Universities planning to launch postgraduate courses in education next spring to provide prospective teachers with in-depth, wide-ranging training number only 21 across the country, apparently reflecting universities' skepticism about the wisdom of offering such courses.
The planned postgraduate courses for those aspiring to teach are a centerpiece of recommendations the Central Council for Education, an advisory body to the education, science and technology minister, made in its report in July 2006, for improving the quality and competence of teachers.
In response to surging public criticism of the decline in teachers' ability to instruct their students and manage other school affairs, the council called for the creation of the postgraduate teacher training courses along with the introduction of a teaching certificate renewal system.
Like postgraduate law schools that were established in April 2004 to foster highly specialized judicial knowledge and skills, the master's courses for future teachers are supposed to equip enrollees with sufficient competence to serve as full-fledged teachers immediately after obtaining teaching positions.
The courses are also intended to train teachers currently working in primary, middle and high schools to help them play a leading role in dealing with a host of problems facing today's education system.
The education council in its report in July last year noted that about 40 percent of instructors of the postgraduate courses for teachers should have years of experience running classrooms.
Some universities have already set up two-year postgraduate education expert training programs. Among them is one in which instructors from the universities give practical advice to school principals by accompanying them while they are on duty at their respective schools.
The 21 universities--15 state-run and six private ones--that have applied for ministry approval to commence the new postgraduate courses seems to be unexpectedly low number compared with the number of universities with education departments where students can qualify for teaching certificates.
As of April 2006, 570 universities were offering four-year undergraduate programs in education for those seeking teaching licenses, including 47 state-run universities that are exclusively for students who aspire to be teachers.
The 21 universities that have plans to open the teaching specialist postgraduate courses are located in various regions of the country, but about half of the nation's prefectures will have no such courses at the start of the system next spring.
This compares with the 72 universities that made applications for government approval to open postgraduate law schools in the system's initial year of 2004.
A key factor behind the small number of universities set to establish postgraduate courses in education seems to be the heavy burdens involved in setting up such programs.
Most of the courses are expected to have several dozen students enrolled, while each university planning to offer the program is required to have at least 11 full-time instructors.
Because of the high instructor-to-student ratio, many universities appear to find it difficult to make such courses compatible with existing postgraduate programs aimed at training research specialists in various fields.
Under the circumstances, a plan is being studied by a number of universities in the Kansai region to jointly establish a single postgraduate teacher-training course.
From the viewpoint of university management, schools understandably see more advantage to providing training to current teachers seeking to renew their licenses.
One university professor who will be in charge of the university's postgraduate course in education said: "Postgraduate courses have so far been mostly for the purpose of teaching enrollees professional knowledge in specified fields of learning. The courses for teaching specialists, by contrast, are for developing enrollees' practical capabilities as teachers, or a kind of artisan in educational activities."
However, there will be no differences in the degrees of teaching certificates between those finishing the conventional postgraduate courses and those undergoing the courses specializing in boosting teaching capabilities.
In addition, it is unclear what better working conditions current teachers will be entitled to when they finish the postgraduate courses.
Furthermore, as a result of mass retirement of teachers of the baby-boomer generation, job offers for prospective teachers are sharply rising, more than 1,000 a year at primary schools alone in major cities.
Given the situation, many analysts say there will be not so many students opting to continue on to postgraduate courses to become teachers.
The launch of the postgraduate teacher-training courses will certainly tighten the relationship between universities and boards of education that employ teachers at public schools.
The universities with plans to establish postgraduate courses have found it indispensable to strengthen their collaboration with boards of education to ensure that the boards will help course enrollees find schools where they intern. The universities also hope to see the boards of education help the students of the courses find teaching positions.
Noteworthy in this connection is that an increasing number of local governments, including the Tokyo metropolitan government, have set up their own programs for undergraduates who want to be teachers, in a bid to secure competent prospective teachers to weather the teacher shortage.
The launch of the postgraduate courses for students wishing to acquire specialist job skills as teachers will be certain to change the relationship between those who employ teachers and those who train them.
Nakanishi is a senior writer of The Yomiuri Shimbun.
(Jul. 10, 2007)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070710TDY04003.htm
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