Teacher Evaluation in Portugal - OECD Review
Education systems play a fundamental role in enhancing economic growth and social cohesion, developing young people to reach their full potential and underpinning healthy and vibrant societies. Student learning is influenced by many factors. These include the student's own skills, expectations, motivation and behaviour along with the support they receive from their families and the influence of their peer group. School organisation, resources and climate; curriculum structure and content; and teacher skills, knowledge, attitudes and practices are also critical factors and the focus of attention for policymakers.
Schools and classrooms are complex, dynamic environments and within them, effective teachers are enthusiastic and creative, convey ideas in clear and convincing ways, provide stimulating learning environments for different types of students, foster productive teacher-student relationships and work effectively with colleagues and parents. This was confirmed in many countries in the just-published OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS).
Teachers are critical to the success of Portugal's efforts to raise its education standards. Teachers need feedback on their performance to help them identify how to better shape and improve their teaching practice and, with the support of effective school leadership, to develop schools as professional learning communities. At the same time, teachers should be accountable for their performance and progress in their careers on the basis of demonstrated effective teaching practice.
The key challenge for education reform in Portugal now is to implement meaningful teacher evaluation as a tool to lifting education performance and to recognise teachers as professionals deeply committed to improving the learning outcomes of their students. This report provides an external, independent review of teacher evaluation in Portugal and offers our assessment of the strengths of the current model and ways in which it needs to be improved in order to be successfully implemented.
It is important to recognise that the present model of teacher evaluation provides a good basis for further development and the way forward is to build on the significant gains that have already been made, while addressing the weaknesses. The review team found a high degree of general consensus among the teaching profession that meaningful teacher evaluation is indispensable. This is a major achievement and provides the basis and scope for moving towards successful implementation.
The task now for Portugal is to develop the roadmap and timeline for managing the transition to a more robust model for career progression, while consolidating the use of developmental evaluation for teachers within the schools that includes classroom observation for all teachers and rich qualitative feedback.
Long abstract