Professionalism In Education

Professional recognition was sought after by teachers in many western countries since public schooling was introduced in the nineteenth century. The concept however was redefined more recently by governments by ‘colonizing’ professionalism, imposing ‘standards’ & supposedly working collectively with teachers to ensure quality student learning. But in terms of how that quality is defined and how it is measured, more specifically the science curriculum, differences of opinion can sometimes emerge. The science curriculum is a focus of repeated reform in many countries. However, the implementation of such reforms within schools rarely reproduces the proposed outcomes of curriculum designers [Kahle, 2007]. Significantly, teaching is unique in that unlike other professions such as medicine and law, where an expert based regulation authority is in place, it is heavily …show more content…
Interestingly, both agree on the fact that teaching as a profession requires that of flexibility and not an authoritarian style however, Tanang et al [2014] goes on further to say that teaching needs to be accompanied by external measures. Explaining how ‘the consistency in supporting teachers encourages the innovation in teaching practice for the improvement of personal and career as the member of school communities.’ Tanang et al [2014]’s research concluded that the responsibility of student learning isn’t just solely the responsibility of the teacher, but rather as a community, including parents too, could enhance student knowledge. It was important to note though, this study took place in Indonesia, highlighting the point made by Helsby [1995] that professionalism is based on cultural and geographical differences. However, I saw this an opportunity to put this theory into practise in the UK, albeit not to the full scale as Tanang et al [2014] did, but rather a smaller scale to see whether the theory held some truth in the