Would-be teacher cannot find the way
Part-time and lateral entrants to teacher training courses can no longer see the wood for the trees. So come up with a student-friendly overview of what is on offer, advises the Education Inspectorate.
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Teacher training courses come in many shapes and sizes. And that is, given the large teacher shortage, and that's a good thing. But all those routes and variants do lead to confusion for students and educational institutions, it turns out from research by the Education Inspectorate towards customization in part-time teacher training programs. The result: students do not always find the direction that suits them best.
Elbow
A quarter of the students who start teacher training do not follow the 'regular path'. They are side entrants, study part-time or already work in education and want to expand their teaching qualification. For them, there must be one counter per region where they can go with all their questions.
Students do not always find the direction that suits them best
It also appears that the chosen form of education does not always fit in well with the background, skills and knowledge of students. That is why the inspectorate wants to call on teacher training courses to have all part-time students take a 'start assessment': for which subjects can they be exempted and which subjects must they take?
Once there is a good overview of what is on offer, the education itself can be more flexible. According to the inspectorate, there are currently limited options for adapting the program to individual students. They mainly complain that they cannot combine their education with other work and their private situation.
Vision
To tackle this, teacher training courses need to work better with each other and with the government, the inspectorate writes in its report. The first steps have already been taken. Before the summer, Minister Van Engelshoven discussed improvements with the Association of Universities of Applied Sciences and the VSNU university association. That's where the idea of a one-stop shop came up. They also want to reduce the high dropout rate during second-grade teacher training courses and interest more potential teachers in teaching in (v) mbo.
The Association of Universities of Applied Sciences and the VSNU university association will present a joint vision on training future teachers in the autumn.
