A properly functioning standards-based teacher certification system has the ability to improve teaching quality, as it would provide incentives for all teachers to work towards high professional standards, ACER Principal Research Fellow Dr Lawrence Ingvarson told delegates at an international seminar on teacher education held in Brazil in November.

Dr Ingvarson was a keynote speaker at the seminar on Innovation and Quality in Teacher Training and Professional Development, which was organised by Brazil’s Instituto Singularidades. Around 500 people, mostly from Latin America, attended the seminar in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where efforts are being made at the national level to reform teacher career structures and pay systems so that there is a closer alignment between career progression and developing expertise as a teacher.

Dr Ingvarson’s presentation focused on using professional certification to promote, recognise and reward accomplished teaching. He explained that a standards-based certification system makes decisions at key transition points in a teacher’s career, such as graduation, registration (entry to the profession) and advanced professional certification.

“Unlike bonus pay schemes, professional standards cover the full range of what good teachers are expected to know and be able to do to promote quality learning,” said Dr Ingvarson. 

Dr Ingvarson argued that professional standards provide a more valid basis on which to assess a teacher’s knowledge and skill than student performance on standardised tests. Professional standards also provide more useful feedback about how a teacher might need to improve.  The certification process in itself, he argued, improves teachers’ ability to improve student learning. 

According to Dr Ingvarson, the benefits of certification schemes include making teaching more attractive to abler graduates by providing a basis for higher salaries, increasing incentives for professional learning, and more interesting career paths for accomplished teachers. He pointed to research that shows teachers who gain professional certification are significantly more likely to remain in teaching.

“Conversely,” Dr Ingvarson said, “if a standards-based certification system was working well it would lead teachers who could not attain the standards to consider other occupations.”

To be effective, Dr Ingvarson advised that certification at advanced levels should be a voluntary career step that most teachers aspire to. Furthermore, it should be something achievable by most teachers given opportunities for professional learning, not just an elite few.

Dr Ingvarson said that teachers are more likely to aspire to certification if they have a sense of ownership of the process, such as is achieved by placing the teacher whose performance is being assessed in the active position of being asked to show they meet the standards in their school context. Examples of how a teacher might show this include: samples of lesson plans and associated student work over time; videotapes of classroom interaction with supporting teacher commentary; and records of contribution to the school and professional community.

He contrasts this to the passive position that is typical of many merit pay schemes using evaluation methods such as classroom observation, student ratings forms, supervisor reports and national tests of student achievement.

“I see teaching standards and the ability to apply them as a means for teachers to gain their credentials as a profession,” said Dr Ingvarson.

The full conference paper, Professional Certification: Promoting, Recognising and Rewarding Accomplished Teaching by Dr Lawrence Ingvarson, is available at: http://works.bepress.com/lawrence_ingvarson1/189/

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