Raising Teacher Quality
Countries that excel in education
use a wide array of purposeful
strategies to build an outstanding
teacher workforce.
Vivien Stewart
All across the globe, countries are trying to improve education. Some countries are in the earlier stages of education development, mainly striving to expand access to ele- mentary and lower secondary education
and to ensure transmission of basic skills; in these nations,
reformers are less concerned with the quality of the
teaching force than with just getting enough teachers
into classrooms. Other countries are entering the global
knowledge economy and seeking to prepare their students with the complex, higher-order cognitive skills that
economy demands; in these nations, the major focus is
strengthening the quality and effectiveness of the teacher
workforce (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development [OECD], 2005).
Contrary to what many people assume, a high-quality
teacher workforce is not the simple result of some traditional cultural respect for teachers. Rather, it requires
deliberate policy choices. High-performing countries build
their human resource systems by putting the energy up
front; they concentrate on attracting, preparing, and supporting good teachers and nurturing teacher leadership
talent, rather than on reducing teacher attrition and firing
