Curriculum Reform in TVET
Jessica Gerrard and Lesley Farrell on 10th December 2013 published a curriculum studies journal titled Remaking the professional teacher: authority and curriculum reform. In their work, they examined the new Australian Curriculum and the improvements it had incorporated in redefining the professional authority of the teacher. Gerrard and Farrell focused mainly on evaluating how judgments about the professional authority of teachers are in defending, promoting as well as explaining to others the Australian Curriculum (Gerrard & Farrell, 2014). Both secondary data, which was collected through a review of policy documents and primary data collected through interviews of key educational policymakers, were used to conclude. It is argued in the paper that the teachers have the power to make a decision on whether to implement the policies or not. Some quotes are subject to the reaction. For example, from the Gerrard & Farrell (2014), P. 639 reading: It is the intersection between the curriculum document – the material text – and the teachers’ everyday pedagogical and curricular decisions in the classroom that is important.
Teaching as a profession requires an expert to make numerous decisions daily, and this can either be within the classroom environment or even outside the classroom but within the school environment (Taylor & Richards, 2018). The decisions are said to have an impact on the students and pupils (Taylor & Richards, 2018). In my own opinion, the argument by Gerrard & Farrell that decision making by teachers should be guided by both policy documents and their daily pedagogical is true a fills the gap between policy statements, which in some instances end up being dismissed and ignored and the teacher’s professional authority. The statement widens the scope of decision making on matters related to curriculum activities (Gerrard & Farrell, 2014). As a result, teachers make decisions not only dependent on the evaluation of policies but also incorporates their personal experiences in the field (Lewis & Holloway, 2019). The teacher’s experiences and knowledge are wide-ranging from the student’s background information, history of their behavior, as well as how to deal with it from previous experience, students’ ability, interest as well as morale among others.
How will intersection affect any educational change in TVET?
In Australian TVET colleges, the quality of training has been questionable, especially when it comes to job searching. This has been attributed to mistrust between the tutors and the industrial policymakers, therefore, calling for the intersection to overcome the challenge. The intersection will eventually lead to designing of need-based education policies for different regions with different felt needs in TVET colleges. In corporation of both the experiences of the tutors in the formulation of industrial policies would help overcome the challenge. This would eventually minimize conflicts and high productive learning realized in the schools (Snaza et al., 2016). In addition to this, increased work productivity of the tutors will be realized, and the students’ abilities and talents will eventually be well nurtured. Finally, in the long run, it enhances the teacher’s problem-solving skills and promotes their creativity, and job-seeking trainees will no longer be questionable.
The intersection of both policy guidelines and prior experience of the teacher would lead to nations and other employers realizing the importance of involving teachers with different experiences in the policymaking council. As a result, tutors who are the implementers will make sense of ownership of the policies since they were involved in making them. Therefore they won’t feel manipulated, and their knowledge overlooked. This would reduce the wastage of resources in designing policies that end up ignored and dismissed. The resources can, therefore, be redirected to other activities for the betterment of education programs (Snaza et al., 2016).
In conclusion, I would recommend Australian educational policymakers as well as those from other states to adopt the intersection method recommended in the journal whereby designed educational policies can adapt the different needs of different individuals. This will eventually lead to increased work productivity among teachers as well as tutors and more effectiveness in teaching realized. Job seeking will also be easy for the trainees upon the building of trust between their trainers and future employers.
References
Gerrard, J., & Farrell, L. (2014). Remaking the professional teacher: Authority and curriculum reform. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46(5), 634-655.
Lewis, S., & Holloway, J. (2019). Satisfying the teaching ‘profession’: Remaking the professional teacher in the image of data. Cambridge Journal of Education, 49(1), 35-51.
Snaza, N., Sonu, D., Truman, S. E., & Zaliwska, Z. (2016). Pedagogical Matters: New materialisms and curriculum studies. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
Taylor, P. H., & Richards, C. M. (2018). An introduction to curriculum studies. Routledge.