engleski

Initial teacher education - does it educate competent teachers?

Croatia, as a transitional country, is going through complex changes of its educational system. One of the important parts of educational system is, certainly, initial and in-service teacher education, which should go through that changes as well. In this research the focus is on initial teacher education. The main problem, when we discuss initial teacher education in Croatia, is the lack of applied research in this field. What we know is that the current model of initial teacher education is mainly based on traditional views of the teacher role where the emphasis is on transmission of factual knowledge to students. Some of the previous research showed that, when it comes to practical knowledge and skills needed to cope with everyday school situations, teachers feel quite unprepared when they enter the classroom for the first time. According to that, in this research we tried to get the insight into different teacher education system participants’ perception of initial teacher education quality indicators. A questionnaire of level of satisfaction with initial teacher education, in terms of acquired knowledge and skills necessary for a competent teacher, was applied on representative sample of classroom and subject teachers in primary schools and students of educational faculties and colleges (this questionnaire was developed specifically for this research). We were also interested to find out how the students and teachers rate the quality of some basic aspects of their faculties’ organization (e.g. teaching methods of university teachers, curriculum contents). Results indicate that different participants’ satisfaction with specific knowledge and skills acquired during their initial education is, in general, quite low. Further analysis of the results revealed that, compared to the teachers, students express lower level of satisfaction with their education. Results obtained in the analysis of participants’ ratings of quality of their faculties’ organization show that some organizational aspects are rated quite low and some are rated somewhat better. The general trend here also indicates that the students rate organizational quality lower than the teachers. We could say that the findings of this research are rather worrying because the teachers, as well as the students, perceive that their initial education doesn’ t provide them enough possibility for acquiring knowledge and skills necessary for their complex and demanding profession. The results indicate some limitations of the current system and point out the need for the urgent and complex changes of initial teacher education. These changes should result in better-prepared teachers which will be qualified for effective problem solving in their everyday work and which will also be aware of the importance of continuous in-service education. These changes should also facilitate the process of harmonization of Croatian teacher education model with the teacher education models in EU.

initial teacher education; teachers' and students' perceptions; acquired knowledge and skills

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