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04/11/2004 - Good teachers are essential for the success of school systems but they aren’t always easy to find or to keep. Education authorities will discuss how to ensure continued high teaching quality while attracting new teachers into the profession at an OECD conference in Amsterdam on 18-19 November 2004.
The conference will coincide with release of the results of Teachers Matter: Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers, a two-year study of teacher policy issues in 25 countries. Many teachers who were recruited during the 1960s and 1970s are now nearing retirement, raising the challenge of how to replace their professional experience. At the same time, however, this opens up a once-in-a-generation opportunity for substantial changes in teacher workforces.
The Amsterdam conference, co-organised by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, will bring together government officials, researchers and representatives of teacher unions and other stakeholder groups to discuss the conclusions of Teachers Matter and appropriate policy responses at national level. The conference will be open to the media. A news briefing with selected participants is planned for 12.45 p.m. on Friday 19 November.
The conference will be opened by the Minister of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, Maria van der Hoeven. Keynote addresses will be given on Thursday morning by Professor Andy Hargreaves of Boston College, on the role of teachers in educational change, and on Friday afternoon by Professor Victor Lavy of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, on the links between resources, teacher incentives and student achievement. For full details of the programme, see http://www.minocw.nl/congres_ocw-oecd Workshop sessions will address a range of specific policy challenges, including:
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improving the attractiveness of teaching,
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developing teachers’ skills and knowledge,
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improving teacher effectiveness in schools,
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involving teachers in policy development and implementation.
To register for the conference and news briefing, and to receive an advance text of Teachers Matter, journalists are invited to contact the OECD’s Media Relations Division (tel. (33) 1 4524 9700). For further information, journalists are invited to contact Phillip McKenzie in the OECD’s Directorate for Education (tel. (33) 1 4524 9227).
More information on teacher policy can be found at www.oecd.org/edu/teacherpolicy
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