Licensing Framework has been developed.

Overall, teacher licensing as a means of quality assurance would benefit the education system and new teachers in particular. These initiatives are a leap in the right direction and would facilitate improving the quality of education in the country, provided they are implemented and a high level of quality, transparency and accountability standards are maintained. The extent to which these initiatives will impact education quality and pupils’ learning levels is, however, yet to be determined.

The writer is an educationist and an adviser for the Aao Parhao campaign

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2015.