By Alexandra Noad, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Faculty of Education deans across the province are sharing concerns about the Government of Alberta announcement for expedited teaching certificates announced last Friday.
Lisa Starr, Dean for Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge, believes these expedited certificates will actually compromise the quality of education for Alberta’s students, as seen from evidence in the United States.
“We’ve seen evidence from the U.S., where they’ve done expedited certificates for various different jurisdictions, where people have been put in classrooms with lack of preparation, the way we conceive it in post-secondary,” she says. “When they’re not as prepared, student achievement goes down, and it’s a measurable difference.”
Being prepared to be a teacher is more than just being an expert in a particular subject and Starr, along with other deans across the province believe that there are many skills these fast-tracked teachers will miss out on gaining.
Starr says education is much more than just telling kids things.
“We spend a considerable amount of time on pedagogical skills, strategies to work with diverse learners and how to build assessment tools and practices that are reflective to student learning.”
Another concern Starr has, is the lack of depth these courses may have for those taking the courses.
She says one of the modules in one of the certificates has a combination of three different modules, which under the normal education degree would spend up to 200 hours on, which would be impossible under the expedited certificates.
While the entire province is dealing with the shortage of teachers, it is more prominent in rural areas.
Starr believes this new expedited system may end up making the education a two tiered system, where remote communities are desperate to fill vacancies, they end up with the teachers that took the expedited route.
“(While) there’s no evidence to suggest that’s going to be the case, there’s certainly is the risk of that and if I was a parent at this point, I would be asking a lot of questions about the differences between someone who has that four or five year education and someone who has spent less than a year learning how to teach their son or daughter.”
She adds that deans across the province are advocating for more seats and funding for their full education programs to preserve the rich history of teaching Alberta is known for.
“This model has not been successful in other jurisdictions, so why would we do it here? We have a great reputation for education in Alberta, why are we sacrificing that?”
By Alexandra Noad, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Lethbridge Herald
