1. The structure of teacher education in the world can be characterized by two main models – integrated and consecutive. The integrated model ensures better compliance with the modern requirements of teacher education.
2. The improvement and restructuring of the teacher education programs should be performed by ana-lyzing the requirements and the situation in the system of teacher education and not by applying general “universal” schemes. Such reforms might perhaps unify the general structure of the study programs and even reduce the costs of the initial teacher education, but in the long run this would lead to a drop in the quality of teacher education and compliance with modern requirements, as well as to increased costs of further education.
3. Not all of the graduates from the teacher profes-sional study programs go to work at schools (dur-ing recent years, in the UL in general about 70%
of graduates from the teacher study programs work at school, including 42% of graduates from full-time programs). However, a similar situation can be observed in many countries all over the world and in other study programs.
4. The issue of the increase of teacher salaries should be solved in a complex way, by analyzing the issues of the optimal number of teachers, their age structure, workload and required educational back-ground.
5. The system should be improved from training teachers to teach only one subject to educating teachers to teach two or even more subjects (especially related ones, as, for example, natural sciences, human sciences and social sciences).
6. Motivation to work at school could be increased by providing redemption of study loans from the state budget for those who have engaged in stable and long-term job relations with schools or related insti-tutions (in accordance with the regulations issued by the Ministry of Education and Science).
7. The above-mentioned and other privileges and guarantees should be applicable only to those teachers who have been licensed (certified) for this job after the acquisition of a higher education diploma in accordance with the procedure provid-ed by the state. The Ministry of Education and Sci-ence should have the right to consider the issue of annulment of accreditation for those
teacher-train-ing programs that do not provide their graduates with the said licenses.
8. There should be provision of tax allowances for those who finance teacher training in state-accred-ited higher education institutions or studies in state-accredited programs, if the institution has proved compliance with the regulations governing non-profit organizations. It should be recognized that private financiers have the right to indicate which studies, ethnic groups, religious confessions or other officially recognized activities they want to support and to meet their preferences.
9. Taking into account the ever-growing migration across national borders (already at school age), to facilitate the involvement of foreigners (who are loyal to Latvia) in the teacher profession, if they have chosen this country as their permanent future residence or have decided to stay here for a long time and are licensed to work in this profession. To achieve that the licenses received in Latvia may be used (gaining full legal power in future) to take up a job of a teacher in other countries, first of all, in the European Union Member States.
References
AIC (2000). Diplomatz¥‰anas rokasgrÇmata. R¥ga: Akadïmis-kÇs informÇcijas centrs.
Busch, F. W. (2002). New Structures for Teacher Training?
Integrative Versus Consequtive Models.ATEE 27th confer-ence, Warsaw. Green Paper on Teacher Education in Europe.
Schröder (2002). Wir brauchen ein neues Engagement für Bildung und Erziehung, www.bundeskanzler.de (retrieved 13.06.2002).
Rauhvargers A. (2002). Eiropas kopïjÇ augstÇkÇs izgl¥t¥bas politika. No Lisabonas konvencijas l¥dz Bolo¿as deklarÇ-cijai, Bolo¿as procesÇ sasniegtais un vadl¥nijas nÇkotnei.
Latvijas vïsture. Jaunie un jaunÇkie laiki. 1 (45), pp. 9–21.
Pelgrum, W. J. & Anderson, R. E. (Eds.) (2000). ICT and the Emerging Paradigm for Life Long Learning: a Worldwide Educational Assessment of Infrastructure, Goals and Practices. The Netherlands: University of Twente, 361 pp.
Toffler, A. & Toffler, F. (1994). Creating a New Civilization.
The Politics of the Third Wave.Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc.
Summary
The professional development of teachers is of paramount importance, because the number of young teachers is small with a tendency to decrease.
The curriculum development and the introduction of new approaches are left in the hands of teachers who received their professional training some time ago.
Excellence requires that new professional develop-ment programs are available to teachers through in-service programs.
However, there are several external constraints, which impede the development of an effective in-service teacher training system. Schoolchildren appear to be the losers, because equal access to education as defined in the Education Law is not provided. This paper explores the constraints to providing in-service training, isolates their causes, and recommends sev-eral improvements designed to be feasible as well as affordable.
Problem
Delegating the responsibility to local governments and schools to provide teachers with professional development opportunities causes additional inequal-ities among schools, which can and cannot adhere to this important requirement. Hence, equal education opportunities for schoolchildren are threatened.
Introduction
According to the Concept for Professional Devel-opment of Teachers, there are two independent paths for professional development:
1) “continuing further education according to study programs at higher education institutionsand 2) systematic ongoing professional developmentin
professional development programs”.
About 10% of working teachers continue their edu-cation in academic or professional study programs.
This study will focus on the second path, i.e., pro-fessional development of teachers, because it is a more accessible, faster and more flexible way to fol-low systematically innovations in teaching and to encourage learning of schoolchildren. Approximately 340,000 schoolchildren study at general education schools in Latvia with nearly 34,000 working teachers.
Approximately 70% of teachers, (nearly 24,000) par-ticipate in professional development programs.
Professional development of teachers is of para-mount importance because the number of young teachers is small with a tendency to decrease. (Only 20% of young teachers who have graduated from universities choose to work at schools (Table 1).) Con-sequently, curriculum development and introduction of new approaches depends on teachers who have had their professional training some time ago, and
Development System
MÇr¥te Seile(School Support Centre)
regard to the education system in general and the sys-tem of professional development in particular.1