source: http://www.topoftherocknyc.com

Teaching is a complex profession that requires a range of knowledge, skills, and practices. It also has a human, emotional, and relational dimension. I have been a teacher for almost 20 years and despite multiple degrees, constant professional learning, and decades of experience, I am still constantly learning and incrementally improving in terms of my teaching practice.

Last week UK education secretary, Justine Greening, announced that higher apprenticeships will become a technical route to teaching in the UK. That is, someone wanting to become a teacher will not need to earn a university degree, but will be able to do so via a vocational path.

That the Schools Week article suggests that low apprenticeship wages will be a cost-saving measure for schools suggests that an apprenticeship pathway to a teaching career is about cheaper, faster labour, rather than how to train teachers in the best way. This has been pointed out by Laura McInerney who says, “This shift to apprenticeships, therefore, starts to look like a way to pay A LOT of teachers a low-wage throughout their ‘training’ years —  and never pay many of them a full wage,” undermining Greening’s claim that she wants teaching to remain a highly regarded, high status profession.

McInerney also notes that teachers are very attached to the notion of our profession as a graduate one, in which a university degree provides part of the foundation. As a member of the profession, I feel this, and have been challenged on social media about whether I am being a snob about qualifications by being critical of the notion of apprenticeship teacher training. Others, too, have been accused of elitism for opposing the apprenticeship idea.

Even though these reforms are being suggested in the UK rather than Australia (and it has been almost 10 years since I have taught in the UK), I’ve been thinking about it over the last week. Why do I believe that teachers should have a degree? Is resistance akin to snobby elitism, or is this a key issue on which we must hold the line?

As part of my current role I place student teachers at my school for their teaching practicums, and I wonder if all schools provide appropriate workplace learning environments. But much of my gut feeling about an apprenticeship route to the classroom is around a belief that teaching should be a valued, knowledgeable and skilled profession. Teachers should be respected members of our communities. I don’t think a degree is sufficient for teaching–it’s not all we need–but I think it is necessary. A degree provides a foundation of knowledge, integrity, and credibility, in terms of subject knowledge and theoretical knowledge of teaching itself. It is also about the skillset we get through the process of a university degree. My various university qualifications, including the PhD, have provided me with the bedrock for the learning I do every day in the course of my career. My university studies also show my students, and the school community, that I value education and have expertise to share. The qualifications of a school’s leaders and teachers are often published, demonstrating the education foundation of that school’s staff and suggesting their capacity to educate the students in their care.

What do you think? Should teachers have university degrees or are more vocational pathways to the career appropriate? Can an apprenticeship have parity with a degree? Does learning teaching ‘on the job’ make sense? Or will apprenticeship options, and related wages and conditions, devalue and demoralise the profession?