Publication: Learning from the Best : Improving Learning Through Effective Teacher Policies
Date
2012-02
ISSN
Published
2012-02
Author(s)
Vegas, Emiliana
Ganimian, Alejandro
Jaimovich, Analia
Abstract
An education system is only as good as
its teachers. Both developed and developing countries have
increasingly become concerned with increasing the
effectiveness of their teachers. Successful education
systems achieve the eight SABER-Teacher teacher policy goals
in different ways, but they all produce superior student and
teacher performance. The World Bank has studied
top-performing systems. These systems are particularly
effective at attracting the best individuals to the teaching
profession and preparing them exceptionally. Once teachers
enter the profession, the system grants them ample
discretion to decide how to best achieve superior student
performance and focuses on supporting them rather than
trying to steer them in any particular direction. Finland
provides a good example of this type of system. These
systems also place considerable trust in teachers. Such
systems are built on the notion that excellent teaching is
not the responsibility of a single instructor, but rather,
of the profession as a whole. Thus, they institute
mechanisms that foster collaboration and encourage teachers
to hold their peers accountable for the quality of their
work. Shanghai, China, offers a good example of this type of
system. These systems exert tight control over
teachers' daily work in the classroom. They provide
teachers with detailed guidelines, closely monitor the
execution of these guidelines, and use multiple incentives
to reward outstanding teaching. At the same time,
accountability mechanisms tackle poor teacher effort and performance.
Citation
“Vegas, Emiliana; Ganimian, Alejandro; Jaimovich, Analia. 2012. Learning from the Best : Improving Learning Through Effective Teacher Policies. Education Notes. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/51c8b4c8-5265-5f3a-b76a-a9c5d531a6d0 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”