Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development: A Global Perspective (Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices) 9819958644, 9789819958641

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Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices

Jian Li

Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development A Global Perspective

Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices Series Editors Eryong Xue, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Simon Marginson, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Jian Li, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

This book series explores education policy on Pre-K, K-12, post-secondary education, and vocational education, informing multiple experts from academia to practitioner, and specifically pays focuses on new frontiers and cutting-edge knowledge that transforms future education policy development. It has been initiated by a global group of education policy research centers and institutions, whose faculty and staff includes internationally recognized researchers in comparative education policy studies. The series’ mission is to advance the modernization of the education and social construction. This series provides policymakers and researchers with an in-depth understanding of international education policy from diverse perspectives. Topics include cutting-edge and multidisciplinary studies on identifying, analyzing and uncovering education policy reform and practice among the fields in education policy and pedagogy. It addresses how education policy shapes the development of education systems in different regions and seeks to explain how specific education policies concentrate on accelerating the development of quality education and social progress. More importantly, this book series offers policymakers and educational stakeholders, government, and private sectors a comprehensive lens to investigate the trends, rationales of education policy development internationally.

Jian Li

Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development A Global Perspective

Jian Li China Institute of Education Policy Faculty of Education Beijing Normal University Beijing, China

ISSN 2730-6356 ISSN 2730-6364 (electronic) Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices ISBN 978-981-99-5864-1 ISBN 978-981-99-5865-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5865-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Paper in this product is recyclable.

Preface

This book examines the pre-service teacher education policy development from various perspectives. It involves investigating pre-service teacher education policy development in the United States, pre-service teacher education policy development in the UK, pre-service teacher education development in Japan, pre-service teacher education development in Canada, pre-service teacher education policy development in Singapore, pre-service teacher education policy development in Australia, pre-service teacher education policy development in Russia, and pre-service teacher education policy development in China. It also offers a comprehensive perspective to epitomize a global landscape of pre-service teacher education policy development globally. In addition, this book also offers specific suggestions and strategies to address various challenges and problems of pre-service teacher education policies relatively. Chapter 1 explores American pre-service teacher education policy development. Scientific and reasonable pre-service training of teachers is a direct factor affecting the quality of teacher training, the foundation of successful teacher training, and the guarantee of teacher specialization. Teacher education in the United States is at the forefront of the world. Since 1823, when Hall established the first teacher training course in the United States in Vermont, the pre-service teacher education in the United States has gone through four stages of development: the normal school period, the normal college period, the university education department period, and the teacher education diversification period. Each stage has its own characteristics of pre-service teacher training. An in-depth and systematic analysis of the reform and development of American teacher pre-service training in the past two centuries is an effective way to grasp the development trend of international teacher pre-service training. This chapter mainly adopts the literature analysis method. Starting from the research purpose, it collects monographs, bills, reports, speeches, and papers directly or indirectly related to the pre-service training of teachers in the United States from the beginning of the birth of teacher education in the nineteenth century to the present through a variety of ways and organizes and summarizes the data to form the basic framework and views of this paper. The chapter concludes that the pre-service training of teachers in the United States should pay attention to the quality of students, the v

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integration of courses, and the effective cooperation among stakeholders. There have been more than 50 years of history of teacher training in American comprehensive universities, which brought some enlightenment to the reform of teachers’ pre-service education. It is essential to promote the reform of teachers’ pre-service training mode by improving the educational level, implementing multiple training mode, improving teachers’ certification system, and providing some reference to other countries. Chapter 2 concentrates on pre-service teacher education policy development in the UK. In recent years, the UK attaches great importance to the pre-service training of excellent teachers and regards the quality of teachers as an important force for the country to participate in the international competition of education. With the support of the government and the promotion of teacher specialization, the UK has issued national standards for teacher pre-service training, which focus on the requirements and purposes of teachers in teaching and learning and identify the three aspects of teachers’ professional knowledge and understanding, skills and characteristics, and key teaching areas. The outstanding characteristics of British pre-service teacher training are reflected in the “school-based” teacher training mode, that is, taking primary and secondary schools as the base, strengthening the partnership between teacher training institutions and primary and secondary schools, emphasizing the role of primary and secondary schools in teacher training, emphasizing the status of educational practice, encouraging students to think about problems in the teaching process through practice and observation, and exploring the relevance between theory and practice. Promote theoretical exploration while improving teaching effectiveness. Since World War II, great changes have taken place in the educational policies of pre-service teachers in Britain. The change in political party idea, economic development, educational reform, and population change have promoted the innovation of the education policy of pre-service teachers in contemporary Britain. Three training modes have emerged at the historic moment. The policy change makes the education of pre-service teachers in Britain face a new situation. The quality of teacher education is closely related to the quality of education. The UK has introduced new teacher standards and policies to cultivate excellent teachers through the quality assurance of pre-service teacher education, strengthened the concept of professional teacher education, and carried out positive reforms and explorations in specific measures such as organizational assurance, curriculum assurance, and evaluation assurance. It has played an important role in the construction of excellent teachers in Britain. The guarantee of pre-service training quality of British teachers is mainly analyzed from two aspects: external guarantee and internal guarantee. At present, the British government tends to focus on the primary and secondary school-oriented training model, and more and more trainees choose to follow this path. The primary and secondary school-oriented teacher training mainly has two forms: school-direct training and school-centered pre-service teacher training. In recent years, due to its strong target orientation, emphasis on practical ability cultivation, and short duration, PGCE has been favored by more and more applicants and become a major pre-service teacher education course in the UK. The separation of theory and practice is a disadvantage of the traditional pre-service teacher training model. The UK attaches great importance to the pre-service training of teachers,

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actively explores new training modes, and focuses on the improvement of teachers’ vocational skills, laying a good foundation for the professional development of teachers. Britain has taken many measures to cultivate teachers before service. Through the longitudinal research on the development of the British pre-service teacher training policy, it can be found that the British pre-service teacher training policy has certain reference significance for us. In combination with the above points of view, it can be found that the pre-service training of teachers in the UK consists of three stages, namely, the pre-service training, the induction training and the in-service training. These three stages constitute a continuous and uninterrupted whole, which is equally important in teacher professional growth and lifelong education. Chapter 3 focuses on pre-service teacher education development in Japan. Japan’s pre-service teacher training emerged in the early Meiji period. With the development of Japanese society, Japan’s pre-service teacher training has gone through three stages of development: closed model, open model, closed model, and open co-existing comprehensive model. Training mode of pre-service teachers in Pre-war Japan Teacher training in Japan began in the Meiji Restoration in the mid-nineteenth century. To save the nation and resist the aggression of Western European capitalist countries on Japan, Meiji Restoration came into being in 1868. Before the Meiji Restoration, there was no specialized teacher training institution in Japan. In the early days of the Meiji Restoration, when Japan just opened its eyes to the world, imitating Western Europe became a shortcut for Japan to cultivate and develop preservice teachers. In view of the development of the pre-service teacher training model in Europe, Japan began to set up specialized teacher training institutions in imitation of Europe. Graduates of these teacher training institutions do not charge tuition, are exempt from military service, and are subject to state distribution after graduation to serve the country for a certain period. The above measures alleviated the severe shortage of primary school teachers at that time and laid the foundation for the establishment of Japan’s closed pre-service teacher training model. Chapter 4 explores pre-service teacher education development in Canada. Under the trend of globalization, the competition between countries and regions in the world is intensifying, and the demand for talents is getting higher and higher, which inevitably brings the competition for human resources. The competition for human resources has aroused the attention of many countries on teacher quality and teacher education. Teacher pre-service training is a key link for future teachers to complete the role transformation from students to teachers, and it has become the focus of countries to improve the quality of teachers and further promote the reform of teacher education. Since the eighteenth century, the training of vocational education teachers in Canada has experienced a historical process such as mentoring training, the germination of the school education system, the development of the school education system, and the maturity of the school education system. It has formed the current mode that focuses on bachelor’s degree education and combines continuous teacher training and concurrent teacher training. Canada’s basic education is highly developed, largely thanks to high-quality pre-service teacher training. In the pre-service training of new teachers, Canada, with its scientific, rigorous, flexible, and open teacher education

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system and unique experience measures, has strongly promoted the professional development of its own teachers, and also provided a lot of guidance and reference for the development of teacher education in other countries. But Canada also faces new challenges in pre-service teacher training. This chapter explores the deficiencies in the pre-service training of teachers in Canada from the perspective of comparison, combines with the actual situation of Canada, and offers some helpful suggestions for the reform of current education practice. Chapter 5 involves exploring pre-service teacher education policy development in Singapore. With the development of all aspects of Singapore, Singapore attaches more and more importance to the cultivation of talent resources, high-quality education plays an increasingly important role in the development of the country, and the pre-service training of teachers also attracts people’s attention. In the past, when the pre-service education system of teachers in Singapore was not perfect, there were some problems, such as the shortage of teachers, the lack of practice in the preservice training of teachers, the serious unification of training, and the lack of close combination of training and research. These problems result in the serious disconnection between educational theory and teaching practice in teacher training, the lack of teachers’ ability or the temporary loss of interest in the chosen courses, and the lack of close connection between training and research. This chapter intends to innovate the research on the development of teacher education in Singapore from two aspects. The first is the innovation of the historical stage classification basis. Based on the teacher education model, the teacher education in Singapore is divided into five stages: the part-time in-service training model, the full-time “dual development” training model, the university-oriented VSK model, the twenty-first century teacher education model, and the “four students” learning model. The second is to increase the new content of teacher education in Singapore, namely, the strategic vision of the National Institute of Education of Singapore and the “four students” model of teacher education released in 2018. This chapter aims to introduce the status quo of vocational education and training in Singapore and explore the characteristics of vocational education in serving economic development in Singapore. Chapter 6 concentrates on exploring pre-service teacher education policy development in Australia. Australia’s vocational education teacher vocational ability training and training in the world’s leading level, its industry professional standards, keep up with the needs of the development of the Times, the standard is reasonable and favorable. Teachers’ ability requirements and qualification levels are strictly defined. Australia’s teacher education has made great progress in the process of learning from foreign advanced education theories and applying them in combination with its own national conditions for more than 200 years. Through analyzing and sorting out the organization and implementation of Australian vocational education, teachers’ ability composition, and characteristics, the basic framework of Australia’s vocational education teacher system includes four parts: qualification, pre-service training, continuous professional learning of new teachers, and in-service professional development. The organic system composed of the four parts provides many high-quality teachers for the vocational education and training system. It has a variety of professional standards for teachers, a distinctive pre-service education practice,

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a rigorous teacher education certification mechanism, a relatively complete teacher entry education system, and an effective post-service renewal education system. At the same time, Australia has increased investment, promoted the sustainable and quality development of vocational education, strengthened cooperation and cooperation among all parties, and jointly improved the professional level of teachers. All these have provided a strong guarantee for the construction of the teaching team in Australia, laid a good foundation for the continuous improvement of the quality of education and teaching in Australia, and achieved good results. Chapter 7 explores pre-service teacher education policy development in Russia. Education is a country’s one-hundred-year plan, for the country to train talents, a country’s education is strong comprehensive national strength, national development to think well, must build a good education cause. Teachers are the source of education and play a vital role in the development of education. The quality of teacher education also affects the development of national education, as well as the country’s comprehensive national strength and future. Facing the development of world education, different countries have also formulated their own education and teacher training policies according to their own actual conditions. Russia has a tradition of attaching importance to the development of teacher education. Its teacher education is unique in the world. The great reform of teacher education after Russia’s independence has trained many high-level teachers for Russia, guaranteed the virtuous circle of teachers in the whole national education system of Russia, and ensured that the level of education in Russia is in the leading position in the world. Therefore, Russia’s pre-service teacher training is worth our analysis and research. This chapter analyzes the pre-service training of Russian teachers from different perspectives. Chapter 8 explores pre-service teacher education policy development in China from the insight of the publicly-funded normal students’ cultivation. On August 10, 2018, the General Office of the State Council issued the Notice of The General Office of the State Council on Forwarding the Implementation Measures of Public Education for Normal University students directly under the Ministry of Education and other departments of the Ministry of Education, which detailed the relevant policies of public normal university students. The public education for normal students referred to in the measures refers to the state of Beijing Normal University, East China Normal University, Northeast Normal University, Central China Normal University, Shaanxi Normal University, and Southwest University, six normal universities directly under the Ministry of Education (hereinafter referred to as affiliated normal universities) for normal undergraduates. The training management system in which the tuition fee, accommodation fee, and living allowance are borne by the central government during the school period. In the process of policy implementation, scholars have different opinions on the influence of publicly-funded normal university policy on educational equity, which can be divided into positive and negative aspects. Beijing, China

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Acknowledgements In the realization of this book, our contributors have been supportive and willing to share their opinions and perspectives on how to explore the overall Chinese education policy landscape from a concept-added policy chain perspective. I am grateful for the generosity and positive spirit of collegiality. I also appreciate the contributions that assistant researcher, Yunshu. He made to the proofreading work. Funding Information This research was funded by National Social Science Foundation “Study on Process Tracking and Effect Evaluation of Policy Implementation of Excellent Teacher Plan in Ministry-Affiliated Normal Universities” (Project No.: CIA220282).

Contents

1 Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 The Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 The Prominence of Teachers in the Development of High-Quality Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 The Training and Selection of Teachers in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 The Historical Stages of the Change of the Pre-service Teacher Training Policy in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 The Early Stage (Before the Nineteenth Century) . . . . . . . . . 1.2.2 Normal School Period (Early Nineteenth Century-1890s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.3 Teachers College Period (1890–1950s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.4 The Period of School of Education in Comprehensive Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Problems of Pre-service Teacher Training in the United States . . . . 1.3.1 Hard to Implement the Evaluation Standards and Qualification Certification System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.2 Defects in Various Evaluation Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.3 Unsatisfactory Results of Professional Development Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions for the Pre-service Training of American Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.1 Optimize the “Dual Professional” Teacher Career Development System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.2 Provide New Teachers with Practical Opportunities in the Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2 Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in the UK . . . . . . 2.1 The Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Before the 1990s, Britain Had a Very Loose System of Pre-service Teacher Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Since 1984, the Teachers only Can Be Qualified with the Standard Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 At the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century, a Major Reform Was Carried out on the Training of Pre-service Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.4 British Teacher Pre-service Education Policy in the Early Postwar Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Case Analysis of British Teachers’ Pre-service Training . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 At Present, the Primary and Secondary School-Oriented Training Model Is Focused by the Government and Trainees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Since the Late 1980s, Britain Has Integrated the Teacher Education and School Reform Successfully . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Cambridge University’s B.Ed Course for Primary School Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 The Three Stages of Teacher Training, Pre-service, Entry, and In-service, Are Closely Related . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 In Order to Strengthen the School-Based Training Mode, British Pre-service Teacher Training Institutions Have Established Relatively Stable Primary and Secondary School Practice Bases . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3 Pre-service Teacher Education Development in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 The Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 In the Middle of Meiji Period, Japan Entered the Stage of Nationalistic Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 The Training Mode of Pre-service Teachers in Japan in the Early Postwar Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 The Historical Stages of Cultivation Policy Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 The Establishment of Japan’s Pre-service Teacher Training Model After World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 The Establishment of the Department of Education of the Old Imperial University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.3 The Development of Japan’s Pre-service Teacher Training Model After World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.4 Improvement of Pre-service Training Model of Japanese Teachers After World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3.3 Case Analysis of Cultivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 In 2010, Okayama University Established the Teacher Education Development Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 Okayama University Intervenes in the Pre-service Teacher Education in the Form of Standard and Formulates the Core Curriculum of Teacher Career . . . . 3.4 Problems and Countermeasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.1 Japan’s Pre-service Training System for Kindergarten Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.2 Characteristics of Pre-service Training and Selection System of Japanese Kindergarten Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.3 Reform the Content and Mode of Pre-service Education for Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4 Pre-service Teacher Education Development in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 The Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 In Canada, There is No Unified Federal Department to Enact Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 Teachers Are the Key Factors in the Development of Education and the Improvement of Education Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 The Historical Stages of the Change of Canada’s Pre-service Teacher Training Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 The Earliest Formal Teacher Training in Canada Began with the Establishment of “Normal Schools” . . . . . . . 4.2.2 In the Early 1970s, Basic Education Began to Change for the Second Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.3 The Transformation of Teachers’ Pre-service Training Period (at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century to the Mid Twentieth Century) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 A Case Study of Pre-service Teacher Training in Canada . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Learners of Different Ages in Different Times Have Different Life and Psychological Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.2 The Professional Development of Teachers in Canada Enriches the Diversity of Internship Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Problems of Pre-service Teacher Training in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 Problems in the Development of Pre-service Training of Teachers in Vocational Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.2 Two Prominent Problems in the Current Curriculum Modules of Teacher Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for the Pre-service Training of Canadian Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.1 The Goal of the Admission Guidance Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.2 Teacher Orientation Programs Should Focus on New Teachers’ Performance in the Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in Singapore . . . . 5.1 The Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 Teacher Education Has Its Unique and Important Value in Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 The Increasing Quantity and Quality of Teachers in Singapore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The Historical Stages of the Change of Pre-service Teacher Training Policy in Singapore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 High Level of Teachers Promoted the Singapore’s Advanced Basic Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 Quality Assurance of Pre-service Teacher Training in Singapore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Case Analysis of Pre-service Teacher Training in Singapore . . . . . . 5.3.1 The Competition for Talents is Pivotal for the International Competition in Information Age . . . . . . 5.3.2 Curriculum Setting Guided by V3SK Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.3 Multiple Evaluation Oriented at Promoting the Development of “Trainee Teachers” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Problems of Pre-service Teacher Training in Singapore . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 High Standards for Teachers’ Qualification Leads the Shortage of Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.2 Serious Unification of Pre-service Training for Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.3 Training and Research Are not Closely Combined . . . . . . . . 5.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Pre-service Training of Teachers in Singapore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.1 Normal University Students Have Both the Theoretical Knowledge and the Practical Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.2 Practice Courses Are Embedded in the Full-Time Teacher Education Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.3 Constructing a Reasonable Structure of Teachers for Normal University Students Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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6 Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in Australia . . . . 6.1 The Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.1 Reasons for the Pre-service Training of Australian Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.2 “Career Development” in Pre-service Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.3 Knowledge and Skills Developed by Teachers Before Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.4 Main Developmental Characteristics of Pre-service Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.5 Preparation of Pre-service Teachers for Post-service Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 The Historical Stages of the Change of Australia’s Pre-service Teacher Training Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 General Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 The Keating Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.3 The Howard Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Case Study on Pre-service Teacher Training in Australia—A Case Study of the University of Canberra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 The Training Form of Pre-service Teachers in the University of Canberra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 Professional Standards for Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.3 Professional Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Problems in the Pre-service Training of Teachers in Australia . . . . . 6.4.1 Competence of Supervising Teachers Needs to Be Improved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.2 The Insufficient Teacher Professional Development Activities Difficult to Meet the Actual Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Australian Teachers’ Pre-service Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.1 The Motivation of the Reform of Rural Teachers’ Pre-service Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.2 Multiple Strategies for Rural Teachers’ Pre-service Training Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.3 Pre-service Teacher Education Practice Experience in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.4 Accelerate the Construction of Education Practice Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.5 Enrich the Content of Educational Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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7 Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in Russia . . . . . . . 7.1 The Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.1 Political Changes in Russia After the Collapse of the Soviet Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.2 Changes in the Russian Economy After the Collapse of the Soviet Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.3 The Development of Teacher Training in Russia After the Collapse of the Soviet Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 The Historical Stages of the Change of Pre-service Teacher Training Policy in Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.1 Teacher Education Policy in Tsarist Russia (Eighteenth Century to October Revolution) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.2 Teacher Education Policy During the Soviet Union (October Revolution to the Collapse of the Soviet Union) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.3 Quality of Pre-service Training of Teacher Education . . . . . 7.3 Case Analysis of Russian Teacher Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.1 Talent Training Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.2 The Direction of Talent Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.3 Setting of Course Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Problems in the Pre-service Training of Teachers in Russia . . . . . . . 7.4.1 Fund Guarantee in Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.2 Positioning Problems of Normal Colleges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.3 Unbalanced Development of Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.4 Quality Problems of Pre-service Training of Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Pre-service Training of Russian Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5.1 Establish a Hierarchical Education Management Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5.2 Establish a Market-Oriented Democratic Management Mechanism for Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5.3 Establish a Network of Diversified Vocational Training Institutions for Teachers, Mainly Normal Colleges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in China: Insights from the Publicly-Funded Normal Students Cultivation . . . . 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.1 It Is Conducive to the Balance of Teachers Among Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.2 Promoting Equal Educational Opportunities Between the Rich and the Poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.3 Unfairness of Non-affiliated Normal Colleges . . . . . . . . . . . .

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8.2 The Historical Analysis of the Public-Funded Normal Student Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.1 The Birth and Content Overview of the Public-Funded Normal Student Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.2 The Issue of Educational Equity Aimed at the Policy of Publicly-Funded Normal Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.3 The Balance Problem Not only Restricts the Regional Development, but also Hinders the Realization of the Overall Educational Equity in the Country . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Problems and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.1 There Are Difficulties in Implementing the Transfer of Work, and the Employment Model Cannot Motivate Them to Teach in Rural Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.2 The Employment Mode of Publicly-Funded Normal Students Is Not Conducive to Encouraging Graduates to Choose to Teach in Rural Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.3 The Selection and Assessment Mechanism of Publicly-Funded Normal University Students Needs to Be Improved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.4 There Is No Independent System of Assessment Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.5 The Willingness of College Entrance Examination Candidates to Teach Affects the Application of Government-Funded Normal University Students and Reduces the Supplement of Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions in the Process of Promoting Educational Equity Through Public-Funded Normal University Student Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4.1 Improve the Selection and Assessment Mechanism for Publicly-Funded Normal Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4.2 Improve the Implementation of Work and Follow-up Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4.3 The Job Evaluation and Exit Mechanism of Publicly-Funded Normal College Students Is Not Perfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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About the Author

Jian Li is an associate professor at the China Institute of Education Policy, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, China. She received her Ph.D. degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELPS) from the School of Education, Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests focus on education policy studies, world-class universities, globalization, and internationalization of higher education. She has published over 60 articles and books regarding China’s education policy and comparative higher education studies. She currently also serves as a think tanker at the China Institute of Education and Social Development, Beijing Normal University. Her general area of scholarship is on the assessment of education policy within education institutions. Within this general area, she has pursued four themes: education policy studies, globalization of higher education, higher education policy and management, undergraduate students’ global learning performance assessment, faculty academic innovation perspective within higher education, and comparative higher education development as a framework for institutional research. She has published over 60 articles, 20 monographs and book chapters, delivered over 60 workshops and seminars, and offered more than 20 keynotes, peer-reviewed, and invited presentations throughout the US and in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

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Chapter 1

Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in the United States

This chapter explores American pre-service teacher education policy development. Scientific and reasonable pre-service training of teachers is a direct factor affecting the quality of teacher training, the foundation of successful teacher training, and the guarantee of teacher specialization. Teacher education in the United States is in the forefront of the world. Since 1823, when Hall established the first teacher training course in the United States in Vermont, the pre-service teacher education in the United States has gone through four stages of development: the normal school period, the normal college period, the university education department period, and the teacher education diversification period. Each stage has its own characteristics of pre-service teacher training. An in-depth and systematic analysis of the reform and development of American teacher pre-service training in the past two centuries is an effective way to grasp the development trend of international teacher pre-service training. This chapter mainly adopts the literature analysis method. Starting from the research purpose, it collects monographs, bills, reports, speeches, and papers directly or indirectly related to the pre-service training of teachers in the United States from the beginning of the birth of teacher education in the nineteenth century to the present through a variety of ways, and then the basic framework and views of this paper by analysing the collected data. The chapter concludes that the pre-service training of teachers in the United States should pay attention to the quality of students, the integration of courses and the effective cooperation among stakeholders. There have been more than 50 years of history of teachers training in American comprehensive universities, which brought some enlightenment to the reform of teachers’ pre-service education. It is essential to promote the reform of teachers’ pre-service training mode by improving the educational level, implementing multiple training mode, improving teachers’ certification system, and provide some reference to other countries.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li, Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5865-8_1

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1.1 The Background 1.1.1 The Prominence of Teachers in the Development of High-Quality Education Teacher education, as the only way to train teachers, undertakes the vital functions of selection, training, and output. In the development of teacher education, educational practice is an important factor connecting subject education and teacher professional ability development. The pre-service training of teachers in the United States has undergone many changes from generation to development (Huang, & Hong 2014). The United States is a typical immigrant country. Columbus arrived in the American continent in 1492 and started the European migration to the Americas. Protestant immigrants brought the novel educational ideas of Europe to the American colonies, so the development of education in the United States has a relatively high starting point, which is the innovation and sublimation based on the development of European education (Taylor et al., 2016). The United States was founded on July 4, 1776. Although it does not have a long history and culture, successive American governments have regarded education as the foundation of the country and the key to personnel training and placed the development of education at a national strategic level. The emphasis on education and the tireless spirit of exploration make the United States become the superpower of education in the world in just over 200 years after its founding, and its education level is far ahead. Advanced education cannot be separated from excellent teachers. As far as teacher education is concerned, the institutionalization of teacher training in the United States has experienced a tortuous road of development. Before the nineteenth century, when there were no public schools, churches used weekends and evening schools to provide teenagers with basic literacy education, so that they could read the Bible (Yu, & Su 2015). Some literate housewives gathered school-age children in the neighborhood for simple literacy instruction; Graduates of liberal arts colleges or universities may work directly as teachers in private secondary and higher education. In this period, teachers, especially those in the field of primary education, were not professionals. Teachers did not need special training, but those who could read and write could become teachers. Therefore, the social status of teachers was very low (Wang J., 2007). Some educators and visionaries realize the importance and urgency of teacher professional training and try to set up private specialized institutions to train teachers (Allday et al., 2013; Hamilton-Jones et al., 2014).

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1.1.2 The Training and Selection of Teachers in the United States From the colonial period to the early nineteenth century, the training and selection of teachers in the United States were mainly based on political and religious beliefs (Taylor et al., 2016). There were no special educational institutions to train teachers, and there were no clear and specific standards and institutional guarantees for teacher training (Allday et al., 2013; Hamilton-Jones et al., 2014). In the 1820 and 1830s, with the extensive establishment of normal schools, teacher education in the United States gradually stepped on the road of standardization. By the end of the nineteenth century, all states had basically completed the construction of normal schools. Entrance standard is the prerequisite of teacher education, which is closely related to teacher education quality and professional development (Huang & Hong, 2014; Wang, 2007; Yu & Su, 2015). The reform of teacher education system in the United States has been in the forefront of the world, and its scientific, rigorous, and standardized entrance standards for pre-service teacher education have been studied and copied by many other countries. Although the states had set clear admission standards for the training of teacher candidates, the practical implementation in the early stages was unsatisfactory, and not all normal schools strictly followed the rules. Due to the shortage of students, some schools often temporarily change the admission qualification conditions to attract students. Some schools recruit students directly from primary schools, regardless of whether they have academic and qualification certificates, formally or informally conduct tests, and if they can prove their competence as teachers, they can be admitted directly. Before the twentieth century, the content provisions of the pre-service education entrance standards for teachers in the United States are relatively simple and subjective arbitrary in the actual implemetation lack of operability, with low educational requirements mainly according to the academic performance of students to be admitted, and in the actual implementation of the. After the Second World War, with the development of modern education theory and the deepening of teacher education reform, the entrance standards of preservice education for teachers also changed significantly accordingly, which not only raised the requirements for academic qualifications and academic performance, but also showed a diversified and comprehensive development trend in the contents and methods of investigation (Huang & Hong, 2014; Yu & Su, 2015; Wang, 2007). Teacher pre-service training is an important part of teacher education in the United States. The main training modes include “2 + 2” bachelor’s teacher education, “4 + 1” bachelor’s teacher education, “4 + 2” graduate level teacher education and selective teacher education. Among them, the “2 + 2” bachelor’s teacher education model is the most common one in the current American teacher education. This is an undergraduate model of education, consisting of two years of general education and two years of professional education (Huang & Hong, 2014; Taylor et al., 2016; Wang, 2007; Yu & Su, 2015). It has four aspects including general education, subject education, professional education and education practice. “4 + 1” bachelor’s teacher

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education mode is also a kind of undergraduate teacher education mode, which integrates the education plan of the subject, professional learning and teaching practice and other aspects. It is a supplement and perfection of “2 + 2” teacher education mode, which adds one more year of practical training for undergraduates based on the original four-year study. The professional development ability of normal university students cultivated by this mode is stronger than that of normal university students cultivated by the four-year mode. In 2001, President Bush signed No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which clearly proposed that teachers who teach core subjects in primary and secondary schools must be high-quality teachers. Since taking office, the current president of the United States, Barack Obama, has paid great attention to the education issue, especially the improvement of the quality of primary and secondary education. To this end, he has carried out a series of reforms and reaffirmed the requirement that teachers who teach core subjects in primary and secondary schools must be high-quality teachers. These policies and regulations not only provide the legal basis for teacher education in the United States, but also make the researchers fully understand the important strategic position of teacher education in the United States. In addition, the power of American educational professional organizations cannot be ignored. Many research reports on major educational policies and reforms are put forward by professional associations. in 1983, for example, the National Commission on Excellence in Education published “A Nation at Risk: Education Reform Is Imperative” which strongly calls for the reform of teacher education in the United States, puts forward specific reform measures from the aspects of teacher education curriculum arrangement, evaluation criteria, teachers’ social status and working environment (Huang & Hong, 2014; Yu & Su, 2015; Wang, 2007; Taylor et al., 2016).

1.2 The Historical Stages of the Change of the Pre-service Teacher Training Policy in the United States 1.2.1 The Early Stage (Before the Nineteenth Century) In the period of American Indians, there was an emphasis on education. At that time, the complex religion and living habits made the initial education for children in family education. However, the education at that time was disorganized and only focused on the study of survival and life. During the colonial period of the seventeenth century, Europeans who invaded the United States established schools based on the European model, but more for religious purposes (Taylor et al., 2016). At that time, teachers were indecent occupation, “the original teachers in the United States were mostly affected by the contract anger act, with low status, some were even some criminals, drunkard and gangsters.“ Teaching is also only a way to transition into other professions or to earn travel expenses. Elementary school teachers at that time did not need to undergo rigorous training and exercise to be able to serve. To solve the

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problem of shortage of teachers in 1751, Franklin founded the Wenshite High School, opened the normal department, made poor people as primary school teachers, teach children reading, writing, arithmetic and grammar. After the Civil War, Wenshite high schools slowly disappeared and were replaced by public high schools. The other part of the teaching force is undertaken by the mentee system of public schools. Before class, teachers will select some excellent students to teach them for a few months. Then, the mentees will pass on the knowledge they have learned to other students. The problem of shortage of teachers were temporarily solved, but with the development of education, coupled with the low teaching quality of guided student system, guided student system of middle school gradually disappeared. At this stage, teacher education just developed. Teachers were employed temporarily and were not recognized as professional occupations. Teacher education developed very slowly at this stage (Huang & Hong, 2014; Yu & Su, 2015; Wang, 2007; Taylor et al., 2016).

1.2.2 Normal School Period (Early Nineteenth Century-1890s) During the American Public-School Movement from 1830 to 1860, due to social, political and economic changes, the mass demand for education developed on a large scale, and the masses gradually realized the importance of public education. To increase government support for education and improve the quality of teachers, the public-school movement began. Therefore, the government has made many regulations on teacher training, and professional normal schools have emerged and played a role in teacher education. Some American educators introduced the idea of setting up teachers’ colleges into the United States after investigating teachers’ colleges in European countries. For example, Brooks in Massachusetts thought, “There will be as many schools as there are teachers. Therefore, we must set up teacher preparatory schools.“ In 1838, Massachusetts decided to organize a state normal school, so it issued the first law on normal schools in the United States, “Normal School Decree”. The next year, the first state normal school for training teachers in the United States—Lexington Normal School was established. Private normal schools and state normal schools were established to meet the early requirements of primary education in the United States. In the early years, the school did not have high admission requirements. Generally, students could enter the school for free after graduation from primary school. To a certain extent, it relieves the pressure of teacher training (Huang & Hong, 2014; Yu & Su, 2015; Wang, 2007).

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1.2.3 Teachers College Period (1890–1950s) With the development of primary education and higher education, the requirements for teachers have increased, and the original normal schools for training primary school teachers have been unable to meet the needs. At the same time, normal schools attach great importance to the mastery of educational skills in the curriculum setting, overemphasizing the teacher-training, ignoring the academic. The rationality of normal schools is questioned by the society because of the simple teaching conditions, the low entrance threshold, and the short school system. With the rapid expansion of middle school education, there is a serious vacancy of middle school teachers. In order to improve the standard of teacher education, normal schools have to transform into higher normal colleges. One is the independent teacher’s college including Casas State Teachers College, Illinois State Teachers College, the other part is the conversion from the normal school to normal college starting from the end of the nineteenth century. The first school in the United States to be upgraded from a normal school to a teacher’s college was the Albany State Teachers College in New York State, founded in 1893. “In 1908, the Normal Schools Division of the National Education Association issued the Normal Schools Policy Statement, urging states to replace normal schools with normal colleges.” From the beginning of the twentieth century to the 1930s, normal colleges replaced normal schools and reached a climax. By the 1960s, normal schools completely disappeared. Normal colleges transformed from normal schools met the needs of the public and primary and secondary education and relieved the pressure on the training of secondary teachers in liberal arts universities and colleges. Secondary teacher education is further developed into higher teacher education, and pre-service teachers get their first professional development opportunity at the level of higher education.

1.2.4 The Period of School of Education in Comprehensive Universities During the period of normal college, teaching materials were emphasized in the training of teachers, while general subject knowledge was ignored, which seriously affected the academic level of teachers and the training quality level of students. During the Cold War and the third technological revolution, information and intelligent technology have made a great impact on education. Take the University of Tennessee’s pre-service teacher development program. In this project, the implementation of the general education curriculum and special education curriculum has abandoned the previous separate way. In addition to the special children and special education related courses, the special education content is also widely interspersed, permeated and integrated into the teaching of the general education related courses. Teachers carry out the teaching of related courses in the way of cooperative teaching. For example, a lesson on lesson planning and goal setting for ordinary

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children is followed by a lecture by another teacher with special education background on how to develop an individualized education plan (IEP) for children with special educational needs. Students can compare the similarities and differences between the two teaching plans in a timely manner. The attention to and education of exceptional children is naturally regarded as an integral part of the whole educational activity, rather than as education for special groups separate from general education. It breaks the traditional boundary of ordinary teacher training and special teacher training, combines them into one, requires all pre-service teachers to participate in the unified training process, to achieve the ultimate goal of education for all students in an integrated education environment. After graduation, students are certified as general education teachers and special education teachers, which makes them qualified to work in both general education and special education in regular schools and trains a large number of teachers for integrated education in a more economical way. From a micro point of view, the curriculum density, emphasis, curriculum implementation mode, the mediators and intensity of teacher guidance, and the opportunities for a lot of practice and reflection in the whole pre-service training stage all need to be scientifically arranged under the guidance of theories. From a macro point of view, the whole process of major planning and construction should also have clear and core guiding ideology, which is the center of all curriculum arrangements, implementation and teacher-student interaction. For example, in the case of this paper, the project developer takes the “constructivist view of knowledge” as the central idea of project development, and emphasizes the full interaction between pre-service teachers, books and teaching activities in all the implementation links of teaching and internship projects, so as to independently construct knowledge and experience based on their own foundation and experience, and the teacher is only the “guide” rather than the unilateral imparts of book knowledge. The clear and core guiding ideology guarantees the consistency of each link of the pre-service training of teachers from the concept (Huang & Hong, 2014; Yu & Su, 2015; Wang, 2007; Taylor et al., 2016) Take the pre-service teacher education program at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The program’s main content is that Professional Leadership capabilities lie in supporting the diversity of learners and their families mainly embodied in the five aspects, namely “cultural consciousness and learner’s difference”, “cultural sensitivity and connection to learner families”, “Support learner diversity with classroom leadership”, “Support diverse learners with school leadership”. “Support diverse learners and their families with community leadership”. All the support enables teachers to have strong leadership ability, build a good learning environment for students, master the content of the subject taught and promote students’ learning, and reflect on their teaching practice. Meanwhile, Wilmington, North Carolina, according to the fourth standard of NCATE teacher certification newly revised in 2008, namely, diversity: Educational institutions are required to design, implement, and evaluate curricula and practical experiences for teacher candidates to acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and habits necessary to help all students learn, including experience working with teachers at different institutions of higher education and elementary and secondary schools, with different candidates, and with different students in K-12 schools (Ledger & Vidovich, 2018). Teacher

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education programs are also required to offer and implement multicultural courses without certification. Therefore, to pass these teacher education programs, teacher candidates are generally required to prepare the following materials: a research report on a multicultural education issue, a public oral report on his understanding of multicultural education, evidence of a multicultural teaching practice and a “learning journey” portfolio that experiences a multicultural education (Taylor et al., 2016). In addition to meeting the external evaluation criteria based on the diversity criteria, teacher education institutions will also conduct internal evaluation and project inspection, mainly to test the quality of the project and provide suggestions for improvement, and to evaluate the teacher candidates’ awareness, attitude, belief, understanding and identity of multicultural teaching, which can promote the professional growth of teachers and enrich the theoretical research. Teacher candidates should demonstrate that they can effectively teach in a culturally diverse environment and that the evaluation promotes program improvement, such as curriculum, instruction, practice, and internship. The program will be successful only if it produces teachers who can successfully deal with diverse students, have cultural sensitivity, develop multicultural beliefs, tolerate cultural differences, and rationally encourage students to actively participate in cultural activities so that they can develop their full potential (Huang & Hong, 2014; Yu & Su, 2015; Wang, 2007; Taylor et al., 2016).

1.3 Problems of Pre-service Teacher Training in the United States The basic premise of teacher pre-service training is the question of who should train, that is, the qualification examination and continuous evaluation of teacher education institutions and preschool education specialty.

1.3.1 Hard to Implement the Evaluation Standards and Qualification Certification System First of all, the United States’ evaluation standards and certification system is difficult to cover all preschool education employees. Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of preschool education in the United States, the care and nursing courses offered by a large number of day care centers and beginning program centers in the United States have not been included in the curriculum scope certified by the standard. Secondly, preschool education in the United States is managed by states with decentralization, so there are differences in the establishment of professional admission standards for preschool teachers. Some states with better economic development require teachers to hold formal college diplomas when entering the profession, but in some states with relatively backward economy and lack of preschool education personnel, high

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school graduates are allowed to enter the preschool teacher industry through training and recognition (Hamilton-Jones et al., 2014; D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Ledger & Vidovich, 2018). These people become the vacuum of standard evaluation system and professional qualification certification system implementation. Secondly, the wide age range of children in American preschool education (0–8 years old) also brings difficulty to evaluation and certification. This is mainly due to the different definitions of children in colleges and universities, some are 0 ~ 5 years old, some are 0 ~ 8 years old, leading to different courses offered by colleges and universities: Or because of state licensing regulations, some states allow early childhood education for children 0 to 8 years old and preschool education for grades K to G3 to be licensed, while others allow teachers with K-12 (kindergarten through Grade 12) certification to be licensed. In addition, the diversity of early childhood education institutions in the United States also makes the implementation of standards and certification system difficult. Early childhood education institutions in the United States are founded from different sources, and the children’s curriculum implemented is very diversified, so the quality requirements of preschool education teachers are not completely the same. Teachers in low-income and non-profit preschool education institutions are usually not included in the training system.

1.3.2 Defects in Various Evaluation Criteria From the practical point of view, the combination of training and standards is a good way, but the defects of various standards will still lead to the non-ideal quality of preschool teachers. For example, the evaluation indicators in the current pre-service standards in the United States are set too low. Although performance evaluation is emphasized, it can only be regarded as a practical qualification evaluation tool for graduates and cannot reflect the diversity of knowledge and ability structure of preschool teachers. In addition, the pre-service standard only sets the standard for what normal university students should learn and do, but neglects to put forward the requirements for normal university students’ learning in school from the perspective of the development of the teaching object—children. Another example is that in the entry standards for new teachers formulated by NTASC, although the deficiencies of pre-service standards are overcome, the factors of children are considered, and the standards can be formulated from the perspective of children’s development, there are few assessments linking the learning standards of preschool children with the performance standards of teachers in the actual operation. In addition, the admission standards for new teachers do not take into account the differences among subjects, grade levels or students they teach, especially for preschool teachers, who do not fully consider the particularity and differences of preschool children (Taylor et al., 2016; Allday et al., 2013; Hamilton-Jones et al., 2014; D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Ledger & Vidovich, 2018).

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1.3.3 Unsatisfactory Results of Professional Development Training Teacher professional development training requires a high degree of personal attention to the profession, but also needs the cooperation of the whole environment, so that every in-service teacher can be in a positive community, and actively interact and communicate with other teachers, to ensure personal professional growth and improve the quality of training. However, several studies have shown that, in addition to the inquiry-based training, other forms and contents of professional development training for many in-service teachers are scattered and divorced from practice, which not only reduces the enthusiasm of teachers to participate in training, but also has poor effect. In the history of primary school teacher education in the United States, three different states of pre-service training quality view of primary school teachers are complementary to each other. Are the core elements of the professional standards of primary school teachers of different dimensions in different historical periods, but restricted by factors such as the development level of productivity and the development of educational scientific knowledge, the core elements of quality outlook highlighted in different periods are different (Huang & Hong, 2014; Yu & Su, 2015; Wang, 2007; Taylor et al., 2016; Allday et al., 2013; Hamilton-Jones et al., 2014). However, the exemplary academic and subjective elements of the quality concept of pre-service training of primary school teachers have been accompanied in the development process of teacher education in the United States, and they complement each other. In the beginning, the quality concept of pre-service training of primary school teachers in the United States mostly used the demonstration form of “mentoring system” to imitate the labeled experiences of others to adapt to social development and education’s demand for teachers to become social moral models. This experiential job-hunting process, which lacks technology and reflection, makes teacher educators wander and cycle in the traditional “moral demonstration” quality audience, and forms a professional habit. In this way, the pre-service training of teachers is equivalent to the vocational training of teachers, and the study of established theoretical knowledge becomes the focus of teacher education, that is, study a course and then teach the course. After the 1930s, influenced by the “knowledge factory” teacher training mode, teachers’ educational and teaching knowledge is regarded as the embodiment of objective truth. The yardstick of ideal teacher education is to pass the most valuable educational and teaching knowledge to students in the mode of technical production, “teaching is the process of teachers using the funnel to inject knowledge into students’ minds”. This link between imparting established knowledge and “being a teacher” is a “universal truth”. As a result, teachers’ colleges produce teachers in large numbers in the same way that factories produce products. In the academic circle, the “academic” and “normal” of teacher training are constantly debated. At the same time, the reflection practical teacher pre-service training quality view has come into people’s view. On the one hand, it ensures that the academic is still the only way to develop the teacher’s career, and on the other hand, it emphasizes the existence of teachers’ individual subjectivity. In recent years, the United

1.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions for the Pre-service Training …

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States has allowed graduates who have not received or only received a small amount of professional education to “selectively” engage in the teaching industry, which is the actual level of verification of the coexistence of academic and subjective teacher training. Teachers’ pre-service training should highlight the subjectivity of people and focus on “people” rather than theories, knowledge, skills, science, or others. In the historical evolution of the quality concept of pre-service teacher training in the United States, the problem of not keeping up with the requirements of The Times to adjust the training objectives appeared (Allday et al., 2013; Hamilton-Jones et al., 2014). Human beings are living beings with abundant needs and desires, as well as living beings in the real world. The mission of pre-service training of primary school teachers is to cultivate each living organism in the real society into a “teacher” role required by the society and the times, so as to adapt to the needs of future education for teacher professional development direction. The cultivation of high-quality primary school teachers not only needs normal colleges to explore ways to understand “how to train high-quality teachers” from the dimension of the relationship between “people” and “education”, but also needs to adapt to The Times’ demand for future excellent primary school teachers. It can be said that the development and evolution of the quality concept of pre-service training of American primary school teachers is a history of the interaction and integration of “human” and “education” in the American teacher education under a certain background of The Times. To train the teachers needed by the times has always been the goal of the quality view of pre-service training of American primary school teachers. There was a time when teacher education in the United States pursued the knowledge infusion and skill casting of normal university students, but the attention to normal university students as subjective “human beings” was missing, because “it is not too difficult to train teachers to impart book knowledge to students. However, for students to cope with the unpredictable and unconventional world of the future, more qualified teachers are needed (Allday et al., 2013; Hamilton-Jones et al., 2014).

1.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions for the Pre-service Training of American Teachers 1.4.1 Optimize the “Dual Professional” Teacher Career Development System The training system of “double-qualified” teachers in American vocational education can be subdivided into induction training system, in-service promotion system and post-service optimization system. The main goal and task of the induction training system is to guide new teachers to adapt to their professional roles as soon as possible. However, the new teachers who have just joined the teaching job may feel nervious and anxious. So the community colleges in the United States should take measures to help them adapt to the inital occupational stage. For example, to provide new

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teachers with job resources, such as textbooks, courseware, new teacher manuals and the support from leaders and experienced teachers.

1.4.2 Provide New Teachers with Practical Opportunities in the Enterprise It’s essential to hold a series of training and lectures for new teachers, guide new teachers to set up the career development goal of becoming “double-qualified” teachers and help them establish systematic teaching objectives. Teachers at this stage have accumulated certain teaching experience and practical skills and are in the stage of teaching development (Huang & Hong, 2014; Yu & Su, 2015; Wang, 2007). American community colleges can set up a series of incentive programs, such as encouraging “double-qualified” teachers to practice in enterprises and improving teachers’ practical skills, attach importance to the professional development activities of “double-qualified” teachers, and encourage teachers from material and spiritual aspects to enhance the subjective initiative of improving the quality of “double teachers” (D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Ledger & Vidovich, 2018).

References Allday, R. A., Neilsen-Gatti, S., & Hudson, T. M. (2013). Preparation for inclusion in teacher education pre-service curricula. Teacher Education and Special Education, 36(4), 298–311. Brown, E. L., Phillippo, K. L., Weston, K., & Rodger, S. (2019). United States and Canada preservice teacher certification standards for student mental health: A comparative case study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 80, 71–82. D’Intino, J. S., & Wang, L. (2021). Differentiated instruction: A review of teacher education practices for Canadian pre-service elementary school teachers. Journal of Education for Teaching, 47(5), 668–681. Hamilton-Jones, B. M., & Vail, C. O. (2014). Preparing special educators for collaboration in the classroom: Pre-service teachers’ beliefs and perspectives. International Journal of Special Education, 29(1), 76–86. Huang, J., & Hong, M. (2014). The evolution, characteristics and enlightenment of the entrance standards of American teachers’ pre-service education. Foreign Primary and Secondary Education, 20(11), 36–40+35. Ledger, S., & Vidovich, L. (2018). Australian teacher education policy in action: The case of pre-service internships. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 43(7), 11–29. Taylor, R., Kumi-Yeboah, A., & Ringlaben, R. P. (2016). Pre-service teachers’ perceptions towards multicultural education & teaching of culturally & linguistically diverse learners. Multicultural Education, 23, 42–48. Wang, J. (2007). International comparison of teacher Education Model reform. Foreign Primary and Secondary Education, 20(4), 13–18. Yu, M., & Su, Y. (2015). A review of the research on the Curriculum of pre-service education for primary and secondary School teachers in the United States. Journal of Heilongjiang University of Education, 34(12), 28–29.

Chapter 2

Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in the UK

This chapter concentrates on pre-service teacher education policy development in the UK. In recent years, the UK attaches great importance to the pre-service training of excellent teachers and regards the quality of teachers as an important force for the country to participate in the international competition of education. With the support of the government and the promotion of teacher specialization, the UK has issued national standards for teacher pre-service training, which focus on the requirements and purposes of teachers in teaching and learning and identify the three aspects, namely, teachers’ professional knowledge and understanding, skills and characteristics, and key teaching areas. The outstanding characteristics of British pre-service teacher training are reflected in the “school-based” teacher training mode, that is, taking primary and secondary schools as the base, strengthening the partnership between teacher training institutions and primary and secondary schools, emphasizing the role of primary and secondary schools in teacher training, emphasizing the status of educational practice, encouraging students to think about problems in the teaching process through practice and observation, and exploring the relevance between theory and practice, contributing to theoretical exploration while improving teaching effectiveness. Since World War II, great changes have taken place in the educational policies of pre-service teachers in Britain. The change of political party idea, economic development, educational reform, and population have promoted the innovation of the education policy of pre-service teachers in contemporary Britain. Three training modes have emerged at historic moment. The policy change makes the education of pre-service teachers in Britain face a new situation. The quality of teacher education is closely related to the quality of education. The UK has introduced new teacher standards and policies to cultivate excellent teachers through the quality assurance of pre-service teacher education, strengthened the concept of professional teacher education, and carried out positive reforms and explorations in specific measures such as organizational assurance, curriculum assurance, and evaluation assurance. It has played an important role in the construction of excellent teachers in Britain. The © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li, Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5865-8_2

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guarantee of pre-service training quality of British teachers is mainly analyzed from two aspects: external guarantee and internal guarantee. At present, the British government tends to focus on the primary and secondary school-oriented training model, and more and more trainees choose to follow this path. The primary and secondary school-oriented teacher training mainly has two forms: school-direct training and school-centered pre-service teacher training. In recent years, due to its strong target orientation, emphasis on practical ability cultivation, and short duration, PGCE has been favored by more and more applicants and become a major pre-service teacher education course in the UK. The separation of theory and practice is a disadvantage of the traditional pre-service teacher training model. The UK attaches great importance to the pre-service training of teachers, actively explores new training modes, and focuses on the improvement of teachers’ vocational skills, laying a good foundation for the professional development of teachers. Britain has taken many measures to cultivate teachers before service. Through the longitudinal research on the development of the British pre-service teacher training policy, it can be found that the British pre-service teacher training policy has certain reference significance for us. In combination with the above points of view, it can be found that the pre-service training of teachers in the UK consists of three stages, namely, the pre-service training, the induction training, and the in-service training. These three stages constitute a continuous and uninterrupted whole, which is equally important in teacher professional growth and lifelong education.

2.1 The Background 2.1.1 Before the 1990s, Britain Had a Very Loose System of Pre-service Teacher Training In 1972, British scholar James put forward the “three-stage theory” of teacher “cultivation, appointment and further study”, and divided the whole process of teacher education into three stages: pre-service education, induction education, and postservice education, which made people realize that the professional growth of teachers should be a continuous process, which should run through the whole process of teacher training and improvement (Huang, 2008). In the same year, the James Report issued by the British government proposed that after completing non-vocational personal education, students could study educational theories in education colleges, universities, and multi-technical colleges to prepare for becoming qualified teachers in the future. However, at that time, teacher training was mainly provided by teacher training institutions, while universities and multi-technical colleges focused on cultivating academic talents. Therefore, the British government began to assist most of the teacher training institutions to merge into universities and multi-technical colleges, in order to build a unified national teacher training system, specifically to

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train future teachers. By the late 1970s, as the merger distracted the British government with a great deal of energy, the establishment of a unified national teacher training system was temporarily shelved, and the British government had to allow teacher training institutions to provide teacher training and set up courses by themselves. It is worth noting that at that time, most teacher training institutions were not capable of providing sufficient subject knowledge and were not authorized to award degrees, which not only resulted in uneven teacher education levels but also determined that the teacher training system was completely controlled by teacher training providers. Since then, the British government has tried to strengthen the guidance of statutory policies, standardize the structure and content of pre-service teacher training, and improve the quality of teacher training (Evagorou et al., 2015; Hodkinson, 2009; Huang, 2008; Wang, 2013; Zhao, 2020).

2.1.2 Since 1984, the Teachers only Can Be Qualified with the Standard Training In addition, the British government also established the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education to monitor and evaluate the progress of teacher education, thus beginning the phase of government regulation of pre-service teacher training. In 1992 and 1993, the British Ministry of Education successively issued Circulars 9/ 92 and 14/93, redefining the cooperative mode of pre-service teacher training: in the cooperative relationship between higher education institutions and primary and secondary education institutions, primary and secondary schools are responsible for curriculum planning and management. In the early marketization process of higher education, colleges, and universities provided sufficient financial support for primary and middle schools to ensure their dominant position in pre-service teacher training. In 1999, the United Kingdom formally proposed the establishment of a new teacher induction training system in England and Wales, as a transitional stage from pre-service preparation to teaching practice, so that the transition from new teachers to professional teachers can be well connected (Huang, 2008). The system requires new teachers to complete three semesters (equivalent to one school year) of orientation training for the first time, either by the local education authority or the new teacher’s school. During the training period, new teachers are mainly supervised and supported, and their performance is evaluated. The school selects old teachers with rich teaching experience to serve as the instructors of new teachers. The instructors should formulate goals and plans suitable for the professional development of each new teacher according to their specific conditions and carry out guidance work accordingly to help them solve the problems and difficulties in teaching and promote the new teachers to adapt to the profession quickly (Byrne et al., 2015; Hawkey, 2006). The evaluation of new teachers is an important link in the orientation training process and the key to ensure the training results (Evagorou et al., 2015; Hodkinson, 2009; Wang, 2013; Zhao, 2020). During the orientation process, new teachers are formally

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evaluated by the principal at the end of each semester to determine whether the new teachers have made progress and completed the orientation program. At the end of the training, the principal will make a final evaluation of the new teacher’s teaching based on the evaluation results of each semester and submit a recommendation to the local education authority on whether the new teacher has met the orientation training standards. The local education authority will then decide whether the new teacher has completed the orientation training. Induction training will be introduced into the process of teacher training so that the training of teachers is more scientific and standardized. New teachers can accept the guidance of experienced teachers, can be familiar with the teaching process, and finish the teaching work in a short time as soon as possible, the adaptation period would be greatly shortened.

2.1.3 At the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century, a Major Reform Was Carried out on the Training of Pre-service Teachers Specifically, the reform includes financial support for teacher education and training providers; a program to transfer military personnel to education has been launched for retired military personnel. Reform Ofsted’s testing framework for pre-service teacher development (Evagorou et al., 2015); ensure that professional skills are tested before teacher training. The above reform measures provide a strong policy guarantee for further improving the British pre-service teacher training system. However, a large number of official statistics and policy texts show that the UK still faces a shortage of teachers and the need to improve the qualifications of qualified teachers. Therefore, on the premise of following the pre-service teacher training system dominated by primary and secondary schools, the British government further innovated the preservice teacher training model and created a new model of teacher training featuring collaboration among universities, primary and secondary schools, and social institutions, and both degree courses and project courses (Brindley et al., 2009; Herold & Waring, 2018; Tondeur et al., 2012). In recent years, the UK attaches great importance to the pre-service training of excellent teachers and regards the quality of teachers as an important force for the country to participate in the international competition in education. With the support of the government and the promotion of teacher specialization, the UK has issued national standards for teacher pre-service training, which focus on the requirements and purposes of teachers in teaching and learning and identify the three aspects of teachers’ professional knowledge and understanding, skills and characteristics, and key teaching areas. The outstanding characteristics of British pre-service teacher training are reflected in the “school-based” teacher training mode, that is, taking primary and secondary schools as the base, strengthening the partnership between teacher training institutions and primary and secondary schools, emphasizing the role of primary and secondary schools in teacher training, emphasizing the status of educational practice, and encouraging students through

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practice and observation. Second, the historical stages of the change in British preservice teacher training policy. Since World War II, great changes have taken place in the educational policies of pre-service teachers in Britain. The change of political party idea, economic development, educational reform, and population change have promoted the innovation of the education policy of pre-service teachers in contemporary Britain. Three training modes have emerged at the historic moment. The policy change makes the education of pre-service teachers in Britain face a new situation. Under the influence of political, economic, population, and other factors, the British teacher pre-service education policy has undergone a turning point: the scale of teacher training has shrunk and the organization has been reorganized; The innovation of teacher training course certification and training way. In the transition process, the policy of teacher pre-service education shifts from focusing on teacher training scale to focusing on teacher training quality. From the emphasis on the pre-service education curriculum theory to practice; From emphasizing the leading role of universities in teachers’ pre-service education to promoting primary and secondary schools to assume more responsibilities of teachers’ pre-service education; the British central government gradually strengthened its control over teacher pre-service education and took teacher pre-service education as the starting point of teacher professional development (Byrne et al., 2015; Hodkinson, 2009; Huang, 2008; Wang, 2013; Zhao, 2020).

2.1.4 British Teacher Pre-service Education Policy in the Early Postwar Period Background of the formation of the pre-service education policy: During World War II, the enrollment of teacher training institutions in Britain decreased sharply, and many in-service teachers suffered casualties. The British government plans to extend the school-leaving age to 15 after the war, and limit class sizes to 30 pupils in secondary schools and 40 pupils in primary schools. Britain experienced two baby booms in the 1940s and 1960s. The above factors led to a serious shortage of teachers in British primary and secondary schools after World War II. In order to deal with the shortage crisis of primary and secondary school teachers, the theme of British preservice education policy in the early postwar period is to expand the scale of teacher training. The formation of “social democratic consensus” and economic recovery and development create conditions for the expansion of teacher training scale. In the nearly 30 years since the end of World War II, the scale of pre-service teacher education in the UK has expanded dramatically, driven by relevant policies. Although this alleviated the crisis of teacher shortage, the rapid expansion of the teacher training scale in the late 1960s led to the existing problems such as low enrollment standards for normal university students and fewer connections between teacher training institutions and primary and secondary schools. The operation of regional training organizations and the establishment of Bachelor of Education courses have also

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exposed many problems, which require the formulation of new policies to solve. After World War II, the rapid expansion of pre-service education in Britain made the quality of teacher training neglected. In addition, since the mid-1960s, the number of births in the UK has declined, while the expansion of pre-service teacher education has continued unabated, creating a potential surplus of teacher training (Brindley et al., 2009; Herold & Waring, 2018; Tondeur et al., 2012). In 1971, Hugh Harding, the official in charge of teacher education in the UK, proposed to reduce the number of normal students and transform the functions of education colleges to avoid the employment difficulties faced by teacher graduates in the late 1970s. In the 1970s, Britain suffered a severe economic crisis, and public spending was cut sharply, making it impossible to follow Keynesian economic policies and build a welfare state. The postwar “social democratic consensus” between Labour and the Conservatives broke down, and the boom in education at all levels ended. At the same time, how to improve the quality of primary and secondary education became a hot issue in British education reform. In the late 1960s, a dualtrack system of higher education was established in the UK, that is, local education bureaux managed educational colleges and multi-technical colleges, and universities enjoyed the right of self-management. Although ostensibly a public institution of higher education managed by local education bureaus, colleges of education are still closely linked to universities due to the existence of regional training organizations. This leads to the fuzzy orientation of the management of the College of Education (Byrne et al., 2015; Hawkey, 2006; Wang, 2013; Zhao, 2020). Due to the great changes in Britain’s political and economic environment in the 1970s and the education itself in trouble, England urgently needs a comprehensive survey of pre-service teacher education to find strategies for improvement. The first turning point in the development of teacher pre-service education policy after World War II is from the focus on the expansion of teacher training scale to the shrinkage of teacher training scale and restructuring of institutions. The pre-service teacher education policy in Britain in the 1970s promoted the shrinkage of teacher training scale and the reorganization of institutions, which created conditions for improving the quality of teacher training. However, British teacher education institutions have relatively high autonomy, so it is difficult for the government to uniformly monitor the quality of teacher training, and the poor educational practice ability of normal university students has become increasingly prominent, which has become a key problem to be solved in the subsequent pre-service education policies for teachers (Byrne et al., 2015; Hawkey, 2006; Hodkinson, 2009; Huang, 2008; Wang, 2013; Zhao, 2020). The Conservative Party’s combination of neoconservative and neoliberal ideas inevitably makes its educational policies appear contradictory. On the one hand, the Conservative Party strengthened the state’s interference in education affairs, focusing on the control of curriculum content, from 1989 on the implementation of the national curriculum in public primary and secondary schools. On the other hand, education market competition should be enhanced. Primary and secondary schools can become directly funded schools with the approval of parents and the Ministry of Education and Science and enjoy the autonomy of running schools. After World War II, Britain has been focusing on improving the academic level of

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pre-service education for teachers, resulting in the lack of practical ability of normal university students. First, the access conditions of teachers and the complex selection steps, both of which jointly guarantee the quality of teachers. Only by guaranteeing the quality of teachers, can we lay a good foundation for guaranteeing the quality of teacher training. Under the influence of behaviorism learning theory, constructivism learning theory, and professional teacher education trend, the British government attaches great importance to emphasizing professional knowledge, appropriately empowering teachers, and strengthening teacher control. Teacher education has changed from traditional teacher education to professional teacher education. In this process, teacher education has its own emphases in professional intelligence and morality, professional training and development, professional organization, and teacher autonomy (Evagorou et al., 2015; Herold & Waring, 2018; Tondeur et al., 2012). Under the influence of the trend of professionalism, teacher education in Britain has experienced a process from the pursuit of professional professionalization of teachers to individual professionalization and professional development of teachers, from the emphasis on teachers’ professional knowledge to the emphasis on the cultivation and development of teachers’ reflective practical ability on the basis of reaching the professional standards of teachers. At present, under the guidance of teacher professional standards, the quality of teachers still needs to improve on the basis of achieving the standard quality on the whole, so as to cultivate excellent teachers who meet the needs of British society for quality education. The second is the training course, which is also the focus, the quality of teachers is guaranteed, then the next guarantee is the content of teachers to learn, the curriculum is also a major feature of the plan, to ensure the quality and quality of its teachers. The British government also gives full play to the advantages of teachers’ professional organizations, through which it promotes teacher policies and carries out various forms of special activities to ensure the quality of pre-service teacher education. In terms of how to guarantee the content of pre-service teacher education, the British government has developed multi-level and diversified teacher education paths and teacher education projects to meet the needs of talents of different ages and educational backgrounds. In order to improve the trainees who receive pre-service teacher education can quickly complete the transition from normal university students to teachers, in the curriculum setting of pre-service teacher education in the UK, emphasis is placed on the cultivation of teaching practical ability of prospective teachers, which forms the outstanding cultivation characteristics of the cooperation between universities and primary and secondary schools in the cultivation of normal university students and enhances the role of teaching practical guidance teachers (Byrne et al., 2015; Hawkey, 2006; Hodkinson, 2009; Huang, 2008; Wang, 2013; Zhao, 2020).

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2.2 Case Analysis of British Teachers’ Pre-service Training 2.2.1 At Present, the Primary and Secondary School-Oriented Training Model Is Focused by the Government and Trainees Centered pre-service teacher training, which was dominated by primary and secondary schools, was mainly School Direct training and school-centered preservice teacher training. In both forms of training, students have the opportunity to obtain qualified teacher qualifications and postgraduate qualifications. The main body of teacher training dominated by primary and secondary schools usually consists of a lead school, some cooperative primary and secondary schools, and a qualified teacher training institution. Among them, the lead school is mainly responsible for enrollment, and the course is jointly developed and designed by the school-running body jointly with a university and a school in SCITT. The training duration is 1 year. “School direct training” includes two ways: students receive training through paying tuition and students receive training on demand, the former is open to all undergraduate graduates. The latter is mainly for graduates with three or more years of work experience. School-centered pre-service teacher training is approved by the government, and the main body of the school is composed of a leading school and other schools. The curriculum is jointly developed and designed by these leading schools. Similar to direct school training, SCITT is also open to all undergraduate graduates, and students need to complete a 1-year full-time course in the leading school, at the same time, complete teaching practice in other schools. On top of that, the government introduced a new Apprenticeship for teacher development, called Teaching Apprenticeship, in 2018. It aims to provide training for all graduates who aspire to become teachers. Teaching apprenticeships combine on-the-job and off-job training, and at the end of the apprenticeship, students can be hired as full-time teachers. Applicants must meet certain requirements to become apprentices, including a bachelor’s degree from a UK university or proof of an equivalent qualification: 20% of the time spent on off-job training to improve teaching skills and subject knowledge, and must meet the apprenticeship standards set by the employer and ultimately pass the end-point assessment by a third-party assessment organization. In a word, this approach provides a new teacher training approach for outstanding graduates. It also allows schools to recruit and train ahead of time. Schools and social charities in the UK also set up special programs to train excellent teachers. Different from the “regular teacher” path, which aims to train ordinary teachers with teaching ability, the “excellent teacher” path usually has three purposes. The first is to train teachers in specific subjects through specialized and systematic planning schemes, such as math and physics teachers. The second is to cultivate the ability to teach, leadership and management ability, and interdisciplinary talents with research ability. The last one is to clear the weak areas of education-oriented delivery of quality teachers, to promote equality in education. On the one hand,

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the path of excellent teacher training can make full use of the social resources of charities and cultivate special talents in a project-based way. The scale of teacher’s pre-service education in Britain is shrinking, which strongly promotes the problem of teacher’s degree level. In 1970, there were 207 teacher training institutions in England and Wales, of which 180 were in the public higher education sector and 27 were universities. They produce 40,000 teachers a year, 75% of them taking nonuniversity-level Teacher Education courses, 18% Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), and 7% Bachelor of Education. An increasing number of qualified teachers are struggling to find work, as the rapid decline in births and the economic downturn have led to massive public spending cuts. The 1972 white paper Education: An Expanding Framework set in motion a retrenchment of pre-service teacher education in England and Wales. Since 1972, enrolment in colleges of Education offering 3- or 4-year pre-service teacher programs has plummeted, while enrolment in universities offering Postgraduate Certificate programs has remained stable. In 1976, the Secretary of State for Education and Science announced the establishment of the minimum system, This means that only 40,000 normal university students are allowed to participate in pre-service teacher education each year, of which 35,000 are enrolled in polytechnical institutes and education institutes, and 5,000 are enrolled in universities. In 1977, the Ministry of Education and Science reduced the number of teacher training institutions belonging to the public higher education sector to 84. In 1980, there were only 56 teacher training institutions in the state higher education sector in England. The number of normal students in England and Wales fell from 50,632 in 1972 to 18,385 in 1982. Although the scale of pre-service teacher education shrank rapidly in the 1970s, the number of universities offering pre-service teacher education and the number of students studying Postgraduate Certificate of Education did not decrease. In 1980, the United Kingdom stopped enrolling students in the 3-year Teacher Certificate course, and the Graduate Certificate in Education course became the main way to train primary and secondary school teachers. It can be seen that the reduction of the scale of pre-service teacher education in England and Wales in the 1970s strongly promoted the improvement of the educational level of teachers (Byrne et al., 2015; Hodkinson, 2009; Huang, 2008; Wang, 2013; Zhao, 2020).

2.2.2 Since the Late 1980s, Britain Has Integrated the Teacher Education and School Reform Successfully Since the late 1980s, Britain has continuously paid attention to teacher education laws and regulations and gradually developed unified and standardized operational standards. In terms of professional support and help, the detailed rules and standards of teacher education have clear provisions, among which, there are unified and strict requirements on teachers’ professional knowledge, teachers’ teaching ability, and teachers’ comprehensive quality (Brindley et al., 2009; Evagorou et al., 2015;

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Herold & Waring, 2018; Hodkinson, 2009; Huang, 2008; Tondeur et al., 2012; Wang, 2013; Zhao, 2020). From the perspective of the implementation of B.Ed and PGCE courses in the UK, teacher education in the UK can be divided into two important stages. Of course, the PGCE course stage is selective. Both stages attach great importance to the practical content. The practical demands of teachers in the post also promote the importance of practice in the process of teacher education, and promote the participation of individuals in the PGCE courses, so as to improve their practical ability. From the perspective of practice, British pre-service teachers have strict requirements for practical courses, and there are strict controls on the annual internship time and the number of schools. Teachers are required to combine theory with practice in teaching and maximize their teaching level (Evagorou et al., 2015; Herold & Waring, 2018; Tondeur et al., 2012).

2.2.3 Cambridge University’s B.Ed Course for Primary School Teachers Since teacher education in Britain entered the category of higher education at the end of the nineteenth century, it has gradually integrated with the training mode of other majors in universities and formed a 4-year undergraduate degree course. However, teacher education degree programs and certificate programs have been in a state of relative confusion. Therefore, in October 1963, the British Teacher Education Council issued The Robbins Report, pointing out that teacher training colleges should establish the education degree course system. “It is not appropriate for all students to enroll in education degree programs, nor is it practical to simply convert existing certificate programs into degree programs. Therefore, in 1964, the British government changed the name of the training college to ‘Cell of Education’, that’s to say, ‘School of Education’ and ‘University Department of Education’ were at the same level, and the undergraduate education degree of teacher education was formally born, namely, B.Ed course. B.Ed course in Cambridge University appeared with the opening of day teacher education course in 1891. Later, after a century of development and reform in 1980s, B.Ed course has formed a mature model based on standards. The Bachelor of Education, or B.Ed course, mainly cultivates primary school teachers. The training right is −40”. The length of schooling for the course is 4 years, in which the subject of professional learning and education professional training is carried out at the same time, without any teaching practice or professional training activities. Completion of the 4-year full-time program leads to a Bachelor of Education degree and a teaching certificate. From the very beginning, applicants should be clear that their major is teacher education and their future career is teacher. Training objective: The aim of Cambridge’s B.Ed program is to produce qualified teachers, mainly primary school teachers, who meet national standards (Hodkinson, 2009; Huang, 2008; Wang, 2013; Zhao, 2020).

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The overall aim is clearly stated in the university’s admissions prospectus: “The aim is to develop students with a global outlook, research skills and a passion for the teaching profession”. The training objectives for students with different levels, interests, and hobbies are as follows: training qualified teachers who meet the requirements of qualified teacher qualification standards; cultivate outstanding future teachers who have personality and love the teaching profession; cultivate future teachers with certain research ability; cultivate educational research-oriented talents. In accordance with the “Qualification Standards for Qualified Teachers and Preservice Training Requirements for Teachers”, B.Ed courses of Cambridge University set up four modules to cultivate the educational practical ability and theoretical knowledge of future teachers. The curriculum is flexible and the teaching methods are diverse. The curriculum arrangement focuses on the study of research courses. Each subject is divided into different courses according to the theme, and students must complete the assessment work through independent research. However, since most B.Ed students will transfer to PGCE courses in the third year and fewer and fewer people apply for B.Ed courses in recent years, comparatively speaking, B.Ed courses in Cambridge University do not attach great importance to practical courses and have relatively loose requirements on students’ practice. B.Ed courses are usually made up of four components: educational theory, teaching skills, work experience in schooling (educational practice), and one or two academic courses called “main courses”, which are the subjects that one intends to teach in primary and secondary schools. According to the school-level division of primary education in the UK (3–7 is the early stage of education and 7–11 is the primary stage), prospective teachers voluntarily choose one of two teacher training courses to focus on at the beginning of the second school year. The general B.Ed program arranges students to do a subject study in the first 2 years after entering the school, learning the subject knowledge and subject teaching skills necessary for the school. From the third year, emphasis will be placed on professional research and teaching practice while continuing “subject research”. According to the different nature of the four modules and the needs of students, the University of Cambridge divides all the courses into compulsory courses and optional courses, which are distributed in the 3-year study. Students can exercise their practical ability and acquire basic knowledge of education through the study of these courses. At the same time in their own major (Brindley et al., 2009; Evagorou et al., 2015; Herold & Waring, 2018; Tondeur et al., 2012). The advantages of Britain’s pre-service teacher training policy can be identified from the following aspects Since 1944, the British pre-service teacher training policy has gradually emphasized the importance of practice, which is not only an important means to improve teaching ability but also an important source of theoretical research. Teaching is a profession that needs lifelong learning and continuous development and needs continuous reflection and progress in teaching. Following the recommendations of the 1972 James Report, the postwar British government established 4-year Bachelor of Education courses and Higher Education Diploma courses to strengthen the study of theoretical knowledge. The Thatcher government made adjustment and reform in pre-service teacher training, introducing competency-based curriculum certification standards, while the New Labour government’s pre-service

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teacher training was standardized and school-based. Under the enhanced Teacher Training Board and Ofsted system, more school-based, emphasis is placed on preservice teacher practical experience. Double-teacher training is the main content of strengthening the construction of teachers proposed in recent years. Teachers should not only master the theoretical knowledge of professional but also have rich practical experience. In March 2016, the Ministry of Education’s Opinions on Strengthening the Educational Practice of Normal University Students clearly pointed out that an all-round educational practice content system should be built with education internship, practice, and study as the main module (Brindley et al., 2009; Evagorou et al., 2015; Herold & Waring, 2018; Tondeur et al., 2012). The British pre-service teacher training policy presents the characteristics of “tripartite cooperation”. During the Conservative government, the quality reform of higher education was strengthened, along with the increasing emphasis on quality assurance. With a focus on the competencies that qualified teachers should possess, pre-service teacher training began to be increasingly school-based. School-centered pre-service teacher training was launched in 1993 as a pilot scheme by the main government and expanded under the New Labour government. The UK gives full play to government functions to provide policy guarantee for pre-service teacher training, higher education institutions provide sufficient academic resources for preservice teacher training, and schools provide guarantee for the practice of pre-service teachers (Hodkinson, 2009; Wang, 2013; Zhao, 2020). The smooth implementation and quality assurance of the UK’s pre-service teacher training policy are inseparable from a set of training management certification mechanism and other adequate resources. For example, in the history of higher education, a new unified funding body for higher education in England, namely, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, was created in 1992, requiring the Higher Education Funding Council for England to establish a “quality assessment committee” to evaluate teaching. The Teacher Training Board established later also linked the funding of teacher training institutions with quality assessment. After the pre-service teacher training policy is published, the Royal Academy of Inspectors and Ofsted will investigate and evaluate the implementation of the policy and make recommendations based on the results. And the Royal Academy of School Inspectors and Ofsted are independent of government departments, ensuring objectivity in supervising evaluations. At the same time, some of our pre-service teacher training institutions lack funds, resulting in backward training facilities, training resources shortage, unable to ensure the smooth development of pre-service teacher training. Therefore, we should correctly examine the situation of pre-service teacher training, highlight contradictions, adjust relevant policies from the top down, increase the implementation, supervision, and management of pre-service teacher training, and vigorously develop supervising organizations independent of the government to ensure the objectivity of evaluation and provide sufficient resources to ensure the smooth implementation of pre-service teacher training policy. The British government has absolute leadership over the national education cause by reviewing the educational policies of pre-service teacher training introduced by the government in the three periods. At key moments of social development, the government always leads the overall situation of education,

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timely promulgates, adjusts educational policies, and transmits policy information to the whole country in the form of bills, reports, circulars, white papers, and green books. Constantly adjust the teacher training institutions, teacher certification system and training courses, so as to make the country’s teacher education smoothly and to ensure the country’s education along the right direction of development. But Britain’s pre-service teacher training has its limits. For example, the proportion of practical courses in pre-service teacher training has increased. Some British scholars are concerned about this. They worry that too many practical courses will lead to students’ weak knowledge of educational theories and the decline of academic research ability. At the same time, as more and more primary and secondary schools are regarded as the centers of pre-service teacher training, the government will invest a large amount of funds, which will lead to the rise of teacher training costs. More funds invested in primary and secondary schools will affect the scientific research funds of higher education institutions, which may lead to specialized teaching and fewer scientific research results. However, Britain has a long history and rich experience in pre-service teacher training, and many aspects are worth our learning and reference (Brindley et al., 2009; Evagorou et al., 2015; Herold & Waring, 2018; Tondeur et al., 2012).

2.3 Summary In combination with the above points of view, it can be found that the pre-service training of teachers in the UK consists of three stages, namely, the pre-service training, the induction training, and the in-service training. These three stages constitute a continuous and uninterrupted whole, which is equally important in teachers’ professional growth and lifelong education. The UK attaches great importance to the pre-service training of teachers, actively explores new training modes, and focuses on the improvement of teachers’ vocational skills, which lays a good foundation for the professional development of teachers. The UK has adopted the following measures in terms of pre-service training of teachers: In-service training of teachers has become an important part of the professional growth of teachers in the UK and is gradually moving toward institutionalization and standardization. The British government attaches great importance to teacher in-service training. The forms and contents of teachers’ in-service training are varied. Establish and improve the teacher evaluation system. In the whole process of teacher training, the UK always regards teacher evaluation as an important link to improve teachers’ professional standards and teaching work. The whole process of vocational training should always run through two aspects, namely, the supervision and support of new teachers and the evaluation of new teachers’ performance. New teachers need help from others when they meet some problems and difficulties at the beginning of their teaching. Therefore, principals of primary and secondary schools must select old teachers with rich teaching experience as the instructors of new teachers, and provide daily supervision and guidance to them. According to the specific situation of each new teacher,

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the supervisor should formulate the goals and plans suitable for his/her professional development and carry out the guidance work accordingly. Professional development goals are of great significance to the personnel and institutions involved in induction training. They not only help new teachers to meet the standards and requirements of induction training but also serve as the basis for evaluating the progress of new teachers. The establishment of the British induction training system is of great significance to teacher training, which marks the establishment of a brand-new teacher training model and makes the induction training as important as the preservice training and the in-service training of teachers. Introducing the induction training into the process of teacher training makes the way of teacher training more scientific and standardized, and effectively makes up for the defects of the closed teacher education system in the past the quality of teacher education is not high and the new teachers cannot adapt to and be competent for teaching work. Practice shows that new teachers receiving necessary induction training, receiving the guidance of experienced teachers, being familiar with the teaching process of the school, and accumulating teaching experience can greatly shorten their adaptation period, so as to be competent for teaching work in the shortest possible time. From the above discussion on the integration of pre-service training, induction training, and in-service training of teachers in the UK, teacher training in the UK has the following basic characteristics:

2.3.1 The Three Stages of Teacher Training, Pre-service, Entry, and In-service, Are Closely Related Teacher education institutions in Britain generally provide pre-service training and in-service further education. Induction training is to make new teachers out of school as soon as possible to adapt to competent teaching work education. Learn about the school ethos, school-running characteristics, the work of teachers in class and extracurricular time, the preparation and application of resources in the classroom and school, and interview staff and related departments in the school. In recent years, not only the “school-based” mode of pre-service teacher training has emerged but also the “school-based” mode of teacher induction training and in-service training has emerged. The three-stage education is showing a trend of integration, and their combination point is the “base” of primary and secondary schools.

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2.3.2 In Order to Strengthen the School-Based Training Mode, British Pre-service Teacher Training Institutions Have Established Relatively Stable Primary and Secondary School Practice Bases For example, the Institute of Education, University of London, has established an equal partnership with more than 500 primary and secondary schools and colleges near the school on the basis of mutual benefit to jointly complete educational practice. In this way, the relationship between universities, colleges of education, and primary and secondary schools has changed, which is called a new “partnership” in Britain. This partnership is reflected throughout the process, including the development, implementation, and evaluation of teacher development and training programs. Clarke, the former British Secretary of State for Education, believes that “the whole process of teacher development must be based on a more equal partnership between primary and secondary school teachers and teachers in teacher training institutions. Primary and secondary schools and their teachers should play a major role in both the initial design of the training curriculum and the grades of individual normal university students.” The level of teacher training has been continuously improved. In the mid1960s, British universities set up the certificate system of Bachelor of Education and Graduate Education, gradually making primary and secondary school teachers all have a bachelor’s degree or above and have received professional training in teacher education. In the following 10 years, the proportion of primary and secondary school teachers with graduate education certificates has been increasing. In the 1980s, the proportion of graduates with bachelor’s degrees in education and graduate certificates of education increased from 6.8:1 in 1966 to 0.6:1. At present, “Graduate Certificate of Education” has become the most common form of training secondary school teachers in Britain, and more and more primary school teachers pass this form of training. In a word, the three stages of pre-service training, induction training, and inservice further study of British teachers have formed an organic whole, which plays an important role in the professional growth of British teachers (Brindley et al., 2009; Huang, 2008; Tondeur et al., 2012; Wang, 2013).

References Brindley, R., Quinn, S., & Morton, M. L. (2009). Consonance and dissonance in a study abroad program as a catalyst for professional development of pre-service teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(3), 525–532. Byrne, J., Shepherd, J., Dewhirst, S., Pickett, K., Speller, V., Roderick, P., Grace, M., & Almond, P. (2015). Pre-service teacher training in health and well-being in England: The state of the nation. European Journal of Teacher Education, 38(2), 217–233. Evagorou, M., Dillon, J., Viiri, J., & Albe, V. (2015). Pre-service science teacher preparation in Europe: Comparing pre-service teacher preparation programs in England, France, Finland and Cyprus. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 26(1), 99–115.

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Hawkey, K. (2006). Emotional intelligence and mentoring in pre-service teacher education: A literature review. Mentoring & Tutoring, 14(2), 137–147. Herold, F., & Waring, M. (2018). An investigation of pre-service teachers’ learning in physical education teacher education: Schools and university in partnership. Sport, Education and Society, 23(1), 95–107. Hodkinson, A. (2009). Pre-service teacher training and special educational needs in England 1970– 2008: Is government learning the lessons of the past or is it experiencing a groundhog day? European Journal of Special Needs Education, 24(3), 277–289. Huang, H. (2008). Research on the Education Policy of pre-service teachers in Britain after World War II. Foreign Educational Research, 35(11), 92–96. Tondeur, J., Van Braak, J., Sang, G., Voogt, J., Fisser, P., & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. (2012). Preparing pre-service teachers to integrate technology in education: A synthesis of qualitative evidence. Computers & Education, 59(1), 134–144. Wang, Y. (2013). Direct training plan: A new reform measure of pre-service teacher education in Britain. World Education Information, 20(11), 24–29. Zhao, M. (2020). Three transitions and inspirations of pre-service education policy of British teachers after World War I. Modern Education Management, 20(02), 94–101.

Chapter 3

Pre-service Teacher Education Development in Japan

This chapter focuses on Pre-service teacher education development in Japan. Japan’s pre-service teacher training emerged in the early Meiji period. With the development of Japanese society, Japan’s pre-service teacher training has gone through three stages of development: closed model, open model, closed model and open co-existing comprehensive model. Training mode of pre-service teachers in Pre-war Japan began in the Meiji Restoration in the mid-nineteenth century. To save the nation and resist the aggression of Western European capitalist countries to Japan, Meiji Restoration came into being in 1868. Before the Meiji Restoration, there was no specialized teacher training institution in Japan. In the early days of the Meiji Restoration, when Japan just opened its eyes to the world, imitating Western Europe became a shortcut for Japan to cultivate and develop pre-service teachers. In view of the development of the pre-service teacher training model in Europe, Japan began to set up specialized teacher training institutions in imitation of Europe. Graduates of these teacher training institutions do not charge tuition, are exempt from military service, and are subject to state distribution after graduation to serve the country for a certain period. The above measures alleviated the severe shortage of primary school teachers at that time and laid the foundation for the establishment of Japan’s closed pre-service teacher training model.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li, Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5865-8_3

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3.1 The Background 3.1.1 In the Middle of Meiji Period, Japan Entered the Stage of Nationalistic Education System In order to promote the development of the national education system and train teachers needed by the Empire, the Minister of Education, Mori Mane, set the purpose of normal schools as “places to train teachers” and issued the Decree of Normal Schools. Normal schools have a tightly organized curriculum. Students in normal schools are not allowed to choose subjects according to their own interests and hobbies but must study according to the needs of the country. The Decree of Normal School and the documents on Subjects and Procedures of Normal School and Service Rules for Graduates of Normal School issued in the same year made normal school an independent system in terms of schooling, which marked the final establishment of the closed teacher training mode in Japan. In the 1890s, with the transition from capitalism to imperialism, Japan began to actively cultivate talents needed for the industrial revolution. Under such circumstances, the Japanese government extended the period of compulsory education and reformed the closed pre-service teacher training mode. After entering the twentieth century, Japan intensified its efforts to develop education, teacher training achieved unprecedented development, the level of institutions and the quality of students have been improved to a certain extent. However, as Japan sank deeper into the mire of war, teacher training also went to the brink of collapse.

3.1.2 The Training Mode of Pre-service Teachers in Japan in the Early Postwar Period In 1945, Japan was defeated in the Second World War and announced its unconditional surrender. After that, the American occupying forces monopolized Japan and began to reform the Japanese militaristic system completely with the goal of American-style bourgeois democratic politics, economy, social culture and educational system. In view of the drawbacks of the closed preservice teacher training model before the war, the American Education Delegation proposed in its first report an important suggestion to establish an open preservice teacher training model. Under its influence, Japan began to take the United States as the blueprint to thoroughly reform the closed pre-service teacher training mode. In 1947, the Eighth Special Committee of the Education Reform Committee made a report on Teacher Training reform—On Teacher Training (I). The report abolished the public fee system and post-graduation service system in pre-war normal school education, and stipulated the requirements for teachers in primary, middle and high schools and all kinds of

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schools. In 1949, the Education Staff Permission Law was promulgated and implemented, stipulating that all formal primary and secondary school teachers must obtain the teacher qualification certificate and complete the prescribed courses and credits. After passing the examination, the Education Committee will issue the teacher qualification certificate. Thus, the principle of open system of pre-service teacher training was formally established. Later, Japan began to establish an open model of preservice teacher training by reorganizing old normal schools and establishing teacher training courses in other universities. As for the old normal schools, Japan mainly reorganizes them into new universities focusing on teacher training or a division of new universities. The restructuring process is carried out in three main ways. First, it will merge old normal schools in special areas (Hokkaido, Tokyo, Aichi, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, and Nara) as stipulated in the 11 Principles for the Establishment of Kuniku Universities (1948) and make them single-subject academic universities. Secondly, the old normal school will be reorganized into the academic and Art department of the national university to undertake the task of teacher training independently. Thirdly, the old normal schools will be reorganized into the Department of Education of national universities, which will share the task of teacher training with other departments. After the war, the old Imperial universities and other state, public and private universities began to become another indispensable place for teacher training. After the enactment of the Law on the Establishment of National Schools in 1949, national universities began to set up departments of education through various channels to train educational science researchers, educational administrative experts and teachers at the front line of education. In addition, other national, public, and private universities have joined the teaching staff training since the 1949 Education Staff Licensing Act. However, the curriculum of the newly established universities is imperfect, with only a minimal set of subjects and internships. In this context, the Ministry of Education has begun to standardize the educational curricula of such universities by establishing benchmarks for the examination of educational curricula. After a series of reforms, the open pre-service teacher training model was established in Japan in the mid-1950s. In 1951, the San Francisco Peace Treaty and the Japan-US Security Treaty were signed, and Japan entered the period of semi-occupation by the United States. In 1956, the Japanese government stated, “Growth with recovery as leverage is over. Future growth will be supported by modernization.” Since then, Japan has entered a period of rapid economic development. The rapid development of technological innovation and continuous economic growth have had a profound impact on Japanese education. In order to meet the needs of social development and improve the quality of teacher training, Japan has gradually embarked on the comprehensive pre-service teacher training mode. In 1961, in order to meet the needs of industrial development and solve the urgent problem of industrial teachers, nine national universities in Japan set up temporary industrial teacher training institutes. Students at these training centers can enjoy benefits such as deferment of tuition fees and a certain period of service after graduation. The establishment of temporary industrial teacher training Institute is the first attempt of Japan’s comprehensive preservice teacher training model. In addition, Japan has overhauled its teacher training

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programs, except for Tokyo Gakuei University, all Gakuei universities and divisions that focus on teacher training have been renamed Universities of Education and Divisions of Education. In this context, in 1964, the Teacher Education Department and the Teacher Training Course of primary and secondary schools were separated from Northeastern University and became Miyagi University of Education, specializing in training teachers for compulsory education. The establishment of Miyagi University of Education is the result of the gradual strengthening of administrative restrictions on teacher training courses and the further development of the category of higher education institutions. It is of great significance in the history of teacher training in postwar Japan. It marks the formal beginning of the comprehensive teacher training mode in postwar Japan. Since the 1960s, in order to meet the needs of the further development of the society, Japan began to implement the comprehensive pre-service teacher training model. This mode overcomes the unplanned nature of the open teacher training mode after the war, improves teachers’ professional knowledge and practical guidance ability, as well as teachers’ dedication and enthusiasm for education, and plays an important role in guaranteeing the number of teachers and improving their quality. However, due to the restriction of administrative power on teacher training, administrative power and the autonomy of the university to a certain extent have produced a contradiction, which makes teacher training become a very special existence in higher education. How to deal with this problem is an important topic worthy of further study and discussion (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Byrne et al., 2015; Hodkinson, 2009; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Kim & Choi, 2020; Win, 2022).

3.2 The Historical Stages of Cultivation Policy Change 3.2.1 The Establishment of Japan’s Pre-service Teacher Training Model After World War II Before the end of World War II, Japan implemented a closed model of pre-service teacher training. Normal schools in this mode produce students with no innovative spirit. In view of the fatal shortcomings of the old normal schools before World War II, Japan adopted the basic reform policy of reorganizing the old normal schools into comprehensive universities or the Department of Science and Art (Department of Education) of comprehensive universities. Its reorganization mode mainly includes the following two kinds: first, merge mode. Japan upgraded or merged old normal schools in some areas to make them single-subject academic universities or comprehensive national universities. Second, the way of merger. The areas to be annexed are those other than those mentioned above. Japan merged the old normal schools in these areas into the department of Arts or the Department of Education of comprehensive national universities. Under the pressure of the United States, the old normal

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schools all realized merge or merger in a very short time (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Win, 2022).

3.2.2 The Establishment of the Department of Education of the Old Imperial University The promulgation of the School Education Law in 1947 clarified the open principle of teacher training. On the basis of this principle, Japan hopes to promote the overall improvement of teacher training quality in other schools through the teacher training activities in the former imperial universities, which are at the top of the Japanese school system pyramid. Accordingly, after the enactment of the National School Establishment Law in 1949, six national universities, including Hokkaido University and Tohoku University, began to establish departments of education to train teachers through various channels. On the whole, although most of the former imperial universities have established the Department of Education, due to the tight time, heavy tasks, and the limitation of teachers’ education resources, there are various problems in the development process of the department of education in such universities. In the development process of education reform after World War II, in order to achieve leapfrog development, general universities hope to seek a new breakthrough by training teachers. This long-cherished dream came true after the introduction of the Permit Law for Education Employees in 1949 (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Win, 2022). It was a major feature of the teacher training curriculum in general universities during this period that universities set up teacher training courses according to their own wishes under the provisions of the Education Staff Permission Law. Generally speaking, as the teacher training in general universities had just started during this period, both hardware and software facilities were weak. As a result, there are not enough teacher training courses in ordinary universities, and there are not enough teachers for teacher training courses. They only set up teacher training courses at a minimum in accordance with the Education Staff Permission Law. In this context, the Ministry of Education has begun to standardize the teacher training courses of such universities by establishing benchmarks for the examination of teacher training courses.

3.2.3 The Development of Japan’s Pre-service Teacher Training Model After World War II From 1958 to 1959, with the arrival of the period of rapid economic development, how to solve the problem of industrial high school teachers became a thorny issue in Japan. In 1961, Japan set up nine temporary industrial training centers for teachers. As the first attempt to set up a specialized teacher training institution after World

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War II, the temporary Industrial teacher Training Institute has made clear provisions on the name of the institution, the duty of students after graduation, and the incentive measures, which is conducive to the training of intermediate technical talents in Japan. However, the temporary industrial teachers’ too much attention to the major and eager to achieve the course setting situation makes students seriously lack basic knowledge. In 1967, the temporary Industrial teacher Nursery ceased to enroll students and was abolished at the end of March 1969. With the publication of the report of the Central Education Review Council in 1958 and the formulation of the recommendations of the Education Staff Cultivation Review Council in 1962, the purpose of establishing teacher training universities and the categorization of university development became increasingly obvious, and the administrative constraints of the state on university teacher training activities were increasing. In 1964, the teacher training program of the Department of Education of Northeastern University was separated into Miyagi University of Education. Miyagi University of Education takes the training of compulsory teachers as its goal and puts the training of primary school teachers as the focus of its reform. From the perspective of ensuring the number of teachers and improving the quality of teachers, the establishment of Miyagi University of Education made up for the deficiency of the pre-service training mode of teachers in Japan in the early post-World War II period and was a significant reform in the evolution history of the pre-service training mode of teachers in Japan after World War II. General universities occupy an important position in the pre-service training mode of teachers established in Japan after World War II and are the main training institutions for secondary education teachers in Japan. The Japanese Ministry of Education adopted the ideas of establishing national standards for teacher training and enhancing teacher training planning proposed by the Central Education Council report in 1958 and three times by the Education Staff Cultivation Council in 1962, 1965 and 1966. It began to strengthen the intervention in the training of general university teachers through various forms of administrative means. Among them, the provincial order of teacher training courses, the change of the name of general university teacher training department and other measures are representative, which promoted the planned development of general university teacher training, strengthened the state’s interference in general universities to undertake the task of teacher training, and promoted the development of Japan’s pre-service teacher training model formed in the early years after World War II (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Win, 2022).

3.2.4 Improvement of Pre-service Training Model of Japanese Teachers After World War II In the late 1970s and early 1980s, in order to meet the new requirements of economic and social development on primary and secondary school teachers, clarify the purpose of teacher training in higher education, and realize the planned training

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of teachers, Japan established three “new idea” teacher education universities— Kamikoshi University of Education, Hyogo University of Education, Narumoto University of Education. The “new idea” is mainly reflected in two aspects. One is the purpose of running the school to promote the scientific research of basic education practice and improve the quality and ability of basic education teachers, and to provide a new attempt to the basic education teacher training. The other is admission, graduation and professional curriculum which respectively embodied in that “New Idea” teacher education university offers graduate school and undergraduate courses, mainly graduate school, the majority of graduate school students are recommended by the relevant education department, and the curriculum should pay attention to comprehensiveness and intersections. “New Idea” Teacher Education University created a new paradigm of teacher training in basic education after the Second World War and improved the function of specialized teacher training institutions. Since the Review Policy on the Establishment of Graduate Schools in Teacher Training Universities was formulated in 1979, the establishment of graduate teacher training courses in general universities in Japan has entered a period of rapid development. The specific conditions of such courses are as follows: (1) The aim and purpose of running the school. Administrative personnel of compulsory education schools should be trained and equipped with high-quality ability and literacy so as to guide and promote the development of front-line education. (2) Enrollment and professional curriculum. General graduate teacher training courses in universities only include postgraduate courses. In addition to the recruitment of undergraduate graduates, on-the-job teachers also can be recruited. (3) Teacher organization. There is a minimum limit on the number of teachers in each specialty in general graduate teacher training courses, and the qualifications of teachers in each specialty should be examined by the corresponding special committee (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Win, 2022). In 1872, Japan promulgated the first Regulations on vocational education, the School System, which established the status of vocational education in the whole educational system. In 1947, Japan enacted the Occupational Stability Law, which focuses on the process of skill training, occupational stability and action. It passed the Act of promoting Trade education in 1951, the Act of Vocational Education in 1958, the regulation of skills education facilities in 1962, the Act of Emergency Measures for the Unemployed in 1963, and the Act of employing vocational education teachers in 1966, In 1949, the Ministry of Education formulated the “Teaching Administrative Personnel Licensing Law” and the “Rules for the Implementation of the Education Administrative Personnel Licensing Law”, which established the open teacher training system in Japan. Teacher training, as a vocational education teacher’s obligations and rights, has attracted the attention of all social strata. For example, Article 19 of the Special Law on Education Civil Servants promulgated in 1949 stipulates that “In order to better complete the teaching task, vocational education teachers should take teaching as their own work and constantly devote themselves to research work.” It even points out that teachers can leave school for further training with the consent of the head of their organization as long as it does not interfere with classes. According to the advisory report on Improving the Quality of Teachers

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published by the Central Education Council in June 1978, the following specific measures were put forward for further education of vocational educators. Firstly, the system of further education of teachers was perfected, so that teachers could apply their knowledge to their age and experience, and obtain appropriate content and methods of training. Secondly, in order to encourage teachers to participate in further education, active research and training activities inside and outside the school were carried out. Thirdly, it’s also necessary to increase the opportunities for vocational teachers to enter universities and graduate schools. In addition, the Education Law, the Social Education Law, the Industrial Education Law and other provisions include in-service training for teachers and engineers and technicians. In Japan, the in-service training of vocational education teachers has attracted the attention of the society, and the education administration department is responsible for formulating the policies related to teacher training. For example, the Policy to Ensure Teacher Training points out that teachers should not only master and teach professional theoretical knowledge, but also can solve problems with high quality and practical operation. And these comprehensive qualities are equipped on the teachers before entering the stage of comprehensive training. The Education Special Cases Law stipulates that “In order to enable educators to better perform their duties and continuously devote themselves to teaching and research, administrative institutions must provide facilities for teacher training, formulate a system for further study, and reward teachers for further study.“ The Education Staff Licensing Act stipulates that teachers can continue their education. By promulgation of various laws and regulations, Japan has mobilized the initiative and enthusiasm of teachers in in-service training and improved the effectiveness of in-service education for teachers. Japan has formed a relatively complete teacher training system. Japan’s teacher training system covers all fields of teacher training, including academic qualification training system, backbone teacher training system, new teacher training system, research and training system, overseas education field survey system, education guidance and training system of various disciplines, school management business research and training system, teacher independent research and training system, etc. The provisions of various systems are more specific, for example, “New teacher’s further education system” regulated that the probationary period of the unit for the new teachers is one year, during this year, they need to work while studying. After passing the evaluation, they can be converted into regular staff. After a long reform in the development of Japanese vocational education teacher training, the original system of teacher qualification certificate was broken. Since 2007, Japan revised the Education Staff Qualification Law. The new system stipulates that Japanese teachers should renew their certificates within 10 years after obtaining them, otherwise the original certificates will become invalid. Teachers need to pass the curriculum training and assessment of the university. If they fail to pass the required assessment, they will lose their original teaching position and identity, and the original teaching certificate will be invalid. In 2014, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology proposed to improve the current updating system of teachers’ qualification certificates, further promote teachers to timely update their own knowledge and improve their education and teaching skills, so as to better

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perform their duties. In order to better cope with the impact of modern education topics, the knowledge framework stipulated by the teacher qualification renewal system and the improvement of learning content are further defined. Secondly, the teacher qualification renewal learning system and the duties and obligations in the vocational education system are clearly defined. In addition, it is necessary to improve the compilation and practical operation of the current teacher qualification renewal system. Up to now, the Japanese education circles have been discussing the renewal of teacher qualification certificate, but the development concept is based on the concept of lifelong teacher development, and the ability and educational background are emphasized in the certification of professional teachers (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Byrne et al., 2015; Hodkinson, 2009; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Kim & Choi, 2020; Win, 2022). For example, Japanese specialized schools not only have strict requirements on the educational background of candidates, but also pay more attention to the evaluation of the candidates’ actual work experience and skills. Japan has implemented the teacher qualification renewal certification system since 2009, which indicates that the development of vocational teacher qualification certification has tended to be mature. Japan constructs a pre-service teacher education quality assurance system composed of “palliative” external quality assurance and “root” internal quality assurance by means of joint management, and the latter is particularly critical to play the role of “internal causes”. As an important force in Japan’s pre-service teacher education, Okayama University, as a local comprehensive university, has made a positive response to the above situation and constructed a systematic internal quality guarantee system of pre-service teacher education, including institutional guarantee, standard guarantee, curriculum guarantee, teacher guarantee and support guarantee.

3.3 Case Analysis of Cultivation 3.3.1 In 2010, Okayama University Established the Teacher Education Development Center The center is responsible for the design and management of vocational courses for teachers, the research and development of teacher education, and the coordination with other departments in the school and related institutions outside the school. The development Center consists of the department of teacher education development, the department of teacher career support, the department of teacher career cooperation, and the department of Science and Mathematics teacher training. The teacher education development department is responsible for the development of the core curriculum of teachers’ career, the planning and implementation of educational practice, and the contact and cooperation with the Department of Education and affiliated schools. The Teacher Career Support Department has set up “Teacher Career Talk Room” and “Teacher Competence Training Seminar”. “Teacher Career Chat Room”

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is responsible for teacher career support and chat, and also provides information on teacher recruitment examination and mock interviews. “Teacher Ability Training Lecture” invites teachers and experts from the front line of education and education committee to give presentations to help students improve their “teacher ability” to deal with problems in future work such as “bullying problem”. It is also the work of the department for teachers to manage classes and for beginners to study. The teacher Professional Cooperation Department is responsible for cooperation with the local government, student volunteer activities, educational practice, in-service teacher training, etc. In addition, there is a “school Volunteer Administration” to provide support for students’ educational practice. The teacher training department of the Department of Mathematics is responsible for the overall promotion of “Construction of teacher training bases in Okayama Department of Mathematics”, playing the dual role of facilitator and participant. “Construction of teacher training bases in Okayama Department of Mathematics” is a long-term activity, committed to training regional excellent science teachers. On the whole, the Teacher Education Development Center of Okayama University plays a role of connecting the upper and lower levels. On the one hand, the center needs to know the latest requirements and developments of pre-service teacher education from superiors and equivalent departments. At the same time, it also needs to control the measures taken in the professional preservice teacher education recognized by the whole school, so as to jointly promote the in-depth development of the reform of pre-service teacher education (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Byrne et al., 2015; Hodkinson, 2009; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Kim & Choi, 2020; Win, 2022).

3.3.2 Okayama University Intervenes in the Pre-service Teacher Education in the Form of Standard and Formulates the Core Curriculum of Teacher Career Adhering to the educational concept of sustainable development, this course is committed to cultivating self-reflective teachers with balanced development of comprehensive quality, professional ability, information collection ability, practical guidance ability and self-realization ability. The course operation institutions include the Operation Committee of the Core Curriculum for Teachers and the Department of Education. The Graduate School of Education Research Department, Teacher Education Development Center and the school’s Pre-service Teacher Education Curriculum Accreditation Department. The operation committee of Vocational Core Curriculum for teachers of the whole school has the functions of collecting topics related to vocational curriculum for teachers, reviewing project solutions, and carrying out core curriculum teacher seminars. The Graduate School of Education is responsible for the teaching of teachers’ vocational education and related subjects; The Teacher Education Development Center is responsible for controlling the learning trend of

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the whole school’s core curriculum learners, guiding students’ teacher career orientation, coordinating the school’s on-site experience activities, and deepening the cooperation with local education departments. The Pre-service Teacher Education Curriculum Accreditation Departments on campus include the Arts, Law, Economics, Science, Engineering, Environmental Construction Engineering, and Agriculture departments. These departments develop students’ research and practical abilities through professional education. The core curriculum of teachers’ career is carried out simultaneously with the professional education of the department where students belong, which is divided into three periods, namely the promotion period of teachers’ career intention, the understanding period of school education and the cultivation period of educational practical ability. The first grade is the promotion period of teachers’ career intention, the content is the positioning of teachers in the whole school, and the purpose is to confirm students’ will to become teachers and increase their love for teachers’ positions. The first semester from grade two to grade four is the understanding period of school education. In grade two, teacher occupation theory is set, aiming at cultivating students’ school education foundation and understanding ability of school education. In grade three and grade four, basic research on education practice is carried out in the first semester to cultivate students’ basic ability of education practice. The fourth grade is the training period of educational practical ability, including the educational practice in the first semester of the fourth grade and the teacher professional practice exercise in the next semester, aiming at cultivating students’ reflection, understanding and application ability of educational practice (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Win, 2022). The ambiguity of pre-service teacher education is one of the weaknesses of comprehensive universities participating in pre-service teacher education. From the perspective of universities, the universities undertaking the task of pre-service teacher education do not pay enough attention to the professional ability of students as teachers, and the pre-service teacher education activities are considered to be the responsibility of colleges or departments. From the perspective of students, the teaching profession is only an option for future employment, and students have vague development goals after the study of human resources and lack of motivation to deeply learn the courses related to pre-service teacher education (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Win, 2022).

3.4 Problems and Countermeasures 3.4.1 Japan’s Pre-service Training System for Kindergarten Teachers In 1947, Japan promulgated the School Education Law, which incorporated kindergartens into the school education system, so that preschool teachers with low social status and low social recognition were formally incorporated into the ranks of

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teachers, which is one of the fundamental reasons for the rapid development of postwar Japanese preschool education. In 1949, in order to improve and protect the quality of teachers, Japan promulgated the Education Staff Licensing Law and the enforcement rules of the Law, which standardized the qualifications of teachers. At present, preschool teacher license mainly includes three kinds of qualification certificates which are specialized license, one kind of license and two kinds of license.

3.4.2 Characteristics of Pre-service Training and Selection System of Japanese Kindergarten Teachers In order to ensure that preschool teachers have the basic quality requirements, Japan has its distinctive characteristics in pre-service training and selection system. First, from the perspective of the curriculum structure, vocational courses of compulsory courses account for 70% of all courses, subject education accounts for 10% of all class hours, and elective courses account for 20%. Here, vocational courses of teachers focus on the cultivation of professional ethics, extensive knowledge cultivation and understanding of children, and support and promote the development of children. Elective courses occupy a certain proportion, which provides space for students to develop interests, hobbies, specialties and independent learning. It can be seen that Japanese kindergarten teachers pay more attention to teacher vocational courses, while the proportion of subject courses is obviously small. At the same time, the curriculum attaches equal importance to practice and theory; in theory, emphasis is placed on curriculum, teaching method and educational theory; in practice, emphasis is placed on education practice and comprehensive exercise (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Win, 2022).

3.4.3 Reform the Content and Mode of Pre-service Education for Teachers There are many problems such as old content and different use of learning, which affect the training quality. Therefore, the curriculum must be adjusted. The new curriculum model should be committed to improving the comprehensive quality of students. While providing students with professional training, it should cultivate students’ noble professional quality and basic professional ability through general courses and social practice courses. To this end, it’s of significance to strengthen the professional foundation of early childhood education, broaden, and strengthen the basic theory courses, set up comprehensive courses, focus on the transformation of professional courses, replace the old and outdated content with that can reflect the new science and technology, especially the latest development of education science materials. At the same time, it’s also important to strengthen practical

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courses, strengthen education and teaching probation and practice, carry out various forms of educational practice training, improve students’ practical ability and cultivate students’ professional skills. The quality of early childhood education in Japan leads the world, which is inseparable from its emphasis on the quality of childminders (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Byrne et al., 2015; Hodkinson, 2009; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Kim & Choi, 2020; Win, 2022). Of course, as a school or board of education, it is very beneficial to improve the quality of teaching to choose from a large number of qualified people. For one thing, it has had to take on a huge number of interns studying without a faculty qualification. But on the other hand, also has the problem of short term in the above general university teacher courses. The first type of teacher-training college lasts six weeks, as opposed to two weeks for the average college. As a result, the problem of short deadlines has also been criticized as making it impossible to carry out the necessary training in such little time. This issue was considered by the Faculty Development Board in the 1960s and 1970s. At the meeting, the extension of the internship period was studied as part of the solution to the problem. The extension of internship is simply not possible at universities where both professional and faculty courses are offered. They argue that the open system of training teachers in ordinary universities has become useless as it has been occupied by faculty training universities specializing in this field. At present, schools at all levels, such as physical education teachers, tend to be saturated from primary school to university in Japan. It is not only in urban schools, but also in remote places. Therefore, it is very difficult for college graduates of individual majors to obtain corresponding occupations. Take Taipan Sports University for example. Out of 400 graduates in 1989, only five were hired as regular physical education teachers. This situation is not only in Osaka Sports University, but also a widespread social problem. The reason for this problem is that with the development of modern society, there are many people who do not want to have children, so the birth rate of the population decreases. The decrease in the number of students led to the reduction of class sizes and even the consolidation of schools. As a result, some of the original PE teachers lost their job opportunities and sought positions in junior high schools instead. In addition, According to the statistics in May 1985, the number of university students in Japan was 1.97 million, which is a large number for a country with a population of 120 million. As mentioned above, there are so many universities that train more talents, and their quality is inevitably affected. In the in-service teachers, some people are not scientific, but with their own experience of participating in activities to teach, do not consider and respect the personality of students, often violently angry with students, scold students, these are the specific performance of poor quality. With the strengthening of mutual influence and dependence of countries in politics and economy, the internationalization of higher education plays an increasingly important role. The internationalization of higher education is a dynamic development process (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Win, 2022).

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3.5 Summary Japanese pre-service teacher training emerged in the early Meiji period. With the development of Japanese society, Japanese pre-service teacher training has gone through three stages of development: closed model, open model, closed model and open co-existing comprehensive model. With the educational reform after the Second World War, the current pre-service training model of teachers in Japan was formed gradually and hierarchically in order to adapt to social development, which has its own distinct characteristics. In line with the policy of “education first”, Japan gives priority to the development of education as the foundation of the country. With the advantages of education, Japan has taken a place among the developed countries in the world and become one of the recognized powers in education. One of the precious experiences of Japan’s brilliant achievements in vocational education is that it must build a sufficient number of high-quality vocational education teachers. Its relatively mature vocational education teacher training mode has become one of the models recognized in the world today. The quality of pre-service teacher education has always been the focus of attention in the field of teacher education in Japan. The establishment of the internal quality assurance system of pre-service teacher education is an important content of the quality assurance of pre-service teacher education in Japan (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010; Win, 2022). As a local comprehensive university, Okayama University is representative in the construction of internal quality assurance system of pre-service teacher education. The measures taken by Okayama University include the establishment of a teacher education development center, the establishment of a school-wide core curriculum for teacher career, the updating of the educational practice curriculum system and its evaluation methods, the development of teacher development activities with student participation, and the establishment of a complete system of teacher professional ability recognition and support. The preschool professional education undertakes the task of teacher training in primary kindergartens, and the exploration of its training mode has been the unremitting pursuit of people. After the war, Japan established a series of preschool teacher training and selection systems, which effectively guaranteed and promoted the development of Japanese preschool education. Since entering the twenty-first century, in order to meet the actual needs of the development of primary and secondary education in remote areas, Japan has taken the reform of pre-service education for primary and secondary school teachers in remote areas as the focus of teacher education reform. The reform mainly includes the integration of pre-service education curriculum, the systematization of pre-service education practice and the high-end focus of pre-service training institutions. Japan’s Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology has implemented changes to the training curriculum for primary and secondary school teachers since April 1, 2019 (Aristya Putra & Kumano, 2018; Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010). The main reform content is to improve teachers’ information utilization technology and foreign language ability, strengthen teachers’ education understanding and pay attention to special students, increase the guidance of teachers’ comprehensive learning time course and allow

References

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colleges and universities to set up certain training courses independently, so as to improve the quality of teachers. However, the current teacher qualification examination system has a variety of disadvantages, such as low entry threshold for teachers, lack of accumulation of teaching practical experience and theoretical knowledge, and teachers’ insufficient ability to use information technology means (Izumi-Taylor et al., 2010).

References Aristya Putra, P. D., & Kumano, Y. (2018). Energy Learning Progression and STEM conceptualization among pre-service science teachers in Japan and Indonesia. The New Educational Review, 53, 153–162. Byrne, J., Shepherd, J., Dewhirst, S., Pickett, K., Speller, V., Roderick, P., et al. (2015). Pre-service teacher training in health and well-being in England: The state of the nation. European Journal of Teacher Education, 38(2), 217–233. Hodkinson, A. (2009). Pre-service teacher training and special educational needs in England 1970– 2008: Is government learning the lessons of the past or is it experiencing a groundhog day? European Journal of Special Needs Education, 24(3), 277–289. Izumi-Taylor, S., Ito, Y., & Gibbons, A. (2010). Early childhood pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teaching technology to children in Japan and the United States. Research in Comparative and International Education, 5(4), 408–420. Kim, Y., & Choi, M. (2020). Towards critical multicultural teacher education in the midst of ethno-nationalism: Korean pre-service teachers’ international learning experiences. Teaching and Teacher Education, 96, 103155. Win, Y. M. (2022). Teacher educators’ understanding of integrating lesson study into pre-service teacher education. Journal of Adult Learning, Knowledge and Innovation, 4(2), 52–61.

Chapter 4

Pre-service Teacher Education Development in Canada

This chapter explores pre-service teacher education development in Canada. Under the trend of globalization, the competition between countries and regions in the world is intensifying, and the demand for talents is getting higher and higher, which inevitably brings competition of human resources. The competition of human resources has aroused the attention of many countries on teacher quality and teacher education. Teacher pre-service training is a key link for future teachers to complete the role transformation from students to teachers, and it has become the focus of countries to improve the quality of teachers and further promote the reform of teacher education. Since the eighteenth century, the training of vocational education teachers in Canada has experienced a historical process such as mentoring training, the germination of the school education system, the development of the school education system, and the maturity of the school education system. It has formed the current mode that focuses on bachelor’s degree education and combines continuous teacher training and concurrent teacher training. Canada’s basic education is highly developed, largely thanks to high-quality pre-service teacher training. In the pre-service training of new teachers, Canada, with its scientific, rigorous, flexible, and open teacher education system and unique experience measures, has strongly promoted the professional development of its own teachers, and also provided a lot of guidance and reference for the development of teacher education in other countries. But Canada also faces new challenges in pre-service teacher training. This chapter explores the deficiencies in the pre-service training of teachers in Canada from the perspective of comparison, combines with the actual situation of Canada, and offers some helpful suggestions for the reform of our current education practice.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li, Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5865-8_4

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4.1 The Background 4.1.1 In Canada, There is No Unified Federal Department to Enact Laws In 1867, Canada provided that the Legislative Council of each province could specially enact relevant educational laws and regulations. The departments of Education in Canada’s 13 jurisdictions are responsible for organizing, assigning, and evaluating educational institutions at different levels, including elementary, secondary, and university education. Teachers’ pre-service training is usually jointly undertaken by colleges of education and primary and secondary schools. In order to achieve the high-quality development of education and teaching level, Canada offered courses in educational theory and methodology for pre-service teachers. Pre-service teacher education is provided by 62 institutions in 10 Canadian provinces, with no provision in the three exceptions. The number of students has grown from less than 100 to more than 4,000, and the number of teachers has increased every year. Teacher education courses differ significantly in curriculum structure and class hour design, and these settings also have a great impact on the development of teachers, the allocation and utilization of teaching time, students’ learning and educational experience, and so on. Due to Canada’s geographic, historical, linguistic, and cultural diversity, there is no single model of teacher education that can meet the needs and interests of all jurisdictions, and where appropriate, English- and French-centered curriculum begins to be developed in Canada. Colleges of Education offer courses in educational theory and methodology for pre-service teachers, and primary and secondary schools are responsible for providing internship opportunities and positions for preservice teachers. They are an important part of the pre-service training of teachers in Canada and are also the necessary requirements for obtaining a bachelor’s degree in education and a teacher professional qualification certificate (D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Deer, 2013; Hong, 2001, 2003; Qu, 2021; Van Nuland, 2011).

4.1.2 Teachers Are the Key Factors in the Development of Education and the Improvement of Education Quality The curriculum is the carrier to carry education idea and realize education ideal. In the development of teacher education, teacher education curriculum is the key to achieve the goal of training, and also the direct factor affecting the development of teacher specialization. Under the background of the universalization and professionalization of teacher education, the curriculum of pre-service teacher education in Canada has been reformed and improved many times, and the curriculum has gradually formed a scientific and standardized system. Based on the current situation of the curriculum

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of pre-service teacher education in Ontario, Canada, this chapter mainly analyzes the curriculum type, curriculum structure, and content of the pre-service teacher education in Ontario, hoping to provide some enlightenment and reference for the reform and improvement of the curriculum of teachers. The historical development of Canada’s pre-service teacher education curriculum mainly goes through three stages, namely, preliminary development stage transition stage and stage of perfection. In different historical periods, the pre-service teacher education curriculum presents different characteristics (Lin, 2002; Sims et al., 2020). At present, the curriculum of pre-service teacher education in Canada is relatively perfect, mainly based on the objective needs of social development, the development status of basic education, and the professional standards of teacher education. The basic structure of the curriculum of pre-service teacher education in Ontario, Canada, includes three aspects: the basic type of curriculum, the structural relationship and the main content, and its curriculum model. In the context of global education governance, the importance of teacher education quality has become increasingly prominent. It has become the consensus of all major countries in the world to improve the quality of teacher education, improve the quality of teachers, and improve the quality of national education, so as to effectively participate in the goal of global education governance. Teacher education quality monitoring system, as the “physical examination instrument” and “baton” of teacher education quality monitoring, plays an important role in both setting the bottom line for teacher education quality and indicating the direction of development. Ontario is an important city of education in Canada, its education level ranks among the top in the world. This is inseparable from Ontario’s emphasis on teacher education quality. By combing, summarizing, and analyzing the literature on teacher education quality and education quality monitoring, and based on the main viewpoints of total quality management theory and new public management theory, this paper constructs the analysis framework of pre-service teacher education quality monitoring system and investigates the quality monitoring system and practice of pre-service teacher education in Ontario, Canada. Apart from the introduction and the epilogue, this study is mainly composed of three parts. The implementation of pre-service education in Canada is determined by historical and practical problems (D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Deer, 2013; Van Nuland, 2011). The training of pre-service teachers in Canada has experienced a long development process and has been continuously improved in the process of historical development. Referring to the history of Ontario, we can also clearly feel the historical development of Canada and the continuous improvement of the professional quality of Canadian teachers. This will also optimize the professional skills of Canadian teachers and train talents to adapt to social development. Although there are still many imperfections in the vocational education of teachers in Canada, there are also regional gaps, which are believed will be solved in the future. Canada’s pre-service teacher education mainly includes aboriginal program, school group model, Jewish teacher education curriculum, cooperation with learning disability association, urban education partnership, and other models, so that entering teachers can be better competent for their own work in different regions, improve the teaching level, and promote the development of regional education (Hong, 2001, 2003; Qu, 2021). In recent years,

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with the increasingly complex social issues in Canada (immigration issues, economic issues, ethnic issues, etc.), some teacher training programs have begun to arrange for pre-service teachers to leave the classroom and go to non-traditional educational places to carry out practical activities, so as to provide them with broader vision and more complex educational experience. Among them, community institutions such as healthcare centers, public libraries, and immigration offices become the best places for pre-service teacher training due to their geographical and cultural advantages. A large number of relevant studies have shown that community practice has become an effective way of teacher training in North America, helping to improve the professional competence of pre-service teachers and the integration into a diverse educational environment (Lin, 2002; Sims et al., 2020).

4.2 The Historical Stages of the Change of Canada’s Pre-service Teacher Training Policy 4.2.1 The Earliest Formal Teacher Training in Canada Began with the Establishment of “Normal Schools” The establishment of the Canadian normal school system owes much to the efforts of educator Edgerton Ryerson. In 1846, Ryerson, then the chief superintendent of education, issued the “Report on a System of Public Elementary for Upper Canada”, which put forward the main ideas of the Canadian education system. It is suggested to set up special normal schools. In November 1847, the Toronto Normal School was established in Ontario, marking the first formal teacher training institution in Canada. Subsequently, Canadian provinces followed the model of Toronto Normal School. Between 1847 and 1905, a number of normal schools were set up to undertake the task of teacher training. In addition, provincial governments have set up model schools attached to normal schools to provide students with opportunities for classroom observation and teaching practice (D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Deer, 2013; Qu, 2021). Normal schools and practical schools develop in a parallel pattern, which has initially formed the Canadian normal School system. In the early days of normal schools, students were not adequately selected or prepared, and teachers spent more time teaching students what to teach than how to teach. More than 9 out of 10 applicants for normal schools do not have the general knowledge to become an educator and lack understanding and mastery of the curriculum knowledge taught. Therefore, teacher training courses mainly focus on the study of academic knowledge. In February 1848, the government carried out a major reform. In order to supplement students’ academic training, the school provided students with the opportunity to practice experience in the practical training school, and students began to conduct observation learning and classroom teaching in the classroom (Hong, 2001, 2003; Van Nuland, 2011).

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4.2.2 In the Early 1970s, Basic Education Began to Change for the Second Time The focus of school education shifted to students’ mastery of knowledge and began to show interest in teaching methods. During this period, the level of high school graduates who went to normal schools was much higher than in the early years, students’ demand for academic curriculum guidance was reduced, and the focus of teaching began to shift to teaching methods. However, there is no significant shift in the curriculum from an academic focus to a professional focus, and new subjects in the primary curriculum such as nature studies, manual training, family science, and health are almost absent from the curriculum plans of normal schools. The classroom format is mainly a large class teaching system, a large classroom will accommodate hundreds of students to study together, hindering the development of heuristic teaching (Hong, 2001, 2003). The development of practical training schools reached its heyday in the 1890s. In the early twentieth century, the Canadian federal government proposed to carry out 8-year compulsory education across the country. In order to solve the shortage of teachers, provincial governments vigorously carried out pre-service training for primary and secondary school teachers and established normal colleges to train middle school teachers. The task of teacher training began to be jointly undertaken by normal schools and normal colleges, and normal education has made great progress (D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Deer, 2013; Qu, 2021; Van Nuland, 2011). The philosophy of this period was that each class should present a reasonable choice of method or subject matter. The development of clear and detailed processes is discouraged, and more emphasis is placed on the discussion of principles and their specific application to practical educational problems. Ryerson, the founder of the Canadian normal school system, pointed out that normal school is a school that takes rules as teaching principles and practices. The purpose of such schools is to establish teaching standards or norms. During this period, the normal education system took shape initially, and teacher training began to operate in a standardized way, mainly through the combination of normal schools and practical training schools, which was oriented training. Since Canada was still under colonial rule at that time, and most of Ryerson et al., administrators of education affairs in each province, were clergy, teacher training was greatly influenced by religion and colonization, and religious education was one of the main courses (D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Deer, 2013; Van Nuland, 2011).

4.2.3 The Transformation of Teachers’ Pre-service Training Period (at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century to the Mid Twentieth Century) From the beginning of World War I to the end of World War II, two world wars brought great changes to normal schools. In Ontario, for example, after World War I, normal

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schools had a Soldier Year. In 1919 and 1920, a large number of ex-servicemen attended the Toronto Normal School. Since 1919, the school has required FirstClass certificates for teacher candidates to enter normal schools. In 1939, Dr. H.E. Amoss, as Ontario’s Director of teacher training, reformed teacher training across the province: A junior professional program was created to prepare junior and senior kindergarten and first- and second-grade teachers; Reduce the number of final exams; Extend the continuous classroom observation and teaching practice to 4 weeks; Put forward the exchange policy between teachers and school supervisors in normal schools. After the end of World War II, training schools were forced to disband. At this time, public schools were well organized, well equipped, and properly staffed, so they could meet the needs of teaching practical training. By the middle of the twentieth century, with the development of the social economy and the progress of modern science and technology, higher requirements have been put forward for the quality of basic education. In the 1940s, Canada began to implement the compulsory 12 years of education across the country. The normal school system established by Ryerson was gradually replaced by a more modern teacher education system (Hong, 2001, 2003; Van Nuland, 2011). After the 1950s, teachers cultivated by normal colleges became increasingly difficult to meet the new society’s demand for high-quality teachers. In order to meet the new requirements of teacher training, the pre-service teacher training in Canada was gradually defined as university education, and the comprehensive university education Institute began to intervene in teacher education, thus the beginning of the university of Teacher Education. During this period, teacher education began to realize the transition from normal colleges to the Faculty of Education, and preservice teacher education was gradually defined as university education and preservice teacher training had begun to take shape in terms of quantity and quality. In terms of quantity, the number of normal colleges is decreasing, the number of education colleges in comprehensive universities is increasing, and the number of teacher candidates is also increasing. In terms of quality, teacher training has gradually developed into university education, and the quality of freshmen and graduates has been greatly improved. In the 1980s, teachers’ colleges in Canada were closed one after another, and the training of primary and secondary school teachers was all entrusted to the Faculty of Education of comprehensive universities, which basically realized the universalization of teacher education. Teacher education has completed the transformation from normal colleges to education colleges of comprehensive universities and from oriented teacher education to open teacher education. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, all teacher education courses in Canada are undergraduate courses or above, and the typical graduation requirement is to obtain a bachelor’s degree in education or above, and the education requirement of pre-service teachers is above undergraduate degree, which effectively guarantees the academic level and professional skill level of pre-service teachers. With the continuous progress of the society, the concepts of “integration of teacher education” and “professional development of teachers” have gradually become the core issues of teacher education reform. During this period, the development of teacher education was gradually

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improved. The curriculum of teacher education was standardized, guided by standards, and oriented by teacher professional development. The pre-service teacher education curriculum consists of theoretical courses and practical courses, covering general education, basic theories of education, teaching methods, teaching practices, and other aspects (D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Deer, 2013; Qu, 2021).

4.3 A Case Study of Pre-service Teacher Training in Canada 4.3.1 Learners of Different Ages in Different Times Have Different Life and Psychological Conditions Accordingly, the pre-service training of future teachers must also be adjusted to adapt to the changes and development of the times, so as to cultivate batches of normal university students with broad knowledge, flexible response, keen thinking, and innovation. Canada is relatively mature in pre-service teacher training, leading the world. Of course, the remarkable achievements of Canadian primary and secondary school students are related to various factors, such as national investment and policies in basic education, scientific management of schools, excellent foundation of students, and so on, but high-quality teachers are one of the most critical factors for primary and secondary school students to achieve excellent results. And, the quality of preservice teacher education to a large extent ensures the high-quality teachers; Highquality teachers, to a large extent, is an important guarantee for cultivating excellent primary and secondary school students. Because, only a school with a large number of excellent teachers is a good school, and the excellent teachers most of course can only come from outstanding college graduates or graduate students. Take Alberta as an example. In order to further improve the quality and competitiveness of basic Education, the Alberta government put forward a medium and long-term plan to implement “Inspiring Education” in 2010. It is expected that by 2030, the students in Alberta can be cultivated into “3E citizens”, that is, they are diligent in thinking, have pioneering spirit and moral accomplishment. Diligent thinking enables students to be good at finding problems and critical thinking; From the perspective of different disciplines, we can use learning tools to exchange different views and ideas with others to explore and innovate, so as to discover and solve problems. Based on this, on September 11, 2013, the Alberta Department of Education established a Quality Teaching Taskforce. Through a province-wide survey, the members of the task force concluded that quality teachers are the key to achieving quality teaching and that all departments in the education system should strive to achieve quality teaching. Thus, the goal of “every child, every class, has an excellent teacher” is proposed as a quality teacher should have four key abilities. First, scientific and reasonable arrangement of learning to guide students to participate in meaningful learning activities. Second, assessment of students to guide teaching and improve

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learning. Third, promote supportive learning systems. Fourth, improve teaching and learning through collaboration (Sims et al., 2020). In 2014, Alberta implemented the Quality Teacher Program across the province, requiring schools to strengthen the combination of theory and practice in the training curriculum of prospective teachers, so that new teachers can adapt to the diverse needs of students as soon as possible after entering the profession, and make good professional and psychological preparation to deal with teaching challenges. To ensure that the development and progress of new teachers can keep pace with current technological developments (D’Intino & Wang, 2021).

4.3.2 The Professional Development of Teachers in Canada Enriches the Diversity of Internship Content In addition to the regular internship in primary and secondary schools, there are three other types of educational internships in Canada. First, educational internships as part of university-based pre-service education courses. At the University of Prince Edward Island, for example, the Science Education Methodology curriculum was transferred from the university campus to the local high school, using the school’s laboratory facilities to enhance communication between pre-service and in-service teachers. The second type is collaborative educational practice, which is carried out among interns of different majors. For example, the University of Regina places interns in different specialties in the same community school, where pre-service teachers work with student nurses, social work, and law interns to focus on the health and learning of students in the class. The third is community internship. For example, in the parallel primary school teacher training at the University of Victoria, “alternative practice” is implemented in the third year of internship (D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Deer, 2013; Qu, 2021; Sims et al., 2020). On a voluntary basis, interns work in nontraditional educational practice locations for 3 weeks. Internship sites may include community-based services, international schools, Aboriginal cultural centers, youth centers, private schools, museum programs, teaching studios, outdoor bases, playgrounds, hospitals, summer camps, or other programs approved by the college. In this way, education practice will be more diverse and richer, and teachers will have a deeper understanding, which is conducive to the future development of teachers’ educational career, better understanding of students’ life and learning, and better guidance for learners. It is convenient to broaden the horizon of teachers, adopt a variety of classroom teaching mode, and enrich the classroom. Some teacher training programs have begun to arrange pre-service teachers to leave the classroom and go out of school to carry out practical activities in non-traditional education fields, providing them with a broader vision and more complex educational experience. Among them, community institutions such as health care centers, public libraries, and resettlement bureaus become the best places for pre-service teacher training due to their geographical and cultural advantages. A large number of relevant studies

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have shown that community practice has become an effective way of teacher training in North America, helping to improve the professional competence of pre-service teachers and the integration into a diverse educational environment. In addition to this, there are community practices. In Canada, some colleges, such as York University School of Education, have selected pre-service teachers to join Urban Squash Toronto in their communities as a charitable organization founded in 2010. The City Squash Association aims to broaden the horizons of young people through a comprehensive educational program covering squash training, academic coaching, fitness, community service, and cultural travel. The association gives pre-service teachers an opportunity to study in the community and better understand the environment in which prospective students will grow up. In addition, pre-service teachers have the opportunity to learn how to use community resources to support schools and build partnerships with community members. So that teachers can be integrated into the education environment in advance (D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Deer, 2013; Qu, 2021; Sims et al., 2020; Van Nuland, 2011).

4.4 Problems of Pre-service Teacher Training in Canada 4.4.1 Problems in the Development of Pre-service Training of Teachers in Vocational Schools Although the Canadian Government is committed to establishing programs aimed at promoting communication and mutual recognition among different vocational education and training systems, some of the current Canadian systems are even very different from each other, so it has long been difficult to establish a national vocational education teacher training system. From the point of view of the allocation of the administrative authority for vocational education, there is no special administrative department for vocational education at the national level, and the provincial school districts set up education committees or education bureaus to manage the specific affairs of vocational education in their own school districts. Practice has proved that the excessively scattered and diversified teacher training system of vocational schools has produced many adverse effects on the professional development of teachers, the normal flow of the profession, and the development of teacher education. Therefore, in recent years, the federal government is committed to simplifying management levels, providing direct support and services for the development of vocational education, and is committed to establishing a national vocational education management organization, so as to promote the establishment of a national vocational education teacher training system.

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4.4.2 Two Prominent Problems in the Current Curriculum Modules of Teacher Training First, the overall emphasis is placed on students’ professional education, and the proportion of educational courses is small. Second, educational courses cannot reflect the characteristics of vocational education. To solve these problems, local governments are also actively learning from some developed countries in vocational education, such as introducing the concept of professional teaching method, researching and developing the professional teaching theory with local characteristics, and adding it to the existing education curriculum modules. It attaches importance to the cultivation of teaching diagnosis and evaluation techniques of normal university students, proposes “knowing how to find out students’ problems in learning and knowing how to help them”, and promotes personalized teaching on this basis; Attaching importance to student consultation, building a harmonious classroom community, effectively promoting the development of vocational school students’ personality and emotion in professional teaching, so as to help them better adapt to the upcoming labor market and vocational positions. Thirdly, in Canada, the research on pre-service training and in-service continuing education of vocational school teachers is a little poor compared with Germany and other developed countries. However, with the deepening of the concept of lifelong education and teacher specialization, the connection between pre-service education and in-service continuing education of teachers has been widely mentioned. Although universities provide some special training to guide normal university students to better adapt to their future careers, there are still many teachers who feel great work pressure after entering the university. Therefore, the professional development and self-improvement of teachers after entering the university has gradually received widespread attention. The academic circle of pre-service teacher training in Canada has reached such a consensus: teaching is a profession that requires lifelong learning, and the growth of students and teachers is inseparable. The concept and behavior of lifelong learning of teachers can not only cultivate students’ awareness of lifelong learning but also be an effective way for teachers to generate fun and realize their own professional value in the process of career growth. Fourthly, at present, issues such as diversity, equity, and social justice are still urgently needed to be solved by Canadian cities. How to deal with the complex population structure of Toronto “the future has come” and the reality of the widening gap between rich and poor has become an urgent issue for school education. York University is located in one of Canada’s largest and most diverse urban communities and is home to some of the city’s most stigmatized residents. This has brought unprecedented challenges to the pre-service teachers conducting community practice here. They have to face the new social environment, accept more diversified viewpoints, and rethink the relevance of school and social justice. Through community internships, pre-service teachers need to redefine their concepts about education and challenge their own stereotypes about learning. All along, Canadian pre-service teachers have graduated from colleges of education and received good theoretical and practical training. However, a fly in the ointment is that many pre-service teachers

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lack knowledge of the community and skills to integrate into the community environment because they have never set foot outside the school gate. This makes them unable to respond well to parents and students with diverse educational needs (Lin, 2002; Sims et al., 2020).

4.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for the Pre-service Training of Canadian Teachers 4.5.1 The Goal of the Admission Guidance Plan “A high-quality orientation program must have a clear vision of how it will help the professional development of new teachers”. The response must go beyond being required to survive in today’s schools. Otherwise, the orientation program will be viewed as a “creative” continuation of an old tradition of “isolation, low benchmarks, and low efficiency”. It is necessary to have the commitment and support of relevant institutions. Because teacher learning must be valued by the government. The government must formulate relevant policies, such as “designing relevant programs to ensure that new teachers have adequate learning time and resources. Implement related policies to protect the rights and interests of new teachers in the critical period of orientation and take the development of new teachers as the core of education reform. This, in their view, is the most important part of the system, so important that “we can’t just think about what it takes for a new teacher to be successful, we can think about what kind of knowledge our advisors have and how they can apply that knowledge to help new teachers, Effective guidance is not limited to temporary instructors holding hands during stressful times for new teachers, although these are also important in the context of time and space.

4.5.2 Teacher Orientation Programs Should Focus on New Teachers’ Performance in the Classroom Therefore, the language and concept of good teaching must be clear, and at the same time, new teachers can be placed in such a professional circle and see such examples. “In order to achieve the maximum learning effect, the years of acquisition guidance should be as long as 2–3 years, and the standardized standards of teacher specialization must be combined with the complexity of the changing society. A new teacher must have plenty of time to participate as much as possible in classroom observation, cooperative curriculum design, standardized teaching, feedback, joint analysis of student work, etc. (D’Intino & Wang, 2021; Deer, 2013; Qu, 2021; Van Nuland, 2011). Many former teachers will continue to stay in the Toronto area after

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finishing the community practice program. Community practice is exactly outside the mainstream education field, they have a deep understanding of the heavy machine of the district, families, parents, and students so that they can better think about how to set up learning content in line with the living environment of learners, how to build a good social relationship to promote law students’ learning and other practical problems. For example, it is clear that teachers can gradually study and observe in their social practice what factors have caused the economic problems in Toronto and what challenges have been brought by the economic inequality in the public schools. Finally, community practice is the perfect, and supplement to the teacher education system in Canada. The traditional teacher education system in Canada has not yet established reciprocal learning associations among communities, universities, and primary and secondary schools, while community practice focuses on the use of pre-service teachers’ cultural immersion experiences in the community (Deer, 2013; Lin, 2002; Sims et al., 2020).

References D’Intino, J. S., & Wang, L. (2021). Differentiated instruction: A review of teacher education practices for Canadian pre-service elementary school teachers. Journal of Education for Teaching, 47(5), 668–681. Deer, F. (2013). Integrating aboriginal perspectives in education: perceptions of pre-service teachers. Canadian Journal of Education/revue Canadienne De L’éducation, 36(2), 175–211. Hong, C. (2001). Practice exploration of education quality assurance in Canada. Comparative Education Research, 20(9), 54–57. Hong, C. (2003). The latest development of international teacher education quality assurance system. Comparative Education Research, 20(10), 32–36. Lin, E. (2002). Trend of environmental education in Canadian pre-service teacher education programs from 1979 to 1996. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education (CJEE), 7(1), 199–215. Qu, T. (2021). Canadian teachers education reform characteristic analysis. Journal of Sichuan Normal University (Social Science Edition), 20(2) 13:130–139. Sims, L. C., Asselin, M., & Falkenberg, T. (2020). Environmental and sustainability education in pre-service teacher education in Canada: A case study. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education (CJEE), 23(1), 14–32. Van Nuland, S. (2011). Teacher education in Canada. Journal of Education for Teaching, 37(4), 409–421.

Chapter 5

Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in Singapore

5.1 The Background 5.1.1 Teacher Education Has Its Unique and Important Value in Education High-quality education depends on high-quality teacher education. Singapore attaches great importance to the cultivation of talent resources, and teachers are an important force to cultivate outstanding talents. Singapore enjoys highly praised and advanced educational achievements, which benefit from the Singaporean government’s emphasis on its own educational cause, and advancing teacher education reform with the times is one of the important factors for its high-quality and efficient development of education. In a changing world, the Government of Singapore recognizes that teachers play a vital role in the quality of education. To cope with the challenges brought by the twenty-first century, Singapore has built a unique teacher education system—a teacher education model for the twenty-first century (Chan et al., 2007; D’Rozario et al., 2012; Hogan & Gopinathan, 2008; Low et al., 2011). Through literature research method and historical research method, from the perspective of the change of responsible institutions of teacher education, this paper combs the history of teacher education reform in Singapore from 1950 to 1972. During these years, teacher education in Singapore was in the period of survival drive, the main purpose was to solve the dilemma of the need for talents for social development. During this period, teacher education was mainly dominated by teachers. The training institute undertakes the task of teacher training and teaching. From 1973 to 1991, the teacher training College was restructured and upgraded to form the School of Education, which undertook the task of teacher education. During this period, teacher education was efficiency-oriented, and post-service training began on the premise that the number of teachers could be satisfied. Since Singapore became an independent country in 1965, it has only taken more than half a century to transform a small © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li, Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5865-8_5

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island country with a limited population and natural resources into a highly developed livable, civilized, and clean garden country (Chai et al., 2006; Lim-Teo, 2002; Lloyd et al., 1998). In 2018, Singapore was ranked the fourth largest international financial center in the world. In 2019, Singapore ranked first in Global sustainability competitiveness. Singapore’s economic development mainly depends on its development ability and talent competitiveness to keep pace with The Times. In terms of national citizenship education and high-quality personnel training, Singapore has built a world-renowned high-level education system through continuous international learning and continuous investment and reform. For more than a decade, Singapore’s basic education has achieved remarkable results in the world’s three major academic assessments of international students. In 2006 and 2011, Singapore primary school students ranked first in the world in the Progress in International Reading Literacy English Reading test, organized by the International Association for the Assessment of Educational Achievement (Chai et al., 2006). In 2015, both primary and secondary school students in Singapore ranked first in the International Assessment of Trends in Mathematics and Science tests conducted by the International Association for the Assessment of Educational Achievement. There is no doubt that the success of Singapore’s basic education depends on the high quality of its teachers and the high level of teacher education. As Lucy Steiner puts it, Singapore’s student achievement, like Singapore’s teacher education, is “world class”. It is also widely believed that the high standard of academic performance of Singaporean students is attributed to the quality of Singapore’s primary and secondary school teachers. In 2009, the National Institute of Education of Singapore released the 21st Century Teacher Education Model, which proposed that twenty-first-century teachers are needed for twenty-first-century students, and creatively proposed and implemented the twenty-first-century teacher education model (Chai et al., 2006; Chan et al., 2007; Hogan & Gopinathan, 2008; Teo et al., 2009).

5.1.2 The Increasing Quantity and Quality of Teachers in Singapore With the popularization of basic education, the demand for the quantity and quality of teachers in Singapore has expanded rapidly, which has promoted the development and reform of teacher education all around Singapore. Since the 1950s, teacher education in Singapore has experienced the university-oriented development of teacher education from teacher training Institute, School of Education and National Institute of Education of Nanyang Technological University, from part-time teacher training to full-time teacher education, from the only teacher training institution to a high-quality graduate education institution. Over the past 70 years and more, Singapore has built a world-class and diverse teacher education system with Singaporean characteristics. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to analyze and study the successful

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experience of Singapore’s teacher education in the cultivation and training of highquality teachers for increasing emphasis on the development of teacher education and the improvement of teachers’ professional level.

5.2 The Historical Stages of the Change of Pre-service Teacher Training Policy in Singapore 5.2.1 High Level of Teachers Promoted the Singapore’s Advanced Basic Education Based on the reform of education mode, this paper divides Singapore teacher education mode into five stages: part-time in-service training mode, full-time “dual development” training mode, university-oriented VSK mode, twenty-first-century teacher education mode, and “four students” learning mode, and analyzes and summarizes the objectives, contents and internal relations of each stage mode. In Singapore’s teacher education model, VSK competency framework, teacher graduate’s competency framework, evaluation literacy training, the combination of theory and practice, the partnership between the Ministry of Education, universities, and primary and secondary schools, and reflective teaching model have many inspirations for the reform and innovation of teacher education model. Since Singapore became an independent country in 1965, it has only taken more than half a century to transform a small island country with limited population and natural resources into a highly developed livable, civilized, and clean garden country. In 2018, Singapore was ranked the fourth largest international financial center in the world. In 2019, Singapore ranked first in Global sustainability competitiveness. Singapore’s economic development mainly depends on its development ability and talent competitiveness to keep pace with The Times. In terms of national citizenship education and high-quality personnel training, Singapore has built a world-renowned high-level education system through continuous international learning and continuous investment and reform. For more than a decade, Singapore’s basic education has achieved remarkable results in the world’s three major academic assessments of international students. In 2006 and 2011, Singapore primary school students ranked first in the world in the Progress in International Reading Literacy English Reading test, organized by the International Association for the Assessment of Educational Achievement (Chai et al., 2006; Chan et al., 2007; D’Rozario et al., 2012; Hogan & Gopinathan, 2008; Low et al., 2011; Teo et al., 2009;). In 2015, both primary and secondary school students in Singapore ranked first in the International Assessment of Trends in Mathematics and Science tests conducted by the International Association for the Assessment of Educational Achievement. There is no doubt that the success of Singapore’s basic education depends on the high quality of its teachers and the high level of teacher education. As Lucy Steiner puts it, Singapore’s student achievement, like Singapore’s

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teacher education, is “world class”. It is also widely believed that the high standard of academic performance of Singaporean students is attributed to the quality of Singapore’s primary and secondary school teachers. In 2009, the National Institute of Education of Singapore released the “21st Century Teacher Education Model”, which proposed that twenty-first-century teachers are needed for twenty-first-century students, and creatively proposed and implemented the twenty-first-century teacher education model. With the popularization and quality of basic education, the demand for the quality of teachers has expanded rapidly, which has promoted the development and reform of teacher education in all countries. Since the 1950s, teacher education in Singapore has experienced the university-oriented development of teacher education from teacher training Institute, School of Education and National Institute of Education of Nanyang Technological University, from part-time teacher training to full-time teacher education, from the only teacher training institution to a high-quality graduate education institution. Over the past 70 years and more, Singapore has built a world-class and diverse teacher education system with Singaporean characteristics. In order to better grasp the true meaning of teacher education in Singapore, it is necessary to thoroughly comb through the historical logic of the development of teacher education in Singapore in the past 71 years, the response to the development of education in Singapore, and the response to the reform and development of teacher education in foreign countries. From the literature collected, there are a number of papers on the history of teacher education development in Singapore divided into stages. S. Gopnason et al. proposed that teacher education in Singapore can be divided into five stages: quantitative development (1950–1972), quality improvement (1973– 1981), specialization (1982–1990), universalization (1991–1999), and new partnership (partnership between the Ministry of Education, NIE, and primary and secondary schools, after 1999). Lin Yanping divided the development of teacher education in Singapore into three stages, including quantitative development (1959–1972), normalization (1973–1981), and specialization and professionalization (1982–2000). Jason Lu and Hu Weiguang divided the development of teacher education in Singapore into three stages, namely, meeting the need for quantitative development—TTC period, improving the quality—IE period, and going forward—the establishment of NIE. According to the introduction of NIE’s official website, the history of teacher Education in Singapore is divided into five stages, including the 1950s (the establishment of TTC), the 1970s (the establishment of IE), the 1980s (College of Physical Education, Establishment of CPA), the 1990s (establishment of NIE), and the 2000s (implementation of new NIE structure) (Lloyd et al., 1998). From the above five stages, there are two bases: First, based on the characteristics of the historical development of teacher education in Singapore, the quantitative development, qualitative development, normalization, specialization, etc.; Second, based on the development and change of the organization, it is divided into three stages: TTC, IE, and NIE (Chan et al., 2007; Hogan & Gopinathan, 2008; Teo et al., 2009). This chapter intends to innovate the research on the development of teacher education in Singapore from two aspects. The first is the innovation of the historical stage classification basis. Based on the teacher education model, the teacher education in Singapore is divided into five stages: the part-time in-service training model, the full-time “dual development”

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training model, the university-oriented VSK model, the twenty-first-century teacher education model, and the “four students” learning model. The second is to increase the new content of teacher education in Singapore, namely, the strategic vision of the National Institute of Education Singapore and the “four students” model of teacher education released in 2018, which is a new model proposed by the National Institute of Education Singapore from 2019 to 2021 to cultivate high-quality future teachers (Chai et al., 2006; D’Rozario et al., 2012; Lim-Teo, 2002).

5.2.2 Quality Assurance of Pre-service Teacher Training in Singapore In order to ensure the high-quality development of teachers, Singapore implements the pre-service training system for teachers. With the growing global demand for education internationalization, the Singapore government has also taken corresponding measures to ensure the quality independence of the schoolteachers. With the continuous global demand for education internationalization, Singapore’s education and related fields have developed rapidly, and it has become one of the world’s educational powers. With the rapid development of education in Singapore since its independence, especially in recent years, to guarantee the independence and effectiveness of teachers’ quality, perfect system design and effective measures have become an important basis for Singapore to improve the quality of education, protect teachers’ rights and interests, and promote the development of education internationalization. The pre-service training of teachers in Singapore has played a positive role in promoting the internationalization of education and guaranteed the quality independence of teachers (Chan et al., 2007; Hogan & Gopinathan, 2008; Low et al., 2011). After Singapore’s independence, according to the needs of international development and its own educational development status, the implementation of its education internationalization strategy has shifted its focus from preschool education to basic education. In order to ensure that the level of school running, and the quality of education meet international standards, the strategy of education internationalization first focuses on the stage of basic education. As an important part of Singapore’s pre-service training of teachers, the “National Teacher Training Program” is one of the first important contents of Singapore’s strategic action plan to carry out education internationalization. The National Teacher Training Program aims to train teachers who meet international standards, have international quality and professional standards, have an international vision and global vision, can engage in international education work, and have international working experience for Singapore’s basic education stage. Based on the international standard certification and integrating the curriculum and professional teaching standards and concepts of the national education system, it aims to cultivate students with international quality and ability, strong global consciousness and global vision—and good teaching quality, professional ability, and global competence. The pre-service training of teachers in Singapore has

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played a positive role in ensuring the quality independence of teachers in primary and secondary schools in Singapore (Chai et al., 2006; D’Rozario et al., 2012; Lim-Teo, 2002).

5.3 Case Analysis of Pre-service Teacher Training in Singapore 5.3.1 The Competition for Talents is Pivotal for the International Competition in Information Age The key to the quality of talents lies in the quality of education, which is restricted by the quality of teachers. Singapore’s education has long been at the forefront in the field of education in Asia, and its students have repeatedly ranked top in the world’s student achievement tests, all thanks to Singapore’s good teacher education. The National Institute of Education of Nanyang Technological University undertakes the task of pre-service teacher education in Singapore. Its institutional setting, enrollment system, pre-service education type, curriculum system, education practice management, and other aspects reflect the characteristics of Singapore’s pre-service education. The rapid improvement in the education level in Singapore is closely related to its continuous development of pre-service education for teachers (Lim-Teo, 2002; Lloyd et al., 1998; Teo et al., 2009). The National Institute of Education of Nanyang Technological University is the only institution that undertakes pre-service teacher education in Singapore. It trains teachers for primary and secondary schools. At the same time, it also carries out in-service training for teachers and becomes a teacher education institution integrating pre-service education and in-service training. The National Institute of Education (NIE) of Nanyang Polytechnic is responsible for the training of teachers in Singapore, and the Ministry of Education recruits teachers for it. The Ministry of Education determines the total number of students to be recruited according to the changes in the number of students each year, the country’s current economic situation, and talent needs, and then publishes the recruitment information on the official website of the Ministry of Education for social recruitment. Applicants are invited to submit their applications to members of the community and students of good quality who have the ability, passion for teaching and will then have to go through a qualification examination and interview. Applicants who perform in the top 30% of their age group will have a chance to pass the preliminary examination for an interview. The interview committee evaluates applicants’ teaching enthusiasm, interpersonal skills, and other aspects strictly. Those who are qualified to teach and pass the interview are allocated to the corresponding primary and secondary schools by the government according to their qualifications. Those who do not meet the exemption will be required to take the entrance qualification examination. Those who meet the minimum requirements and above will be employed as untrained contract teachers and sent to a school for a mandatory period of at least 4 months of untrained teaching,

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during which time their suitability for teaching will be further assessed by the school, and if so, they will be admitted to NIE for professional pre-service education. This “first entry, then training” elite selection has laid a solid foundation for Singapore to cultivate high-quality teachers (Chai et al., 2006; Lim-Teo, 2002; Lloyd et al., 1998; Teo et al., 2009).

5.3.2 Curriculum Setting Guided by V3SK Values NIE is based on the V3SK model for pre-service teacher training, aiming to cultivate teachers with values, skills, and knowledge necessary for teaching in the twenty-first century. The “value” level is divided into three dimensions: learner-centered, teacher identity, and service to the education profession and community. Learner-centric is the desired outcome of the V3SK pattern. “Skills” include teaching skills, analytical and reflective ability, interpersonal communication ability, etc. “Knowledge” refers to knowledge about oneself, students, community, subject content and pedagogy, and the basis of education. The V3SK model puts student needs at the core and closely combines values with skills and knowledge to jointly guide the setting of pre-service education curriculum for teachers. The curriculum system highlighting the characteristics of education has become the highlight of Singapore’s pre-service teacher education. The curriculum embodies the characteristics of serialization, integration, and specialization. The three different types of teachers’ pre-service education curricula differ greatly due to the different school systems, but they all focus on the core of teachers’ job demand and strengthening the professional education. The horizontal analysis of curriculum consists of core curriculum, restricted elective course and free elective course. The longitudinal analysis of each curriculum model can be divided into two categories: education curriculum and subject curriculum. The courses include Education Studies, Practicum in Curriculum Studies, and Language and Academic Discourse Skills, and specialized courses include subject Knowledge and Academic Subjects. Diploma of Education has five types of courses, among which education major courses account for 70%. Bachelor of Education has seven types of courses (including national education thematic courses), among which education major courses account for 55%. It can be seen that the pre-service education curriculum of teachers in Singapore is characterized by focusing on education courses and focusing on the cultivation of the teaching ability of normal university students (Chai et al., 2006; Lim-Teo, 2002; Lloyd et al., 1998; Teo et al., 2009).

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5.3.3 Multiple Evaluation Oriented at Promoting the Development of “Trainee Teachers” In the process of teacher training, the “trainee teachers” are evaluated in multiple ways, including both outcome evaluation and process evaluation. The evaluation criteria include not only the mastery of knowledge but also self-reflection and practical ability. The fundamental purpose of evaluation is to promote the development of learners. Grade point evaluation is the most basic evaluation method, mainly based on learners’ academic performance or examination results. Compared with the former, the electronic portfolio evaluation method pays more attention to process evaluation. Its content is the collection of teacher students’ learning situation and learning results during the training, including electronic documents, images, audio, and other materials, which can help learners to conduct evidence-based self-reflection and management, and also show their own talents (Chan et al., 2007; Hogan & Gopinathan, 2008; Low et al., 2011). The twenty-first-century teaching evaluation framework is composed of the evaluation ability index and the core evaluation ability of effective teaching, which is more objective and fairer. It is applicable to the evaluation of the whole growth stage from pre-service education to skilled teachers and puts forward different requirements for teachers at different stages. Pre-service teachers only need to master, understand and practice knowledge (Chai et al., 2006; D’Rozario et al., 2012; Lim-Teo, 2002; Teo et al., 2009).

5.4 Problems of Pre-service Teacher Training in Singapore After a period of relatively stable regime precipitation. Singapore is in an era of diversification in many industries. In terms of education, teacher education in Singapore has gradually added diversified thinking. Under the framework of the meaning of multicultural education, the cultivation of teacher education is considered, which promotes Singapore to integrate the advantages of various cultures under the complex background of Southeast Asian culture, so that the concept of great integration and harmony is deeply rooted in the community and society, and a good situation of harmonious coexistence and common development of various cultures appears in the campus. Racial and ethnic cultures are more often replaced in the educational process by the new values of Singapore. Under the unified cultural and educational background, there will be less vulgar ideas among ethnic groups and races to raise and influence the education and teaching order and quality. But there are still some problems with pre-service teacher training.

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5.4.1 High Standards for Teachers’ Qualification Leads the Shortage of Teachers There are three paths to becoming a primary and secondary school teacher in Singapore. The first path is for students graduating from the School of Education with a Bachelor of Arts in Education or a Bachelor of Science in Education. The second path is for students who graduate from four polytechnics and then attend a oneyear education training course at the Nanyang Technological University School of Education in Singapore to qualify for an education degree. The third route is overseas. The main specialized institution for training pre-service teachers in Singapore is the School of Teacher Education of Nanyang Technological University, also known as the National Institute of Education of Singapore (formerly known as the Singapore Institute of Teacher Development, also known as the National Institute of Education of Singapore). If a Singaporean wants to become a teacher, he or she must be a graduate from one of Singapore’s four polytechnics or get the Singapore High School Leaving Certificate. In this premise, there is a further application for admission and participation in the course of learning foundation. Because of the pursuit of high standards of teacher quality and the need to have a certain ability index, generally only applicants can get the opportunity to study. Unsuccessful applicants for the Education Degree Programme are offered a second chance to opt for the two-year Education Diploma Programme. But applicants below the minimum score will not be admitted. Because all teachers must have high-quality pre-service training and the number of teachers is small, there is a teacher gap. Teachers’ pre-service training plan emphasizes theory rather than practice. Pre-service teachers do not have experience, and without intensive training and an appropriate scale of practical teaching curriculum, they do not gain practical experience either in the classroom or in other forms of learning. The main place of education is the school. In a school, teachers and students are ultimately kept together in a teaching relationship. Real education reform and teaching improvement need to work through the school ultimately. And the soul of the school needs high-quality teachers to shape. Classroom is the most critical link in shaping pre-service teacher quality, and the most convincing presentation of post-service teacher quality is also in the classroom. However, the pre-service classroom is more of a kind of accumulation and absorption, while the post-service classroom is more appropriately a kind of presentation and life transfer centered on teachers themselves. Under this model of education, pre-service teachers cannot learn and practice in the classroom. Teachers’ oral expression ability, dealing with people’s ability cannot get hands-on experience, which will have a great impact on the basic quality of teachers. There is a serious disconnect between educational theory and teaching practice in teacher training (Chai et al., 2006; Chan et al., 2007; Hogan & Gopinathan, 2008).

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5.4.2 Serious Unification of Pre-service Training for Teachers Teachers themselves have different leadership and teaching abilities, but their actual training needs are not the same. The training itself is a re-creation of teachers. These teachers with strong ability may become school leaders or academic leaders in their career, and they need certain opportunities to master the skills of guidance through practice, such as guiding young teachers, pre-service teachers, simulation supervision, etc. However, the master’s degree courses at the Institute of Education are mainly divided into primary and secondary schools. The duration of study is one or two years. Only those who meet the entrance qualifications can enter the school. First of all, applicants must already have an undergraduate degree from an accredited university in Singapore or abroad (this accreditation means accreditation by the Ministry of Education). In order to ensure that applicants have the qualities to be teachers, all applicants are required to take an entrance test. The entrance test mainly consists of written tests and interviews. The language test mainly tests applicants’ proficiency in English and their mother tongue. All applicants are required to undergo an English Proficiency entrance test and an interview with the Ministry of Education. The English Proficiency Entrance test consists of an oral test and a written test, with an additional test in Chinese, Malay, and Tamil for native English speakers. Applicants who want to study physical education also need to take a physical education proficiency test. In addition, attention should be paid to teachers whose professional aspirations change as they gain experience. They may lack the ability or lose interest in their chosen courses. In this regard, it is necessary to closely combine their professional skills and knowledge and strengthen the combination of their current position and pre-service professional experience.

5.4.3 Training and Research Are not Closely Combined With the development of teacher education, experts and teachers have academic intersections and deep complementarity. The training opportunity itself should be a focused time for meta-problem-solving. The establishment of a teacher education quality assurance system with “clear rights and responsibilities, smooth circulation, efficient and practical” is the core issue that must be seriously considered in the field of teacher education. While increasing the investment in teacher education resources, Singapore earnestly demands the improvement of the quality of teacher education. What teachers themselves can gain from the platform is generally shock or ideological impact. The fresh teaching examples even encourage these future teachers who have just entered the school to be eager to try and construct future teaching in their own minds. What on-the-job trainees may gain from such a platform is the reflection and comparison of teaching, bringing more thinking about teaching methods. They need

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to work with experts to figure out the best way to do it, but training and research are not very closely linked.

5.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Pre-service Training of Teachers in Singapore Formal teacher education in Singapore began in 1950. Two teacher education institutions were established in Singapore that year. One is the Teacher Training Institute, which offers teacher training certificate courses for non-university graduates. The second is the establishment of the College of Education at the University of Malaya to provide diploma education for university graduates. These two institutions were established during the colonial period, with strong characteristics of teacher education in the suzerainty. After Singapore’s self-governance and founding, TTC became a teacher training department of the government, and its status and role in teacher education in Singapore was much more important than that of the Institute of Education of the University of Singapore. It is a “dual development” teacher education model aiming at the professional ability development and individual growth of normal university students. Under the mode of in-service training, the task of teacher education is mainly to let students master the educational theory and subject knowledge, teaching skills and methods, and become the “middleman” of imparting knowledge. Under the new model, the focus of teacher education is to improve normal university students’ insight into the teaching process, enhance their awareness of national, regional and international issues, and enhance their classroom management, communication, and educational technology application abilities, so that they can become the inspirators to stimulate students’ active learning. The internalization of this new teacher concept in the teacher education mode is to promote the “double development” of normal university students’ professional ability and personality and form the complementary and promoting professional ability development curriculum and personality growth curriculum (Chai et al., 2006; Lim-Teo, 2002; Lloyd et al., 1998; Teo et al., 2009).

5.5.1 Normal University Students Have Both the Theoretical Knowledge and the Practical Ability Teachers are required to understand the needs and aspirations of students and have the ability to exchange information, impart knowledge, organize and manage teaching, plan teaching, and evaluate students. In order to achieve this goal, courses such as psychology, methodology, planning and strategy, and application of educational technology are offered accordingly. The personal growth of normal university students includes the purpose and motivation of teachers engaged in the educational career

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(i.e. the understanding of the teaching profession), which requires teachers to have the enthusiasm of dedication to education, the awareness and sharpness of social problems, critical thinking, adaptability, etc. Courses offered include Eastern and Western philosophical thoughts, issues of urbanization and industrialization, comparative studies of contemporary educational issues, and local systems. Obviously, the new model focuses on students’ professional ability development courses, which are fundamentally different from the previous stage’s skills and methods training model that focuses on knowledge imparting. Instead, it emphasizes more studentcentered courses, emphasizes communication with students, and stimulates students’ desire to pursue knowledge. The personality development course focuses on the complete personality development of normal university students, which is lacking in the previous stage. Only when the personality of teachers is complete, can they have a positive impact on students and cultivate social citizens with initiative, inquiry, and complete personality with students as the center.

5.5.2 Practice Courses Are Embedded in the Full-Time Teacher Education Model This approach is necessary for the full-time model. In the training mode of full-time teacher education, practicality is its natural defect, so it is necessary to strengthen the connection between educational theory and educational practice and set up practice courses. In the philosophy of teacher education in Singapore, normal university students should conduct professional learning in the teaching practice of primary and secondary schools to form an attitude of continuous reflection on the teaching experience. Practical experience is an effective way to learn educational theories, teaching procedures, and skills, and occupies a central position in pre-service teacher education. The internship course of teacher education in Singapore includes three aspects: classroom teaching experience in the practice school, microteaching in the university campus, and interaction with students and teachers in primary and secondary schools. At the core of the practice course is the nearly 10-week classroom teaching practice course, in which normal university students apply the educational theories they have learned, learn teaching procedures, and develop teaching skills (including clearly writing out teaching objectives and principles, choosing appropriate teaching materials, implementing effective teaching, managing students’ behavior, giving timely feedback, etc.). Based on this, the Singapore Institute of Education compiled the Teaching Practice Evaluation Form to evaluate the practical teaching performance of normal university students. Attaching importance to the combination of theory and practice, and constantly improving, enriching, and perfecting it in practice, has become a major feature of Singapore teacher education and plays an important role in training world-class primary and secondary school teachers in Singapore. Currently, most teachers in Singapore are trained independently in Singapore. The National

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Institute of Education (NIE) of Nanyang Technological University is the only institution engaged in pre-service teacher education in Singapore. NIE attaches great importance to the training of pre-service teacher education practical ability, through a variety of means of training, to ensure that each graduate can successfully carry out various teaching activities after entering the school, therefore, its pre-service teacher education quality is very high. According to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2016, Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University is ranked 14th in the world for education. (Chai et al., 2006; Chan et al., 2007; D’Rozario et al., 2012; Hogan & Gopinathan, 2008; Lim-Teo, 2002; Lloyd et al., 1998; Low et al., 2011; Teo et al., 2009). In the process of integrated pre-service teacher training in Singapore, the clear division of responsibilities and the perfect institutional system provide a strong guarantee for the quality of training the teaching practical ability of Singapore pre-service teachers. Therefore, no matter in the practice teaching mode of “university—government (Education Bureau)—primary and secondary schools” integration and win-win cooperation, or in teaching pilot areas, the division of responsibilities of all parties should be clarified. At the same time, in pilot areas and integrated training models, it is necessary to manage the relationship between the participants. Primary and secondary schools provide training bases for colleges and universities, and colleges and universities should also provide theoretical guidance and on-the-job training for teachers in primary and secondary schools. Local educational administrative departments should act as bridges and perform supervisory duties between colleges and primary and secondary schools, promote mutual benefit between colleges and primary and secondary schools, and promote the integration of internship resources, internship process, and internship management, and ensure the quality of teaching practice ability training. Considering the curriculum setting experience, it’s important that, in the course arrangement, on the one hand, it should strengthen the comprehensiveness, practicality, and timeliness of the curriculum, so that the learning of theoretical courses can directly guide the specific teaching practice. At present, the basic theoretical courses “Pedagogy” and “Psychology” mainly introduce the basic principles of pedagogy and psychology and aim to systematically impart theoretical knowledge. Students are required to master the basic concepts, basic principles, framework structure, etc., so that students’ interest in learning cannot be stimulated and their learning enthusiasm is not high. Besides, someone taking the teaching post feels that the classroom learning content and teaching practice are not strongly related. The root cause of this phenomenon is that the vocational training of teachers is mistaken as the professional education of educational researchers, and educational theory learning is not closely connected with educational practice. On the other hand, it is essential to deal with the relationship between basic courses and specialized courses, between compulsory courses and elective courses, and between theoretical courses and practical courses. It is necessary to appropriately reduce the proportion of class hours of professional academic courses and increase the number and class hours of courses directly related to the cultivation of educational practical ability. Special courses are set up for the training of various educational practical skills, and observation and independent classroom teaching are added to the practice course. And it’s also essential to extend the time of education practice for normal

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university students in primary and middle schools and make detailed regulations on the weekly workload of education practice for normal university students, especially the hours of classroom teaching observation and independent classroom teaching (Chan et al., 2007; D’Rozario et al., 2012; Teo et al., 2009).

5.5.3 Constructing a Reasonable Structure of Teachers for Normal University Students Education First of all, universities engaged in the education of normal students should recruit high-level scholars from all over the country or even the world to teach professional academic courses and educational theory courses and carry out academic research. Secondly, excellent teachers with outstanding teaching achievements from primary and secondary schools in the whole province and the whole country will work in colleges and universities for two to four years, engaging in teaching methods, teaching management, and other courses closely related to the cultivation of educational practical ability. Thirdly, teachers in colleges and universities should be encouraged to go into the front line of primary and secondary school teaching. School management departments should treat “teaching and scientific research equally”, “educational reform research and scientific research equally”, and “teaching results and scientific research results equally”, and implement these policies into the evaluation and recruitment, promotion, and performance evaluation of professional titles (positions). In this way, primary and secondary school teachers can participate in scientific research, while university teachers have the opportunity and motivation to go deep into the grassroots classroom. Both sides maintain a benign interaction and jointly ensure the quality of education and practical ability cultivation of normal university students (Chai et al., 2006; Lim-Teo, 2002; Lloyd et al., 1998; Teo et al., 2009).

5.6 Summary Singapore takes international development as its strategy, and relies on low-cost and efficient investment environment to attract multinational companies and talents, to make up for the lack of resources and technology; At the same time, various incentive policies are issued to encourage folk innovation, labor force upgrading, rapid economic development. In terms of vocational education, one fourth of the students in Singapore choose technical education colleges, and the youth unemployment rate has been effectively controlled. It is one of the most successful vocational education systems in the world, which deserves our in-depth study and reflection. Its education system is designed on the principle of elite education for all, to ensure that every student can have good employability skills (Chan et al., 2007; D’Rozario et al.,

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2012; Hogan & Gopinathan, 2008; Low et al., 2011). Singapore takes the development of vocational education as a national strategy, and gradually changes people’s understanding and attitude towards vocational education by constantly improving and perfecting the vocational education and training mechanism. These include the establishment of specialized institutions responsible for national vocational training, the provision of vocational courses in secondary school curricula, and the institutionalization of pre-service training through legislation. Implement a unified national vocational skills certificate system, so that it is closely related to individual employment, income, and promotion. A national skills development fund has been set up, a system for assessing specialized personnel has been established, and investment in education, especially vocational education, has been increasing year by year. To guide the development of vocational education with advanced concepts, Singapore’s economic and social development cannot be separated from the support of educational development, especially the priority development of vocational education as its foundation. The education philosophy of the Singapore Government has always been scientific and practical. It is important to train not only scientists but also skilled workers, which is one of the important factors for the success of its vocational education development. In addition, the Singapore government attaches great importance to practical training in vocational education, and its goal is to enable students to create benefits for enterprises in the shortest time. Therefore, the government has invested a lot of money in providing schools with the latest professional teaching equipment to ensure that students can master the most advanced technology. An effective modern dual-system vocational education model has been established (Chai et al., 2006; Lim-Teo, 2002; Lloyd et al., 1998; Teo et al., 2009). Singapore has fully learned from Germany’s dual-system vocational education model. Vocational colleges widely adopt the teaching model of “teaching factory”, that is, schools run in factory mode and factories run in school mode. This is the core element of Singapore’s dual-system vocational education model, which aims to enable students to carry out learning activities in a real factory environment. The integrated teaching model of school, teaching factory, and enterprise integrates enterprise internship and enterprise project with school teaching, making students more adaptable to enterprise jobs. Since 1981, Singapore began to implement the separation mechanism in middle schools, forming a “dual track” between general education and vocational education. However, this is accompanied by the intercommunication and connection mechanism between general education and vocational education, which does not affect students’ upward path of academic promotion in the least. Polytechnic or School of Arts graduates can apply for undergraduate studies in Singapore and abroad; Outstanding students of the Institute of Technical Education can be transferred to the Polytechnic to study diploma courses; Students from junior colleges or high schools and vocational schools can also move in both directions. Many students choose to study a craft in polytechnic after high school and then go to university for further study in order to achieve better career achievement (Chan et al., 2007; D’Rozario et al., 2012; Lloyd et al., 1998; Teo et al., 2009).

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References Chai, C. S., Khine, M. S., & Teo, T. (2006). Epistemological beliefs on teaching and learning: A survey among pre-service teachers in Singapore. Educational Media International, 43(4), 285–298. Chan, K. W., Tan, J., & Khoo, A. (2007). Pre-service teachers’ conceptions about teaching and learning: A closer look at Singapore cultural context. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 35(2), 181–195. D’Rozario, V., Low, E. L., Avila, A. P., & Cheung, S. (2012). Service learning using English language teaching in pre-service teacher education in Singapore. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 32(4), 441–454. Hogan, D., & Gopinathan, S. (2008). Knowledge management, sustainable innovation, and preservice teacher education in Singapore. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 14(4), 369–384. Lim-Teo, S. K. (2002). Pre-service preparation of mathematics teachers in the Singapore education system. International Journal of Educational Research, 37(2), 131–143. Lloyd, J. K., Smith, R. G., Fay, C. L., Khang, G. N., Wah, L. L. K., & Sai, C. L. (1998). Subject knowledge for science teaching at primary level: A comparison of pre-service teachers in England and Singapore. International Journal of Science Education, 20(5), 521–532. Low, E. L., Lim, S. K., Ch’ng, A., & Goh, K. C. (2011). Pre-service teachers’ reasons for choosing teaching as a career in Singapore. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 31(2), 195–210. Teo, T., Chai, C. S., & Hong, H. Y. (2009). Singaporean and Taiwanese pre-service teachers’ beliefs and their attitude towards ICT use: A comparative study. Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 18(1), 117–128.

Chapter 6

Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in Australia

This chapter concentrates on exploring pre-service teacher education policy development in Australia. Australia’s vocational education teacher vocational ability training is in the world’s leading level, its industry professional standards keep up with the needs of the development of The Times, the standard is reasonable and favorable. Teachers’ ability requirements and qualification levels are strictly defined. Australia’s teacher education has made great progress in the process of learning from foreign advanced education theories and applying them in combination with its own national conditions for more than 200 years. Through analyzing and sorting out the organization and implementation of Australian vocational education, teachers’ ability composition and characteristics, the basic framework of Australia’s vocational education teacher system includes four parts: qualification, pre-service training, continuous professional learning of new teachers, and in-service professional development. The organic system composed of the four parts which provides many high-quality teachers for the vocational education and training system. It has a variety of professional standards for teachers, a distinctive pre-service education practice, a rigorous teacher education certification mechanism, a relatively complete teacher entry education system, and an effective post-service renewal education system. At the same time, Australia has increased investment, promoted the sustainable and quality development of vocational education, strengthened cooperation among all parties, and jointly improved the professional level of teachers. All these have provided a strong guarantee for the construction of the teaching team in Australia, laid a good foundation for the continuous improvement of the quality of education and teaching in Australia, and achieved good results.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li, Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5865-8_6

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6.1 The Background 6.1.1 Reasons for the Pre-service Training of Australian Teachers The pre-service training of teachers has always received special attention in the Australian education system. Australia has always been committed to the induction training of teachers and constantly explores and develops multiple training modes for pre-service teachers. Since its emergence, Australia’s pre-service teacher education can be divided into colonial period and post-independence period. During the colonial period, teachers were not well-educated and could not provide good education to students. In order to better educate students, institutions specialized in training teachers were set up during the colonial period. Such training institutions were generally referred to as private teacher training courses. With the continuous development of economy and culture, the institutions of teacher training have changed from private teacher training classes to normal schools and finally to normal colleges.

6.1.2 “Career Development” in Pre-service Teacher Education Since teachers’ pre-service training institutions gradually developed into teachers’ colleges, the curriculum setting paid more attention to training teaching methods. In addition, teaching practice activities were also indispensable, but the most important was teaching practice, which accounted for a large proportion in this process. At that time, the main training mode was “primary school students” system. With the continuous development of education, the methods of training teachers are also constantly improved. After the establishment of the federal government, the pre-service training institutions in Australia have been gradually transformed into universities, and the training level of teachers has been constantly improved, including more courses and more education subjects. Students can choose subjects according to their own strengths or interests. Educational practice has also been strengthened, and the cooperation between universities and primary and secondary schools has gradually been closely linked. In 1999, Stein et al. in the United States pointed out the new trend of teacher professional development model through literature review and listed five characteristics representing the new trend. Two features point to the direct correlation between teacher professional development and teachers’ actual classroom teaching, that is, teachers need to participate in the classroom and obtain teacher professional development from the lively classroom. Another feature is to focus on the organizational environment of teachers’ professional growth, that is, how to provide teachers with a good career-style internship environment, and let teachers develop

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in this process. That is, what ideas are adopted to enable the development of preservice teachers. Australia has always attached great importance to the development of pre-service teachers, taking various forms to carry out internship work. As early as the 1970s, Sydney College of Education, Australia, noticed the promoting effect of microteaching on teacher education, funded by the state to develop microteaching courses, and compiled and published a set of teaching materials called “Sydney Microteaching Skills”, which aroused strong responses at home and abroad and was widely promoted. In recent years, Australia has noted that technical measures to enhance internships are not enough. In 2002, the Australian Department of Education, Science and Technology released An Ethic of Concern: An Effective Plan for Beginning Teachers, which emphasized the strengthening of links between universities and primary and secondary schools in the pre-service education stage for teachers. In order to highlight the status of university education practice, the plan proposes to replace “educational practice” with “professional experience” and allow pre-service teachers to participate in experience. The goal has shifted from focusing on the construction of internship hardware to strengthening the construction of internship soft environment. In September 2010, the Australian Association of Teaching and School Leadership officially released the “National Certification System for Preservice Teacher Education Courses”, which is the first attempt to ensure the quality of pre-service teacher education courses at the national level in Australia, and a new development in the standardization of teacher education in Australia (Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Trinidad et al., 2014).

6.1.3 Knowledge and Skills Developed by Teachers Before Service Australia’s pre-service teacher practice pays special attention to creating a careerstyle practice environment and constructing a diversified education practice training mechanism. They will choose excellent practice bases and establish a soft environment for practice composed of normal colleges, excellent middle schools, university instructors, and secondary school tutors. It mainly includes interactive curriculum setting, progressive educational practice, reflective diary, and other measures, with “experiential participation” as its distinctive feature and dominant idea. At the same time, there is also an innovative 1-year “introduction to career program” as a postinternship phase. From theory to practice, it has made a certain degree of exploration, and put forward the slogan of “experiential participation” of pre-service teachers.

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6.1.4 Main Developmental Characteristics of Pre-service Teachers Since the development of pre-service teacher education in Australia, it is now very mature, and the most important feature is “participatory” experience. The main means include: Experiential participation in interactive curriculum setting enables students to participate actively and express their own views. The most commonly used method is “curriculum experience questionnaire”, which is open to all students. Based on the analysis of the survey results, the most beneficial course teaching can be adjusted to make students’ course learning more targeted and practical. This is more conducive to meet the needs of students for teacher career development. The progressive experiential participation in the mode of infiltration practice is the performance of Australia’s emphasis on internship. In addition, the practice schools will be strictly screened, including not only the teaching quality control, but also strict requirements on the teaching facilities. The purpose is to create a good internship culture environment for the interns. Reflective diary experiential participation requires students to write reflective diary every day from subjective class to practice class, and record internship experience in the form of diary. This method can help students gain better listening experience and lecture experience, guide students to be more focused, solve puzzles in time and improve teaching, and improve their professional quality with the formation of habits (Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Trinidad et al., 2014).

6.1.5 Preparation of Pre-service Teachers for Post-service Work Australia’s pre-service teachers will not immediately integrate you into the role of teachers, but give you a period of time to transition, will increase the contact between primary and secondary schools and university normal colleges, teacher training, especially for new teachers who have just graduated from universities. There is a 1-year “introduction career program”, during which students who have just graduated from normal school do not assume full teaching duties and responsibilities but maintain a relationship with their Alma mater. “Introduction of career plan” is the transition between internship and formal induction, in essence is the continuation of internship, so it is called the post-internship stage, is the review of internship and teaching, and plays a role of bridge between internship and formal teaching. The significance of this move is that students are fully in a professional role, but temporarily do not have to bear the pressure of career, can better experience internship, and ultimately successful entry into the workplace. “Introduction Career Program” students participate experientially in the role of real “teacher”, fully integrated into the role of real teaching, so as to obtain a real internship experience.

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6.2 The Historical Stages of the Change of Australia’s Pre-service Teacher Training Policy 6.2.1 General Overview At present, many countries focus on the pre-service training of general teachers, which is one of the indispensable factors to improve the quality of integrated education. The development of integrated education in Australia is at the forefront of the world, and positive changes have been made in the training of integrated education ability of pre-service teachers (Arthur-Kelly et al., 2013; Ledger et al., 2018; Lemon & Garvis, 2013). In the twenty-first century, the quality of teachers has gradually become the key to improve the quality of education. The training of qualified teachers is an important part of teacher quality. Educational practice is also an important part of teacher education, aiming to promote the integration of pre-service teachers’ theory and practice, and to develop their professional skills necessary for their future teaching in real educational situations. These skills may be teachers’ professional knowledge and technical ability, or they may be general communication and teamwork ability. Therefore, the importance and necessity of educational practice has been strongly supported by teacher educators (Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Lambert & O’Connor, 2018; Trinidad et al., 2014).

6.2.2 The Keating Administration Since the Keating Government, the Australian Federal Government has gradually begun to implement the medium- and long-term teacher professional development initiatives. Teacher professional development initiatives are no longer being funded in the same way they were originally. The initiative covers all aspects related to professional development. With the development and progress of The Times, the government has been adjusting and introducing new measures to meet the needs of teachers. During Keating’s tenure, the federal government set up some 2- and 3-year initiatives to carry out teacher professional development practice nationwide, among which the more influential policies were the National Plan on teaching quality, the National Professional Development Plan, and the innovation Linkage Plan. These teacher professional development policies focus on promoting the expansion of teacher professional quality through research, and some of these initiatives include a lot of action research. The National Plan for Teaching Quality is a joint project of the Australian Education Council, state and Territory education departments, and public and private teachers’ unions. The project is funded by the Federal Government. The project addresses several issues related to the teaching profession, including teacher mobility in different school systems in different districts, and the status and rights of teachers. Problems related to teacher education are covered, including teacher

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in-service development and evaluation activities. The National Professional Development Program is a joint effort of teachers, teachers’ unions, colleges, and teachers’ employers sponsored and funded by the federal Department of Education. The plan focuses on the diversity and quality of teacher education courses and advocates cooperation between primary and secondary schools and universities. In addition, the plan also advocates a form of teacher professional development that combines theory with practice and pays attention to changing theory and practice according to the actual needs of teachers’ work. The federal Department of Education thinks colleges, teachers, and teacher educators should be more closely linked. Only in this way can the curriculum of teacher education be set up more closely and in line with the needs of teacher professional development. In addition, the project calls for the university to recognize and respond to the needs of the school that employs the faculty. In 1996, the project ended when funding ran out and the Liberal/National coalition defeated Labor in the election.

6.2.3 The Howard Government In 1996, The Liberal-National coalition won the general election in March. In the following three elections in 1998, 2001, and 2004, the Liberal and National coalitions led by John Howard won one victory after another. During this period, the government paid great attention to teacher professional development and related issues and carried out long-term projects with huge investment, among which the Australian Government’s Quality Teacher Program was a “flagship” policy (Arthur-Kelly et al., 2013; Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Lemon & Garvis, 2013). The Australian Government’s Quality Teacher Scheme was launched in 2000 as part of the “Teachers for the 21st Century” Programme. The program is a special moment in the history of the federal Department of Education at the turn of the century. It is a major policy to improve the professional skills and knowledge of primary and secondary school teachers in Australia and to enhance their professional status. The critical importance of the program can be seen in the incremental funding from the federal Department of Education. The teacher professional development measures basically continue the general development ideas of the former Liberal and National Party coalition, with few changes. During this period, the Labor Government continued to implement the Australian Government’s Quality Teacher Plan developed by the Howard Government, which made this policy the longest, most expensive, and most influential teacher professional development policy in Australian history. The National Partnership for Smarter Schools on Teacher Quality, introduced and implemented by the Labour Government, was the most important initiative since it took office. The National Partnership for Smarter Schools is made up of three sub-policies: a National Partnership to help disadvantaged students, a National Partnership to support the development of teachers and school leaders, and a National Partnership to promote literacy and numeracy. These initiatives are being promoted by the federal government in conjunction with state and district governments. Since the 1980s and 1990s,

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the formulation and implementation of teacher professional development initiatives have increasingly become the main means for the Australian Federal government to improve the quality of teachers. The teacher professional development policy in this country has gone through the changes of discourse, goal, and form since its emergence and development. In terms of discourse expression, from the early “on-the-job education” and “on-the-job training” to today’s “professional development”, this reflects the government’s changes and updates in the concept, objectives, and activity forms of post-service education for teachers. The current professional development activities do not stick to the traditional form of on-the-job training in the past but include all the practices that can promote the development of teachers. In terms of goal setting, the focus of the federal government in recent years has been mainly on improving the academic performance of students, rather than proposing some general, multiple goals in the form of initiatives that could not be achieved at that time as in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the early 1990s, the federal government offered only a few simple grants to encourage elementary and secondary school teachers to participate in post-service education. But since the mid-1990s, especially into the twentyfirst century, the government sets special goals, excludes special funds, sets specific contents and activities to promote the implementation and promotion of medium and long-term measures, and has achieved positive influence and effect. Since the 1980s, the quality of education has been an important issue in the educational reform of various countries. As an important educational resource, the improvement of the comprehensive quality and ability of pre-service teachers is the guarantee of the development of education. Teaching as a complex work, teaching practice process is full of subjectivity and complexity, how to evaluate the teaching ability of preservice teachers has become the focus of the reform in the field of teacher education evaluation. Countries all over the world attach great importance to the improvement of the quality of education, which depends on high-quality professional teachers, and further depends on high-quality pre-service education for teachers. In addition, the improvement of pre-service practical teaching ability benefits from the field of basic education, which mainly relies on normal colleges. It is essential to explore the relationship between the national teacher qualification examination and the practical teaching ability of pre-service teachers, update the teacher education courses, improve the model of education practice, and strengthen the functional departments in basic education and high school teachers. Since the 1950s, due to the political stability and economic development of Australia, teacher education has also made great progress. With the rapid development of education, the training of pre-service teachers is increasingly lagging behind. Since the mid-1960s, the structure of higher education has changed a lot. First, in the late 1960s, Australia established colleges of higher education parallel to universities. These colleges mainly provide advanced instruction for vocational courses. With this change, the pre-service preparation for elementary school teachers has been extended from 2 years to 3 years, and the 3-year certificate has replaced the 2-year certificate, and the entire department of secondary education has been upgraded to a multifunctional higher education institute. Since then, the College of Higher Education has undertaken the main task of training preschool and primary school teachers. This

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marks a new historical development period of Australian teacher education, during which the training mode of pre-service primary and secondary school teachers in Australia is gradually standardized. No matter in the initial stage, the development stage, or the reform stage, the training of vocational education teachers in Australia conforms to the actual situation at that time, no matter in terms of system construction or content requirements. With the development of vocational education, vocational education teachers have gradually formed their own training system and structure, which can promote the further development and improvement of vocational education. That is to say, the development of vocational education teachers and the development of vocational education have formed a mutually reinforcing and promoting situation, especially after the establishment of the national qualification framework, the selection and training of vocational education teachers have evidence to rely on. With the development of social economy, the changes of the qualification framework system also adjust accordingly (Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Trinidad et al., 2014). Australia attaches great importance to teachers’ industrial experience and practical skills in the selection and training of vocational education teachers, and requires teachers to teach students new technologies and skills needed by enterprises, which requires teachers in vocational schools to keep close contact with enterprises to obtain vocational qualification certificates of corresponding majors, so that students can master skills and obtain corresponding qualification certificates. The Australian government attaches great importance to the training of vocational education teachers. In the twenty-first century, with the development of education and the renewal of education concept in all countries, teacher education has become an important front of reform in all countries. The Australian Government also takes this opportunity to build on the Declaration and set the goals of education reform in the twenty-first century to promote equity and excellence in Australian schools, to provide students with “quality teaching”, and to develop students’ learning ability, self-confidence, and creativity. The training system of Australian pre-service teachers is implemented under the background of teacher professional standardization movement. In order to guarantee the quality of pre-service teacher education, the Australian government has adopted a series of effective measures since the twenty-first century. Vocational education system has been running for many years in Australia and has formed a perfect standard system for teacher training. Its training system, training concept, and other excellent aspects are worth studying seriously and learning from actively.

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6.3 Case Study on Pre-service Teacher Training in Australia—A Case Study of the University of Canberra The University of Canberra is a modern comprehensive university, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Founded in 1967, the university is under the direct jurisdiction of the federal government. It is one of the top universities in Australia in terms of comprehensive strength and enjoys a high reputation internationally for its excellent teaching and strong faculty. Therefore, the successful pre-service teacher training model of the university is worthy of our study and reference.

6.3.1 The Training Form of Pre-service Teachers in the University of Canberra The pre-service teacher education of the University of Canberra has a history of more than 40 years since its establishment, and its pre-service teacher training is typical and representative in the country. The School of Teacher Education at the University mainly provides pre-service teacher training at the undergraduate, master, and doctoral levels. The undergraduate level of pre-service teacher training mainly provides single-degree and double-degree 4-year full-time training mode, which is an important training mode with certain characteristics. The School of Teacher Education provides different pre-service training for pre-service teachers in different disciplines, such as early childhood education, primary education, secondary education, and vocational education. Typical dual-degree programs include Bachelor of Arts/Education, Bachelor of Information Technology/Education, etc.

6.3.2 Professional Standards for Teachers In Australia, professional standards for teachers provide a common reference for the complex and varied work of preparing pre-service teachers. They describe what pre-service teachers need to know, understand, and be able to do, while providing teachers with direction and structure to support teacher preparation and development. The application of teacher standards will sustain and stimulate teachers’ professional practice and improve the quality of learning opportunities for all students. Improving student learning is the main purpose of teaching, and the standards make clear the link between the quality of teacher practice and student learning. The Teacher Professional Standards framework describes clear benchmarks for the teaching profession that are used to identify and describe effective teaching. The standards provide an opportunity for teachers to communicate with the community about their profession in order to enhance their professional status. The framework

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of teacher professional standards is mainly embodied in seven standards, which are divided into three teaching areas: professional knowledge, professional practice, and professional participation (Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Trinidad et al., 2014; Lambert & O’Connor, 2018). Teacher expertise requires teachers to have an in-depth knowledge of their subject and the content of their curriculum, and to understand the basic concepts, structures, and related requirements involved in the teaching process. In their learning and teaching plans, teachers should understand what an effective and appropriate teaching is and how to use this knowledge to make the presentation of the teaching content more meaningful. In teaching practice, teachers develop students’ literacy and numeracy skills, as well as the ability to use information and communication technologies to expand the breadth and depth of student learning. In teacher professional standards, professional practice mainly refers to teachers’ ability to use advanced communication technologies to create and maintain safe, inclusive, and challenging learning environments and achieve fair and just behavior management plans. Teachers should have an effective teaching strategy and use them to achieve a well-designed teaching program and curriculum. Teachers regularly assess all aspects of their teaching practice to ensure that they meet the learning needs of their students. At the same time, teachers interpret and use student assessment data to diagnose learning disabilities and improve student performance. Professional practice also requires teachers to effectively master all stages of teaching and learning, including learning and assessment planning, development of learning plans, teaching, assessment, and provision of learning feedback and reports to parents or guardians (Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Trinidad et al., 2014).

6.3.3 Professional Participation In teacher professional standards, professional participation mainly refers to teachers’ demonstration of effective teaching methods, determination of their teaching needs, analysis, evaluation and expansion of their professional learning. Teachers demonstrate respect and professionalism in their interactions with students, parents or guardians, and the community. They are well aware of the needs of parents or guardians and communicate effectively about student learning. Teacher’s value extracurricular and community activities to enrich students’ educational background. Finally, teachers recognize the link between school, family, and community awareness of students’ social and intellectual development. In the curriculum training program for primary school pre-service teachers of the University of Canberra, there are mainly 4-year bachelor’s degree courses and first-degree-based teacher training courses. Now, the 4-year bachelor’s degree courses are taken as an example. This course is mainly set for primary school teachers. Through the whole-course setting, students mainly focus on a series of education and curriculum learning and timely teaching practice throughout. A total of 96 credits are required in the curriculum for primary school teachers, including 84 credits of compulsory courses and 12 credits of elective courses. The 84 points of compulsory courses include: 18 credits of teacher

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education, 18 credits of teaching practice, 18 credits of reading and writing instruction, 24 credits of restricted major subject study, 6 credits of learning and Technology, and teaching English as a second language. The educational objectives of the Bachelor of Secondary Education are to provide pre-service teachers with initial professional preparation, including basic knowledge and professional skills; professional practice for pre-service teachers; to lay the foundation for those pursuing research and postgraduate education in education and teaching; and to prepare pre-service teachers for social transition. The core subjects of education include general education, which includes information technology knowledge, educational psychology, history, philosophy, and sociology. The pre-service apprenticeship is the last part of the teaching internship program. It is a comprehensive concept based on knowledge, skills, and attitudes of previously learned courses, pedagogies, and teaching practices. Since the pre-service training model of teachers in Australian states is not uniform, only the introduction of specific universities can make the pre-service teacher training model clearer and more specific. The University of Canberra is representative to some extent in Australia. Therefore, through the above analysis and introduction of the teacher professional standards, curriculum, pre-service internship, and apprenticeship in the University of Canberra’s pre-service teacher training, an overview of the current model of pre-service teacher training in Australia is provided. You can have a more detailed and specific understanding of Australia.

6.4 Problems in the Pre-service Training of Teachers in Australia In recent years, Australian education authorities and teacher education colleges in universities have taken a series of innovative measures to further improve the teaching practical ability of pre-service teachers and enhance the confidence of the Australian public in the preparation of pre-service teachers for classroom teaching by unifying training standards, issuing research reports, standardizing evaluation system, and other strategies (Arthur-Kelly et al., 2013; Ledger et al., 2018; Lemon & Garvis, 2013). However, in the process of training pre-service teachers’ teaching practice ability, they still face many difficulties. Due to the impact of multiple factors such as the reduction of funding for vocational education in recent years, Australia’s vocational education teacher system inevitably faces some development difficulties. Some problems restricting the overall development level of vocational education teachers, such as the large proportion of non-regular staff, the prominent aging phenomenon of teachers, and the relative insufficiency of pre-service training and in-service training, have become increasingly prominent (Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Lambert & O’Connor, 2018; Trinidad et al., 2014).

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6.4.1 Competence of Supervising Teachers Needs to Be Improved According to the analysis of the survey data of pre-service teacher education graduates, the majority of Australian graduates give a high evaluation of their professional practice. In the New South Wales Centre of Excellence evaluation of schools, preservice teacher education graduates indicated that their mentors had the greatest impact on their own professional practice and teaching practice.

6.4.2 The Insufficient Teacher Professional Development Activities Difficult to Meet the Actual Needs Although under the requirements of the national Training quality framework, training institutions need to fulfill the responsibility of promoting teachers to continue to develop their own abilities, from the actual situation, due to the limited funding investment of the government and the lack of clear and specific requirements in relevant regulations. In addition, due to the lack of attention from vocational training institutions, the high working pressure of vocational teachers, and the ambiguity of professional identity, it is difficult for vocational education teachers to obtain sufficient and effective opportunities for professional development in terms of quantity and quality. Vocational education teachers believe they have only half the professional development opportunities they actually get and only meet half the demands of their jobs, according to a survey. In some regions, there are institutions dedicated to promoting the professional development of teachers in vocational education, but the funding is not enough to support the participation of all teaching staff, especially for teachers who are employed informally to access high-quality professional development activities. From the perspective of content, the focus of professional development activities should be on improving the working ability of individuals and teams rather than the implementation of the latest management standards or the operational processes of organizations. However, because the latter is easier to obtain financial support and even mandatory in some areas, it is often the actual focus of many professional development activities. As a result, the actual needs of front-line teachers can hardly be met, and their abilities cannot be effectively improved and enhanced, which deviates from the meaning of in-service professional development activities (Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Trinidad et al., 2014).

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6.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Australian Teachers’ Pre-service Training 6.5.1 The Motivation of the Reform of Rural Teachers’ Pre-service Training Saving the declining countryside, improving the academic level of rural students, and changing the current situation of rural teachers’ pre-service training are important motivations for the reform of rural teachers’ pre-service training in Australia. In order to promote the reform of rural teachers’ pre-service training, Australia has implemented some measures, such as “bundled” student experience program, curriculum design around “rural”, and practical experience into “field degree”, and achieved good results. The practice and experience of pre-service training reform of rural teachers in Australia are worth learning and reference. According to a 1999 report by the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, rural Australia continues to show signs of decline: depopulation, lower income, lower quality of life, and a gradual decline in key public services and government funding. Many rural areas of Australia are in economic decline and increasingly vulnerable as a result of a severe drought over the past two decades. At the same time, the infrastructure and communities in many rural areas are weakening, and the limited economic benefits of access to education are squeezing the supply of education. Due to the decline of the countryside, rural schools face many difficulties and challenges. The decline of rural Australia has aroused the attention of the country, and the government strives to solve the worsening decline problem and save the declining countryside. However, with the aging of population and young people moving to cities, rural Australia’s agricultural and fishing industries are increasingly in the dark, so a rural recovery looks distant. Nevertheless, Australia remains keenly aware that the recovery and vitality of rural communities is vital to its social prosperity and economic development. The future sustainable development of rural areas is the foundation for the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of Australia as a whole. It is an integral part of the nation’s wealth and competitiveness. Research shows that student achievement has a very important relationship with teacher stability. But rural schools in Australia often employ young, inexperienced teachers, who are highly mobile. This trend is particularly pronounced in indigenous areas, where teachers are often referred to as “two-year tourists”. At the same time, the continuing shortage of teachers in rural Australia has led to leadership gaps in rural schools, resulting in a shortage of specialist teachers in subjects such as science and mathematics, which has severely affected the academic achievement of students in rural Australia schools. According to some Australian studies, the academic performance of students in rural schools in Australia is much lower than that of their urban counterparts. National data show a startling gap in the academic achievement of rural students compared with their urban counterparts. In all areas of

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academic performance, such as the National Assessment of Literacy and Numeracy report, rural students are statistically worse than their urban counterparts.

6.5.2 Multiple Strategies for Rural Teachers’ Pre-service Training Reform To encourage pre-service teachers to teach in rural schools after graduation, almost all Australian states have implemented “bundled” scholarships, in which students must agree to additional requirements set out by the scholarship program. There are two types of scholarships, namely, the whole-course scholarship and the educational practice scholarship. Full course scholarship means that students receive a certain number of scholarships each year for pre-employment study. For example, in New South Wales, the Department of Education of New South Wales has adopted a series of incentive measures to strengthen the demand for teachers in subjects in short supply, including the “Teach New South Wales” initiative to support students to meet the qualification requirements in the curriculum and various professional areas during pre-service learning. The reforms are covered in a framework of action plan for teacher motivation called “Great Teaching, Great Learning”, which includes encouraging students to study the areas of expertise that are urgently needed in rural areas through teacher education scholarships, changing the curriculum structure of pre-service teacher education, and adding a “three-dimensional” course related to the countryside (Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Lambert & O’Connor, 2018; Trinidad et al., 2014).

6.5.3 Pre-service Teacher Education Practice Experience in Australia Australia especially emphasizes the importance of cooperation between universities and primary and secondary schools and establishes an equal and cooperative partnership between universities and primary and secondary schools to provide stable educational practice bases for pre-service teachers. In 2000, Australia’s Review of Teacher Education stated that “if pre-service teachers are to be challenged in their choice of a teaching career and to be able to complete education placements well in order to reap the rewards of this career, then there needs to be close collaboration between universities and primary and secondary schools”. In 2002, the Australian Department of Education, Science and Technology released “An Ethic of Concern—An Effective Plan for Beginning Teachers”, which stressed that the pre-service education stage should strengthen the links between universities and primary and secondary schools. In 2003, the Australian government released the document “Australia’s Teachers, Australia’s Future”, which clearly stated: Teacher education curriculum

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must be reformed, in particular strengthening the links between universities and primary and secondary schools, include reorganizing the practical experience of preservice teachers’ schooling and classroom teaching. This link should run through pre-service teacher education, teacher guidance, and teacher continuing professional development (Arthur-Kelly et al., 2013; Ledger et al., 2018; Lemon & Garvis, 2013). Since the 1990s, Australia has strengthened close cooperation between universities and primary and secondary schools, 60% of the courses of pre-service teacher education are arranged in primary and secondary schools, and the education departments of 14 universities have formed teacher education partnerships with more than 130 primary and secondary schools. This not only guarantees the pre-service teacher education practice, but also promotes the development of teachers and students in primary and secondary schools, achieving a win–win situation for both universities and primary and secondary schools (Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Lambert & O’Connor, 2018; Trinidad et al., 2014). The results of the survey show that cooperation between Australian primary and secondary schools will promote the development of pre-service teachers, primary and secondary school teachers, as well as the learning of primary and secondary students, and there is unanimous support for close cooperation between universities and primary and secondary schools. Australian university teacher education has two independent systems, one is the federal government responsible for the university teacher education system and the other is the state funded and managed university education system. Teachers with bachelor’s degrees typically receive 4 years of college education. A 4-year bachelor of education should include 1,500 h of formal education (subject and pedagogical study, plus 100 days of primary and secondary education). In Victoria, Australia, the teacher education program consists of more than 26 weeks of lessons and tutoring, including 15 h of study per week, and 9 weeks of full educational practice. At present, Australian pre-service teachers adopt phased educational practice, that is, educational practice at each stage is not a continuous whole cycle, but runs through the 4 years of undergraduate study, so that pre-service teachers have the opportunity to have professional experience in cooperative primary and secondary schools every year. Take the School of Education at La Trobe University in Australia as an example. In this school, the 9-week internship will be divided into three phases with 3 weeks in each phase, making a total of 18 weeks in the academic year. The requirement of preservice teachers’ educational practice has been raised continuously. The content and workload of pre-service teachers’ educational practice follow the principle step by step, and cooperative teaching and class management are carried out in the later stage of the educational practice. In Australia, the practice of phased education practice helps pre-service teachers summarize the experience and lessons of the first stage of education practice. After teaching, they also participate in class management, student guidance, library work, teacher cooperation activities, school camp, and other school activities. In terms of class management, Australian universities require pre-employment teachers to participate in class management at all stages of their educational practice. In the first stage, we should arrange a day to get familiar with the class and class management. In the second stage, pre-service teachers and other education practice

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teachers share the class management work for 3–4 days in the second and third weeks, and encourage pre-service teachers and instructors to cooperate in class management. In the third stage, three students will work together for 1 week of class management and teaching, and they are required to participate in the continuous planning of teaching courses and class activities. By participating in the educational practice of class management, pre-service teachers complete certain tasks as head teachers, and gradually develop their ability to organize various extracurricular cultural activities such as themed class meetings and team activities, as well as manage the class through individual education of students. In addition, in terms of the collaborative activities of instructors, Australian universities require pre-job-seeking instructors to participate in the establishment of teaching curriculum plans, collaborative teaching work, and joint teaching reflection under the guidance of instructors. Pre-service teachers will be further exercised in the process of collaborative activities to promote the development of their professional abilities. In the process of guidance, the guiding teachers of cooperative schools can stimulate themselves to observe the problems of education and teaching from different perspectives, constantly update the theory of education and teaching, strengthen the organic combination of educational theory and educational practice, promote the development and improvement of their own professional teachers, so as to further promote the common development of preservice teachers and guiding teachers (Arthur-Kelly et al., 2013; Fraser-Seeto, 2013; Ferreira & Ryan, 2012; Lemon & Garvis, 2013; Lambert & O’Connor, 2018; Ledger et al., 2018; Trinidad et al., 2014).

6.5.4 Accelerate the Construction of Education Practice Base Australia emphasizes the cooperation between universities and primary and secondary schools to provide stable educational practice bases for pre-service teachers. Australia mainly adopts phased education practice. The pre-service teacher education practice runs through the 4 years of university, so that the pre-service teachers have the opportunity to have professional experience in primary and middle schools every year, and can summarize the experience and lessons of the first stage of education practice, and make up for and overcome the shortcomings of the first stage of education practice in the second stage of education practice. In this way, pre-service teachers can regard educational practice as a practical process, a process in which they face and solve educational problems and form their own professional competence. In this way, pre-service teachers can constantly supplement and combine theoretical knowledge learned from classroom books with practical experience gained from educational practice, and constantly summarize and reflect on the experience and lessons of educational practice in the previous stage. It’s essential to avoid the mistakes of the first stage in the second stage, improve the effect of educational practice, promote the development of pre-service teachers’ professional ability, and improve the level of teaching practice (Lambert & O’Connor, 2018; Ledger et al., 2018).

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6.5.5 Enrich the Content of Educational Practice The content of pre-service teachers’ educational practice in Australia is relatively diverse. In addition to basic teaching work, pre-service teachers are also actively involved in class management, student guidance, library work, teachers’ collaborative activities and school camps, and other school activities. Australian universities adopt two ways to evaluate pre-service teacher education practice, which is more objective and fair. Diversified evaluation methods will ensure that the evaluation of pre-service teacher education practice is scientific and reasonable (Fraser-Seeto 2013; Lemon & Garvis, 2013; Lambert & O’Connor, 2018).

References Arthur-Kelly, M., Sutherland, D., Lyons, G., Macfarlane, S., & Foreman, P. (2013). Reflections on enhancing pre-service teacher education programmes to support inclusion: Perspectives from New Zealand and Australia. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 28(2), 217–233. Ferreira, J. A., & Ryan, E. (2012). Working the system: A model for system-wide change in preservice teacher education. Australian Journal of Teacher Education (online), 37(12), 112–128. Fraser-Seeto, K. (2013). Pre-service teacher training in gifted and talented education: An Australian perspective. Journal of Student Engagement: Education Matters, 3(1), 29–38. Lambert, K., & O’Connor, J. (2018). Breaking and making curriculum from inside ‘policy storms’ in an Australian pre-service teacher education course. The Curriculum Journal, 29(2), 159–180. Ledger, S., & Vidovich, L. (2018). Australian teacher education policy in action: The case of pre-service internships. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 43(7), 11–29. Lemon, N., & Garvis, S. (2013). What is the role of the arts in a primary school? An investigation of perceptions of pre-service teachers in Australia. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 38(9), 1–9. Trinidad, S., Sharplin, E., Ledger, S., & Broadley, T. (2014). Connecting for innovation: Four universities collaboratively preparing pre-service teachers to teach in rural and remote Western Australia. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 29(2), 1–13.

Chapter 7

Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in Russia

This chapter explores pre-service teacher education policy development in Russia. Education is a country’s 100-year plan, for the country to train talents, a country’s education is strong comprehensive national strength. If a country has a bright future, a good education cause must be built. Teachers are the source of education and play a vital role in the development of education. The quality of teacher education also affects the development of national education, as well as the country’s comprehensive national strength and future. Facing the development of world education, different countries have also formulated their own education and teacher training policies according to their own actual conditions. Russia has a tradition of attaching importance to the development of teacher education. Its teacher education is unique in the world. The great reform of teacher education after Russia’s independence has trained many high-level teachers for Russia, guaranteed the virtuous circle of teachers in the whole national education system of Russia, and ensured that the level of education in Russia is in the leading position in the world. Therefore, Russia’s pre-service teacher training is worth our analysis and research. This chapter analyzes the pre-service training of Russian teachers from different perspectives.

7.1 The Background Education is in a pivotal position for a country to cultivate talents, and talent training needs the help and training of teachers, so teachers’ pre-service education is very important, and Russia is a country that attaches great importance to teacher education, respect teachers, teacher education has been placed in Russia’s history of development, and its important position. At the same time, teacher education also plays a very important role during Russia’s development, affecting the trend and development of society. Education determines a country’s international status, speed of

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li, Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5865-8_7

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development, and social acceptance. “Russia has always maintained a good tradition of” respecting teachers and valuing education, “and the teaching profession has always been deeply respected by the people. From Peter the Great and Catherine II to the October Revolution, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Putin era, teacher education has played an important role in social development and been affected by social changes”. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the upheaval in Eastern Europe had a huge shock and influence on the Russian society, which was an era of social change in Russia. In 1991, the Soviet Union announced its disintegration. As a great socialist country with a history of more than 70 years, its disintegration marked the arrival of a new era of society, and its impact on economy, politics, education, and other aspects was huge. Especially for the former member states of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of the Soviet Union undoubtedly changed the direction and trajectory of social development (Borzova & Shemanaeva, 2019; Jones, 2019; Logvinova & Ivanova, 2016).

7.1.1 Political Changes in Russia After the Collapse of the Soviet Union The political system of the Soviet Union has been highly centralized socialism, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia went to the road of capitalism, completely negating the socialist system. The fundamental political system of Russia has changed from one-party dictatorship to a political life mode characterized by drawing lessons from western political systems—presidential system, multi-party participation in politics, parliamentary democracy, free election, separation of powers combined with the basic national conditions of Russia to form a political system with its own characteristics. The great changes in Russian politics also led to the collapse of the people’s beliefs, the great changes of ideas, and the struggle of political parties. In the place of political transformation, social unrest and ideological chaos seriously affected the development of economy. Because of social unrest, ideological changes, and lagging economic development, the development of education has been seriously affected, and the direction and mode of education development has become uncertain. Later, Russia’s politics gradually stabilized, and the economy gradually recovered to education, and Russia has always adhered to the fine tradition of attaching importance to teacher education, promulgated a large number of policies to promote the development of teacher education, such as: on April 10, 2000, the acting President of Russia signed the Outline for the Development of Education in the Russian Federation, formed a new educational concept dominated by humanism and humanistic spirit, and strongly supported the establishment of schools, which laid a solid foundation for the development of teacher pre-service education.

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7.1.2 Changes in the Russian Economy After the Collapse of the Soviet Union The collapse of the Soviet Union caused a huge blow to Russia’s economy. In addition, the Soviet economy had drawbacks before. The emphasis on heavy industry, especially military industry, and the disdain for light industry and agriculture resulted in the unbalanced economic development, which resulted in the situation of “one leg is thick, the other leg is thin”. In terms of economic system, the Soviet economy adopted a highly centralized planned economy, distributed uniformly by the central government. This highly centralized economic system was exclusive and could not reflect the needs of the market or better integrate with the international market. After independence, Russia carried out economic reform, carried out the reform of private ownership, introduced the competition mechanism into the market, implemented the marketization and liberalization of economic activities, abolished the state’s surveillance of economic activities, gave full play to the role of the market, and the state no longer interfered excessively. The economy gradually developed and regained its vitality. When Putin came to power, he carried out the “third way” strategy in the social and economic system, neither copying the Western strategy nor fully inheriting the Soviet Union’s strategy. Instead, he combined the market economy, democratic system, and universal democratic principles with Russia’s national conditions to find a path that conforms to Russia’s basic national conditions (Borzova & Shemanaeva, 2019; Jones, 2019; Logvinova & Ivanova, 2016). Under the leadership of the right policies, Russia’s economy has gradually recovered and developed. The number of schools is increasing as the number of teachers unable to stay due to low salaries is decreasing. The solid foundation of economy provides the foundation for the development of education.

7.1.3 The Development of Teacher Training in Russia After the Collapse of the Soviet Union In the early stage, due to the long-term influence of the Soviet Union, Russia’s economic development was very unbalanced, and the lack of economic strength also led to the low level of education and imperfect educational infrastructure. However, the country has always attached great importance to the training of teacher quality, which is analyzed from the following aspects: First of all, due to the sluggish economy and insufficient state funds, teachers’ salaries are among the lowest in the whole industry and are often in arrears, even for as long as half a year in remote areas. In the case of economic expansion, such salary level could not cope with the social environment at that time. Schools could not retain teachers, a large number of teacher resources were lost, the attractiveness of teachers’ jobs was reduced, and teachers’ strike and demonstration occurred from time to time. This situation also leads to

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the slow development of education. Secondly, school teachers were not all professional teachers at that time, and the definition and standards of teachers were not clear. In a survey, the investigators asked teachers whether they were confident that they were professional teachers. However, the results were not satisfactory. Many teachers said that they did not know whether they were qualified teachers, which reflected the unclear definition of teacher. Finally, the idea of national teacher education and the system of continuous education were established, which promoted the development of education. Although Russia’s economy was not prosperous at that time, the government attached great importance to teacher education and established the leading educational ideas such as democratization, individuation, humanization, and depoliticization of education in the form of laws. It also put forward individualized educational policies and vigorously cultivated individualized teachers. The Education Law advocates the realization of individualized development of students and the cultivation of individualized teachers. It can be seen that the education policy at that time was very enlightened and advanced. Continuous education is to improve the quality of normal university students fundamentally by reducing the number of normal schools and increasing the number of normal schools. The policy of upgrading model colleges to model universities and opening normal courses has played a positive role in the training of teachers (Borzova & Shemanaeva, 2019; Jones, 2019; Logvinova & Ivanova, 2016). After the twentieth century, each country gradually paid more and more attention to teacher education. Firstly, several major developed countries in the world attach importance to the integration and specialization of teacher education and formulate strong policies to promote the reform of teachers. For example, the standardization of teacher qualification access, the improvement of teacher welfare, and other policies have effectively improved the professional skills of teachers. Each country not only attaches importance to the education of teachers, but also pays more and more attention to the various stages of teachers, such as pre-service, entry, and post-service, with more and more comprehensive policies. Such a trend of teacher education has also influenced the development of teacher education in Russia, and further emphasis has been placed on teacher education, such as the enactment of the Law on Higher and Post-University Vocational Education. Now is an era of knowledge, science, technology, economy, and other aspects of development and progress are inseparable from the help of education, and Russia’s education in the world does not occupy a favorable position, the world famous university is very few, so to improve the quality of students, improve the national education level and status, as well as international recognition, and need to vigorously develop teacher education. The development of teacher education is related to students’ quality and knowledge, so teacher education is very important (Borzova & Shemanaeva, 2019; Jones, 2019; Logvinova & Ivanova, 2016; Valeeva & Kalimullin, 2019).

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7.2 The Historical Stages of the Change of Pre-service Teacher Training Policy in Russia 7.2.1 Teacher Education Policy in Tsarist Russia (Eighteenth Century to October Revolution) In the eighteenth century, Russia began to establish state primary and secondary schools in various cities. There were three main types of schools: first, boarding schools, which mainly enrolled the children of aristocrats, were privately run, charged high fees, and the government gave preferential treatment. Teachers are mainly foreign education experts or university professors, who enjoy a higher status. The second is the ordinary schools, which mainly enroll the children of farmers and craftsmen. They are run by the state and charge relatively low fees and receive less government funding. Teachers are mainly those who can only read. The third is a parochial school, established by a seminary, where students learn to read, write, and calculate in accordance with Orthodox ideas and the autocratic spirit of the emperor. The teachers were mainly priests and clergy. In 1776, Russia promulgated the “National School Regulations”, stipulating the establishment of national normal schools to train teachers, the first time through the form of legislation to establish Russia’s teacher training system (Jones, 2019; Logvinova & Ivanova, 2016; Valeeva & Kalimullin, 2019). After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, some progressives in Russia strongly urged the popularization of educational culture among the people and opposed the theological education of the foolish people. Therefore, education was developed, especially the development of primary education, so that the establishment of regular schools to train teachers was put on the agenda. The famous educationist, known as “Russian teacher’s teacher”, Usens, drafted in 1861 “normal school charter draft” and “normal school draft”, the specific planning of the normal school setting, including the location of the setting of normal school requirements, school enrollment objects, learning courses, etc. In accordance with the Draft, local normal schools were established in many places. The typical one was St. Petersburg’s 4-year local normal School, which was opened in the 1870s.

7.2.2 Teacher Education Policy During the Soviet Union (October Revolution to the Collapse of the Soviet Union) August 19–26, 1918, the first Russian normal education conference held, began to establish a normal education system. At the meeting, it was decided to reorganize the normal colleges and schools left over from the Tsarist era into higher normal schools and establish two education colleges. In the resolution of the first Congress of All Russian Educators held later, it was pointed out that higher normal schools

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should fundamentally reform the training of teachers and train socialist teachers loyal to the interests of the Russian working masses. Shortly thereafter, the State Education Commission approved a new charter for higher Normal schools (called normal Colleges). The first article of the new constitution stipulates that “Teachers College is an institution of higher autonomous learning, whose purpose is to provide pedagogical and scientific training to those who volunteer to devote themselves to the education of unified labor schools”. In the spring of 1919, 32 teachers’ colleges were established in Soviet Russia according to this constitution. In 1930, the number of in-service teachers in the whole Soviet Union reached 471,000 (Borzova & Shemanaeva, 2019; Jones, 2019; Valeeva & Kalimullin, 2019). A normal education system was gradually established. The Resolutions on Measures to improve the training of experts and the leadership of higher and secondary professional education throughout the Country, adopted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union in September 1966, and the Resolutions on Measures to further improve the work of secondary general education Schools, adopted in November of the same year. The attention of normal education will be transferred to improving their own work and the teaching quality of general education schools. On April 10, 1936, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union and the People’s Committee issued the Decision on the Individual title of primary and secondary school teachers. The decision provides for the granting of the title of primary school teacher to persons who have graduated from secondary normal schools (or equivalent) and who are recognized as being fit for educational work. And it also grant the title of secondary school teacher to a person who graduated from a normal college or a comprehensive university. On the same day, the Decision of the People’s Committee of the Soviet Union and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the Procedure for granting individual titles to teachers and appointing teachers and Principals was promulgated. In January 1940, the Decree on the Creation of honorable titles for Meritorious Teachers and Meritorious Physicians of the Russian Federation was adopted. These decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government, as well as the orders of the Soviet regime, played a positive role in purifying and stabilizing the ranks of teachers, promoting teachers’ further study, and encouraging teachers to improve the quality of education and teaching work. In 1980, the Soviet Union conducted the first evaluation of teachers in accordance with the principles of universality, regularity, comprehensiveness, and consultation. More than 2 million teachers participated in the evaluation. According to the results, 83 percent of teachers were rated as competent, 11,000 teachers received awards and honorary titles, and 1,000 teachers were rated as incompetent. After the promulgations of the guidelines for the reform of Soviet general school education in 1984, a new regulation on the procedure of teacher evaluation was promulgated in 1985, which amended the 1974 regulation. After 1990s, the Soviet Union made new adjustment and improvement to the teacher evaluation standards and rules (Borzova & Shemanaeva, 2019; Jones, 2019; Logvinova & Ivanova, 2016; Yadav, 2011). By resolution 6 of the Labour and Social Problems Commission of the Soviet Union of March 20, 1991, on the establishment of new fixed salaries and jobs for staff

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of national education, insurance, social security, culture, and archives. To improve the quality of teacher education, Russia has promulgated a series of laws and regulations on teacher education and formulated relevant systems for teacher education. Among them, the National Teacher Education Standards formulated and implemented are important measures of teacher education reform. In April 1994, Russia issued the first generation of teacher education standards. “Standards” requires that in the process of teacher training, the content of education should be innovated, and adapt to the development requirements of colleges and universities. In the process of teacher training, attention should be paid to the development of teaching methods and the updating of teaching plans. This provides legal basis and policy support for teacher education reform. Teacher education standards include requirements on teaching content, education syllabus, and teaching level to ensure the quality of teacher education. After 5 years of teacher education development practice, the first generation of Teacher Education Standards has been unable to meet the needs of teacher education reform (Jones, 2019; Logvinova & Ivanova, 2016). In April 2000, the second-generation teacher education standard was promulgated. The new teacher education training standard simplified the original standard, clarified the core majors, reduced the content requirements, and expanded the scope of the power of the university. From April to 24, 2001, the Russian Ministry of Education issued the Outline for the Development of the Continuous Teacher Education System in Russia from 2001 to 2010, which is the foundation of the national policy organization implemented in the field of teacher education in Russia. To improve the content of teachers’ teaching and guarantee the quality of teacher education: (1) strengthen the connection between teachers’ teaching system and social needs; (2) improve the quality of teacher training, so that they can work in a variety of educational programs and textbooks, but also in the 12-year ordinary school focused professional teaching conditions; (3) to judge the quality of teacher education to develop scientific basis and scientific practice methods, create conditions to ensure the quality of teacher training monitoring mechanism to play a role; (4) to make the federal part of the national education standard and the part of the minority areas and the vocational education syllabus at different levels of connection; and (5) to ensure the content of teaching, teaching means, teaching forms, and teaching methods in the teacher education system at all levels and levels of continuous teaching. The development of theory, scientific methods, and practical means, in order to train teachers under various conditions (Pavlova et al., 2020; Kim & Choi, 2020; Masalimova et al., 2022; Valeeva & Kalimullin, 2019).

7.2.3 Quality of Pre-service Training of Teacher Education With the transition from closed teacher education system to mixed teacher education system in Russia, the quality of teacher education has attracted much attention. Some scholars believe that the universalization reform of teacher education has affected

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the quality of teacher education. The author thinks that the reform of teacher education universalization causes the loss of the excellent tradition of teacher education and the weakening of the specialized training of teacher education. The reform of teacher education has intensified the contradiction between the educational objectives of normal colleges and the content and form of educational activities, resulting in the following consequences: the increase of non-normal and suitable majors (law, economy, management, and other majors with particularly low training level), the weakening of the original teachers, and the reduction of the number of independent teacher education institutions (the number of normal colleges has been reduced from 105 to 76). The clique interests of normal universities have created a surplus of graduates. Teacher education has not taken up the responsibility of cultivating new teachers that basic education needs. The diversified basic education reform in Russia has put forward new requirements on the role and function of teachers. First, the diversification of the types of basic education requires that normal education provides various types of teachers, such as social teachers, psychological teachers, counseling teachers, doctors, kindergarten and social rehabilitation center teachers, special education teachers, teachers for gifted children, and so on. Second, the professional teaching reform carried out in Russian high schools has put forward higher requirements for the level of teacher education and personnel training mode. Third, there is a shortage of Russia’s rural teachers in the quantity and quality. Teacher education reform should go ahead of the reform of basic education, but it has not done so far. So far, normal universities have largely continued to replicate yesterday’s teachers for tomorrow’s schools (Borzova & Shemanaeva, 2019; Yadav, 2011; Masalimova et al., 2022; Valeeva & Kalimullin, 2019).

7.3 Case Analysis of Russian Teacher Training 7.3.1 Talent Training Objectives The purpose of training practical teachers in Russian National Normal University is: first, through the training of practical teaching, improve the overall quality of the students, improve the quality of graduates, in order to enhance the competition of graduates in the labor market; secondly, by actively increasing the proportion of practical part in the curriculum, to improve the practical ability of teachers and students; thirdly, by cultivating practical and interdisciplinary talents, students’ innovation ability and imagination are improved, and their thinking is expanded, which lays a solid foundation for cultivating outstanding teachers in the future. The undergraduate courses for practical teachers include three modules: one is the basic and variable part module, the other is the practice module, and the third is the national final certification module.

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7.3.2 The Direction of Talent Training Taking Russian National Normal University as the side, practical graduates may have stage work in preschool education in the future, such as kindergarten, may also have stage work in primary education, such as various primary and middle schools engaged in the teacher industry, but also may work as teachers in major teaching institutions or curriculum consultants, in order to engage in teaching industry. Graduates may serve as subject teachers, responsible persons for extracurricular teaching, teachers for supplementary teaching, and responsible persons for subject circles. The advantages of the practical teacher training program are obvious: it can more accurately target the needs of employers; expanding employment opportunities for graduates and improving their competitiveness in the labor market; practical orientation, including shifting the balance of theoretical and practical training within the framework of federal education standards to practical training; the possibility of mastering relevant educational courses or job opportunities during the undergraduate study, and then obtaining a diploma of education or professional certificate of work.

7.3.3 Setting of Course Structure The study of subject modules is helpful to the development of natural science content, and an important means to improve the natural science education system for students majoring in primary education is to establish interdisciplinary links among the components of “natural science” modules. In practice, students understand the connection between natural science, mathematics, and geography; students use elementary geometry knowledge to solve problems in natural science; and students conduct field research and geographical observation in this part of educational practice to cultivate students’ applied practical ability. The practice-oriented teaching of Russian State Normal University has the following basic characteristics: to determine the content and theme of the educational process; to cultivate students’ knowledge and skills acquired in the process of problem solving; to organize as close as possible to the educational situation they may face in the process of teaching; and to cultivate students’ ability of interdisciplinary learning. The purpose of educational practice is to cultivate and strengthen the practical ability of students, and accumulate teaching experience in the practice, so as to establish their own teaching style. The talent training of future teachers depends largely on the teachers inside higher education, the teaching staff of Russian National Normal University is divided into practical teachers and academic teachers in structure, through the structure of the teachers, to ensure that the teachers inside the school have profound theoretical knowledge and rich practical experience, in order to cultivate the excellent practical teachers that school needs. By entrusting teachers with these rights, teachers can improve the basic knowledge of their profession, and, at the same time, teachers are required to have the skills to operate the position proficiently.

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The curriculum content of Ural National Normal University is composed of seven parts: humanities and social economy, mathematics and natural science, professional curriculum, physical education, and teaching practice. Each type of curriculum meets the requirements of the national teaching standards on teacher training objectives. The curriculum types are diversified, and the basic education has a curriculum structure divided into compulsory and elective parts. The training of teachers in Luo Suo pays more attention to students’ learning interests and hobbies and pays more attention to the cultivation and education of students’ personality. According to the professional standards of Russian teachers, six basic subjects with the characteristics of “general professional teaching and learning” are formulated as the methodology based on the characteristics of academic teachers, and their theoretical and methodological basis is determined. At the same time, a cycle of educational psychology is established. Future teachers will familiarize themselves with the knowledge system of their profession, the nature, structure, and content of the teaching process; historical development; and modern achievements. The personalized teaching method is very different from the traditional teaching mode. It not only facilitates the communication and cooperation between students, but also enables them to communicate their ideas with others in a timely manner. Individualized education Law, according to the planning of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, will be promoted in the whole of Russia by 2025 with the principle of open teaching as the main characteristics of personalized education model, to ensure the diversification of Russian teaching and students’ learning forms of diversification, in higher education, students can determine their interests in scientific research from the mountain by “open learning”. And in the dialog with teachers to express their own opinions, critically analyzing various concepts as a scientific position helps to develop students’ critical thinking and personality. The essence of modular teaching method is that the training content is divided into autonomous organization and method units, whose content and quantity can vary according to the teaching objectives, students’ profile and level differences, and students’ desire to choose individual courses. A necessary component of modular training is usually a scoring system for knowledge evaluation, which reviews students’ progress based on the learning results of each module. The use of modular technology helps activate motivational factors for students to learn material (Pavlova et al., 2020; Kim & Choi, 2020; Masalimova et al., 2022; Valeeva & Kalimullin, 2019).

7.4 Problems in the Pre-service Training of Teachers in Russia System is the guarantee and economy is the foundation. The development and progress of any country and any field of society cannot be achieved without these two basic conditions. Teacher education is an integral part of the whole national education system. It shares joys and worries with the educational environment. As

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a part of the whole social system, the national education system shares the same fate with the overall trend of social development. Therefore, as there are difficulties and problems in the reform of teacher education, the prospect of the development of teacher education in Russia directly depends on the transformation and solution of these problems.

7.4.1 Fund Guarantee in Teacher Education In the early days of Russia’s independence, the biggest problem in its teacher policy was the treatment of teachers. The lack of funds has become the biggest obstacle that baffles and hinders education. The country’s economy is unstable, and its budget deficit is rising. The treatment of teachers stipulated by national laws cannot be effectively implemented. Government agencies continue to shrink their budget allocations for educational, scientific, and cultural development. The Russian Federation teachers’ salary cannot guarantee the national minimum standard of living, so that the work and life are seriously affected, which directly leads to the loss of a large number of the most outstanding educators in education and scientific research institutions, young people are not willing to go to normal colleges, so that the number of normal university students reduce. In addition, because the salary cannot be paid on time in a long term, teachers’ instability factors increase (Masalimova et al., 2022; Valeeva & Kalimullin, 2019). A large number of teachers take part-time jobs outside, which affects the quality of education and teaching in schools. Teachers in some urban areas carried out frequent large-scale strikes, which made the normal education and teaching order of schools not guaranteed, and to a certain extent affected the reputation and prestige of teacher’s profession. Russian TV news reports that on a chemical experiment class in a secondary normal school in Siberia, the overdue use of experimental equipment caused an explosion, resulting in the laboratory scrap, teachers and students injured. Due to the lack of necessary funds, many measures to reform the teacher policy cannot be implemented, and the promise of innovation cannot be fulfilled. Another important problem is that there are imperfect supporting policies and regulations in the teacher policy system. There is no special law for teachers. The teacher policy is only scattered in the relevant vocational education laws and regulations and higher education laws and regulations, the expression of the legal status of teachers is not too clear (Jones, 2019; Yadav, 2011).

7.4.2 Positioning Problems of Normal Colleges In recent years, with the trend of pursuing the integration of higher professional education, some normal colleges have been upgraded to normal universities, while others have been reorganized or merged into comprehensive universities. Although the specifications of the colleges have been raised, the number of graduates who

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become teachers, especially the number of teachers returning to the local area, has decreased, and the original regional service function of normal colleges has weakened significantly. This leads to the contradiction between the pursuit of the comprehensive trend of higher normal education and the completion of the regional service function of teachers. Obviously, without solving the problem of how to position normal colleges, so that they can not only complete their own work but also adapt to the main trend of education development, the reform of normal education has not been really implemented.

7.4.3 Unbalanced Development of Teacher Education In line with the development trend of teacher education in the world, teacher education in Russia is also developing toward the level of higher education, so as to guarantee the professional skills and work quality of teachers. The number of secondary normal schools gradually decreased, and the number of secondary normal schools upgraded to teachers’ colleges increased. But different from Western countries, Russia has a vast area, developed cities, less population density, and concentrated talents with higher education level. At the same time, the rural area is large, the population size and the level of education demand are not as high as the urban level, the number of general secondary teacher education institutions in big cities is small, and most of them are concentrated in the rural areas and towns in border regions. Therefore, the government’s educational requirements for rural primary and secondary school teachers still start from the normal school level, and gradually expand the coverage of higher teacher education level, so the total number of secondary teacher education schools has not changed significantly. In addition, there is a serious shortage of teachers in rural and remote areas. On the one hand, the number of people settling in rural areas continues to decline, and the proportion of aging increases. On the other hand, the national uniform distribution of graduates has been gradually replaced by the two-way selection distribution model, and fewer and fewer graduates are willing to teach in rural areas. Although the national and local governments insist on providing preferential treatment to oriented normal university students, the proportion of respondents in the total number of normal university graduates is still insufficient.

7.4.4 Quality Problems of Pre-service Training of Teacher Education With the transition from closed teacher education system to mixed teacher education system in Russia, the quality of teacher education has attracted much attention. Some scholars believe that the universalization reform of teacher education

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has affected the quality of teacher education. It is believed that the reform of teacher education universalization has caused the loss of excellent tradition of teacher education and the weakening of specialized training of teacher education. The reform of teacher education has intensified the contradiction between the educational objectives of normal colleges and the content and form of educational activities, resulting in the following consequences: the increase of non-normal and suitable majors (law, economy, management, and other majors with particularly low training level), the weakening of the original teacher education, and the reduction of the number of independent teacher education institutions (the number of normal colleges has been reduced from 105 to 76). The clique interests of normal universities have created a surplus of graduates. Teacher education has not taken up the responsibility of cultivating new teachers that basic education needs. The diversified basic education reform in Russia has put forward new requirements on the role and function of teachers. First, the diversification of the types of basic education requires that normal education provides various types of teachers, such as social teachers, psychological teachers, counseling teachers, doctors, kindergarten and social rehabilitation center teachers, special education teachers, teachers for gifted children, and so on. Second, the professional teaching reform carried out in Russian high schools has put forward higher requirements for the level of teacher education and personnel training mode. Third, there is a shortage of Russia’s rural teachers in the quantity and quality. Teacher education reform should go ahead of the reform of basic education, but it has not done so far. So far, normal universities have largely continued to replicate yesterday’s teachers for tomorrow’s schools (Pavlova et al., 2020; Kim & Choi, 2020; Masalimova et al., 2022; Valeeva & Kalimullin, 2019).

7.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Pre-service Training of Russian Teachers 7.5.1 Establish a Hierarchical Education Management Structure With the comprehensive transformation of society, especially under the influence of education democratization and marketization, the existence foundation of Russia’s highly integrated central government management system has been disintegrated. It has become an inevitable requirement for the development of pre-service teacher education in the new era to establish a continuous and multi-level management framework for pre-service teacher education and realize the hierarchical management authority in the field of pre-service teacher education.

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7.5.2 Establish a Market-Oriented Democratic Management Mechanism for Education Education marketization reform is an important aspect of decentralization reform from the horizontal dimension to the external direction. The development to complete social management has become an important goal of the future Russian educational management reform. It reflects the game between the government and the market, and ultimately tends to operate on the side of the market. The government’s retreat and the return of market value have become the basic path choice for Russia to establish the relationship between the government and the market in the field of education, especially in the field of higher education in the new era. With the reduction of the central government’s funding capacity for higher education, especially the strengthening of the nature of the higher education market, facing the social market and expanding social participation has become an inevitable trend of national higher education operation. Since the new century, the development of pre-service teacher education in Russia has presented a kind of integrity, continuity, and systematic pursuit. In 2001, in order to further meet the needs of education development, the European education integration process was promoted, and the teacher education system was developed and improved. Russia has issued the Program for the Development of the Continuous Teacher Education System in Russia from 2001 to 2010 (Pavlova et al., 2020; Kim & Choi, 2020; Masalimova et al., 2022; Valeeva & Kalimullin, 2019).

7.5.3 Establish a Network of Diversified Vocational Training Institutions for Teachers, Mainly Normal Colleges The implementation of this system can make the middle school students in different regions have the same opportunities in higher education enrollment, set a relatively unified standard for the entrance of Russian higher education, and laid a solid foundation for the formulation of Russian higher education standards and further integration into the process of European education integration. The diversified entrance method can provide those students who like to engage in homework activities and have the ability and talent of teaching and learning with the opportunity to obtain teacher education, so as to broaden the path of teacher selection. The curriculum tasks: pay attention to humanities and social disciplines, improve the moral sentiment of future teachers’ humanistic quality, strengthen the basic subject theory training of pre-service teacher education specialty, improve the comprehensive ability and quality, construct the curriculum system from knowledge accumulation to vocational ability improvement, and promote the formation of personalized vocational ability, and introduce the latest research results in this field to cultivate students’ scientific research and innovation ability. Since the transition, Russia’s pre-service teacher education has inherited and developed the concept of human culture and

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humanization. These ideas require that pre-job teacher education is open to all individuals; the uniqueness of each student’s personality is recognized; and the teaching process respects the individual development, talent, and potential of students. This requires that the curriculum should be targeted to determine the diversity of education syllabus, teaching plans and methods, to ensure that each child’s personality can get a common, higher level of development. From the concept of continuous teacher education, it can be seen that several stages of teacher education are interlinked and indispensable. From the gradual formation of psychological preparation for choosing a teacher’s career to the study of cultural courses and basic education courses with broad fields and thick foundations, from the combination of profound professional theoretical knowledge and rich “teaching workshop” practice to the development of independent teaching and research. The four stages, like a layer of steps, rise layer by layer, so that students can finally step on a broad platform to become a truly innovative spirit, with the characteristics of self-teaching excellent teachers. According to the theory of teacher specialization, teachers, as teaching professionals, must go through a development process from immaturity to relative maturity, and the space for teacher professional development is infinite (Borzova & Shemanaeva, 2019; Jones, 2019; Logvinova & Ivanova, 2016; Yadav, 2011). Besides, it should adjust the curriculum structure according to the stage of teachers’ professional development, to improve the degree of integration of the curriculum, to facilitate students’ lifelong learning. In the third stage (1–3 college years), the teaching arrangement is carried out in an alternating way of theory teaching and practice teaching, so that students can verify the correctness and practicability of the theoretical knowledge taught in class in the practice of “teaching workshop”, and also enable students to carry out pre-designed practical activities under the guidance of the theory. The two promote each other, so that the teaching arrangement of the whole third stage has a strong purpose and significance. In the fourth phase of the continuous teacher education concept, secondary school students will also have to shoulder 50 to 75 percent of the workload of secondary school teachers. Through many planned teaching practices, so that students in the “teaching workshop” can find teaching method, teaching theories truly suitable for themselves, and students will also innovate more and better teaching forms to teach their students. Russia is committed to creating continuous educational practice, normal university students from the first grade into the real educational institutions, a comprehensive understanding of primary and secondary school teaching environment, student activities, class management, teaching evaluation, home-school relationship, and other components of the entire education and teaching system and process gradually master the teaching skills. And normal university students practice for a long time, accounting for one-third of the total class hours. First, the training of personalized teachers is to adapt to the needs of the new social situation. Vocational education is a steppingstone for them to go to society. It can cultivate students’ innovative ability and help young students better adapt to the needs of social development. Colleges and universities should aim at promoting the all-round development of students, encourage reform of the teaching system, innovate education models of various levels and types, and encourage general and professional integration and cooperation between schools

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and enterprises (Borzova & Shemanaeva, 2019; Jones, 2019; Logvinova & Ivanova, 2016; Valeeva & Kalimullin, 2019).

References Borzova, E., & Shemanaeva, M. (2019). A university foreign language curriculum for pre-service non-language subject teacher education. Education Sciences, 9(3), 163. Jones, T. (2019). A global human rights approach to pre-service teacher education on LGBTIs. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 47(3), 286–308. Kim, Y., & Choi, M. (2020). Towards critical multicultural teacher education in the midst of ethno-nationalism: Korean pre-service teachers’ international learning experiences. Teaching and Teacher Education, 96, 103155. Logvinova, O. K., & Ivanova, G. P. (2016). Pre-service teacher multicultural education in Russia: Problems and responses. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 9(29), 99456. Masalimova, A. R., Erdyneeva, K. G., Kislyakov, A. S., Sizova, Z. M., Kalashnikova, E., & Khairullina, E. R. (2022). Validation of the scale on pre-service teachers’ digital competence to assist students with functional diversity. Contemporary Educational Technology, 14(4), ep382. Pavlova, O., Chirkova, N., & Burlakova, I. (2020). Building a practice-oriented model of pre-service teacher education. In SHS Web of Conferences (Vol. 87, p. 00094). EDP Sciences. Valeeva, R., & Kalimullin, A. (2019). Teacher education in Russia. In Oxford research encyclopedia of education. Yadav, S. K. (2011). A comparative study of pre-service teacher education programme at secondary stage in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Indian Educational Review, 48(1), 96–110.

Chapter 8

Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development in China: Insights from the Publicly-Funded Normal Students Cultivation

This chapter explores pre-service teacher education policy development in China from the insight of the publicly-funded normal students cultivation. On August 10, 2018, The General Office of the State Council issued the Notice of The General Office of the State Council on Forwarding the Implementation Measures of Public Education for Normal University students directly under the Ministry of Education and other departments of the Ministry of Education, which detailed the relevant policies of public normal university students. The public education for normal students referred to in the measures refers to the state in Beijing Normal University, East China Normal University, Northeast Normal University, Central China Normal University, Shaanxi Normal University and Southwest University, six normal universities directly under the Ministry of Education (hereinafter referred to as affiliated normal universities) for normal undergraduates. The training management system in which the tuition fee, accommodation fee, and living allowance are borne by the central government during the school period. In the process of policy implementation, scholars have different opinions on the influence of public-funded normal university policy on educational equity, which can be divided into positive and negative aspects.

8.1 Introduction 8.1.1 It Is Conducive to the Balance of Teachers Among Regions Wang Qian believes that the implementation of the public-funded normal student policy is conducive to attracting more outstanding high school graduates to study in normal schools, training excellent teachers for basic education schools in some poor areas and rural areas, ensuring the quality and relative stability of primary © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li, Pre-service Teacher Education Policy Development, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5865-8_8

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and secondary school teachers in poor areas and weak schools, and fundamentally improving the overall quality of rural teachers. To a greater extent, we will guarantee the balanced development of our education and the fairness of education. The public-funded normal student policy is conducive to the balance of teacher resources between regions and the promotion of education equity. Due to the serious imbalance of teachers in basic education in China, the lack of teachers and the low quality of teachers restrict the development of basic education in backward rural areas due to the influence of teachers’ treatment and regional development (Guo, 2005; Shi & Englert, 2008; Cheng, 2021; Yuan & Shen, 2021; Meng, 2021; Gu, 2006; Fan & Sun, 2012; Du, 2020; Li & Xue, 2021, 2022; Li et al., 2020; Li, 2020). If teachers are regulated purely by the market mechanism, it will be a slow process to solve the problems such as the allocation of teachers, the overall optimization and comprehensive promotion of teachers. Therefore, the policy of publicly-funded normal students can solve the basic balanced development and improve the quality of teacher education to a certain extent, and promote educational equity. The education of public-funded normal students has, to a certain extent, dispelled the educational inequity between urban and rural areas, the inequity of social concepts to normal students, and the inequity between normal students and non-normal students, and reflected the practice and development of the educational equity value in China. Centering on the core value goal of training educators and cultivating excellent teachers for rural basic education in western areas, we have effectively promoted educational equity and produced positive benefits, which fully embodies the unity of factual equity and value equity. They also believe that the educational equity of publicly-funded normal school education is also reflected in the unity of external equity and internal equity of the education system. External equity is essentially a kind of equity in resource allocation. The internal equity of education system refers to a kind of communication equity, which is to promote the final development of students. The fairness concept based on which the government designed the policy of publicly-funded normal students is highly consistent with the goal of promoting social equity, that is, to realize the external equity of education. At the same time, the policy of publicly-funded normal students takes into account the interests of normal students to the greatest extent in terms of internal equity, and respects and protects the individual choice of normal students. The implementation of the public-funded education policy for normal students aims to alleviate and improve the weakness of teachers in the central and western regions and less developed rural areas through targeted teacher training. The fundamental purpose is to serve rural education.

8.1.2 Promoting Equal Educational Opportunities Between the Rich and the Poor Shi Hang and Yu Zhonghai believe that the return of public-funded normal school students to work in the place of origin after graduation ensures the positive return of

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human resources, promotes the equality of educational opportunities between the rich and the poor, and is conducive to educational equity. With the increase of teachers who have received high-level education and high quality, the quality of education received by young people in rural areas of central and western China is getting closer and closer to that of cities, narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas and the rich and poor, so that every student can enjoy the same educational opportunities and teaching environment. It is believed that the core value of the public-funded normal student policy is the pursuit of educational equity. Top universities adopt special training programs aimed at producing excellent primary and secondary school teachers for less developed areas. The policy of “two exemptions and one supplement” has solved the financial difficulties of poor college students and ensured equal access to higher education for all. Based on a survey of publicly-funded normal students in a normal university, Shi Yan believes that publicly-funded normal students can form a positive identity for the teaching profession after receiving teacher education. On the whole, the publicly-funded normal students who have received normal education can actively teach after graduation, thus adding new forces to China’s education cause and promoting education equity to a certain extent. This indicates that the public education policy of normal college students plays a positive role in promoting normal college students’ graduation and teaching, increasing the supply of basic education teachers, and promoting the fairness of future education (Meng, 2021; Gu, 2006; Fan & Sun, 2012; Du, 2020; Li & Xue, 2021, 2022; Li et al., 2020; Li, 2020). It is believed that in the selection and re-selection of teaching, the policy of public-funded normal students reflects the fairness of education. The policy of “public education for normal university students” provides a platform for students to choose whether to teach and what type of teaching. Students who are willing to devote themselves to education and volunteer to teach in western China for at least 3 years after graduation can enjoy this policy. Those who want to stay in large and middle cities to teach can choose non-teacher majors or charging teacher majors, and this “difference” treatment is itself a show of educational fairness. The partial nature of the public-funded teacher education policy is unfair to local normal colleges. First of all, for local normal universities, it is undoubtedly unfair for local normal universities with scarce educational resources and a large proportion of poor students to invest the number of public-funded normal students into six key normal universities. The public fund policy is only implemented in a few affiliated normal universities, which strengthens the concentration of superior education and is not conducive to the fair distribution of educational resources. In addition, the compulsory control of the public-funded teacher education policy causes unfairness among individual students. Outstanding college students from rural families hope to change their fate by entering the university, but according to the existing public education policy, if the student chooses the public education, then he has to return to the countryside to teach after graduation, which may destroy the initial idea of students (especially rural students and students from poor families) to change their fate through reading. In addition, some students are willing to apply for normal colleges, and at the same time they want to have the freedom of employment. However, after the implementation of the publicfunded teacher education system, these students will have to face difficult choices,

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and the mandatory policy is unfair to them. The policy of publicly-funded normal students is unfair to the publicly-funded normal students who hate teaching and the non-publicly-funded normal students who enjoy teaching. Government-funded normal students sacrifice their professional interests at the cost of family economic pressure and employment pressure. This kind of great destruction of students physically and mentally violates the law of education. Hidden behind this kind of fairness is potential unfairness, attracting students who do not love the teaching profession. For the country, it is only the loss of financial investment, but for students, it is the loss of their life (Guo, 2005; Shi & Englert, 2008; Cheng, 2021; Yuan & Shen, 2021; Meng, 2021; Gu, 2006). At the same time, the single assessment method is unfair to students with comprehensive quality and professional intention of teachers: high school graduates who enjoy the government-funded normal school policy must be based on their excellent academic performance. It is a great waste of talents for the country to exclude students with professional feelings and professional potential of teachers from normal universities just because their scores in the college entrance examination are not high enough. For those students who enjoy teaching, they are treated unfairly at the beginning of their education.

8.1.3 Unfairness of Non-affiliated Normal Colleges Fang Lingling believes that the policy of publicly-funded normal students is limited to the publicly-funded education of students in affiliated normal universities, which is unfair to non-affiliated normal universities. Public-funded normal education will have a limited role in the deployment of preferential policies in normal universities, and the overall optimization and upgrading of the quality of teachers will be difficult to achieve smoothly, showing that regional differences and inter-school differences will be greater. The country only piloted in some normal schools, which will inevitably affect other normal colleges, affect students, and cause unfairness in other normal schools. The public-funded normal education policy attracts mostly poor students from families due to the “public-funded” factor, rather than students with educational ideals. They lack the ideal of teaching, lack of motivation to study in school, and there is a risk of breaking the contract after graduation. At the same time, the number of public-funded normal students is occupied, which has a negative impact on education equity (Guo, 2005; Shi & Englert, 2008; Cheng, 2021; Yuan & Shen, 2021; Meng, 2021; Gu, 2006; Fan & Sun, 2012; Du, 2020; Li & Xue, 2021, 2022; Li et al., 2020; Li, 2020). Before entering the school, public-funded normal students lacked rational understanding of the teaching profession, and most of the public-funded normal students were motivated by the consideration of salary and social reputation of the teaching profession, which led to negative responses in the course learning and other aspects. They believe that these factors lead to the lack of professional identity and teaching willingness of publicly-funded normal students, which not only occupies the resources of publicly-funded normal students, but also has no obvious positive

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impact on the future education work, and to a certain extent hinders educational equity.

8.2 The Historical Analysis of the Public-Funded Normal Student Policy 8.2.1 The Birth and Content Overview of the Public-Funded Normal Student Policy For a long period of time after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, China adopted the policy of free education for normal students, which objectively promoted the rapid development of our teachers, but did not significantly promote the equality of education. In the 1990s, with the deepening of China’s education reform, the cost of training normal students began to be borne by individuals and the state. In 2007, the policy of free teacher education was introduced, and China experimented with free teacher education in six normal universities. Since the implementation of the policy, the allocation pattern of teacher resources in China has been optimized on the whole, and positive results have been achieved in training a large number of high-quality teachers for grassroots compulsory education schools and promoting educational equity. In the face of the new requirements for the construction of teacher teams put forward by the new situation, in 2018, the state changed the “free education policy for normal students” to “public education policy for normal students”, and the policy system was further systematized while aiming at the fairness problem existing in the free normal students policy to improve and solve. The core of the policy content of public-funded normal students is the relationship between power and obligation. This education policy achieves its goal of promoting the rational allocation of national teacher resources by empowering public-funded normal students, and then improves and solves the problem of education equity. The rights enjoyed by government-funded normal students are as follows: first, the relevant expenses during the student’s training period are exempted. In 2018, the policy of publicly-funded normal students was improved on the basis of the policy of free normal students in 2007, which not only clarified the responsibility of the central government in bearing relevant expenses, but also clarified the dynamic adjustment of the living allowance for publicly-funded normal students. Second, to ensure the effective employment of students, it is clearly stipulated that the employment of publicly-funded normal students is coordinated by the provincial government, and a special recruitment and two-way selection mechanism for publicly-funded normal students is carried out, and teaching schools are arranged for each graduate. Third, to provide students with the opportunity to study part-time master of education without examination. While giving publicly-funded normal students full rights, the policy also specifies the obligations they should fulfill. First, public-funded normal students need to complete the obligation of the agreed service period. In 2018, the public education policy for

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normal students stipulated that public normal students should “commit to engaging in primary and secondary education for more than 10 years after graduation”, and that “public normal students who work in urban schools should first teach in rural compulsory education schools for one year”. Second, the obligation to teach in primary and secondary schools is the fundamental task of the policy of publicly-funded normal students. In addition to the public-funded normal students, the policy also involves the training units of public-funded normal students, namely, the six deployment of normal universities, which must also effectively fulfill the corresponding obligations. In 2018, the policy on public-funded normal students pointed out that the deployment of normal universities should build an education mechanism with local governments to jointly train public-funded normal students, promote universities to coordinate various resources, build a national teacher education base, explore a new mode of training excellent teachers, and improve the training quality of public-funded normal students. It constitutes the basic theoretical basis for the stable operation and good effect of the public-funded normal college student training policy (Gu, 2006; Fan & Sun, 2012; Du, 2020; Li & Xue, 2021, 2022; Li et al., 2020; Li, 2020). The contract mechanism is the key to guarantee the public-funded normal students to stay in the compulsory education school after graduation. The local government, normal schools, and students sign an agreement on the directed training of governmentfunded normal students at the time of enrollment, which specifies the rights that each party can enjoy and the obligations that should be fulfilled, and ensures that the government-funded normal students will stay in their posts after graduation. This kind of contract behavior is the association agreement between choice and guarantee under the condition of socialist market economy. This policy intervenes and guides individuals to select, reserve, and retain rural teachers in a fair and transparent manner under macro-conditions, in an attempt to improve the overall efficiency of teacher recruitment in rural and remote areas and maintain a steady growth trend, maximize social welfare while achieving mutual benefit between individuals and schools, and improve the level of education development and promote education equity in the source areas. It is worth noting that the contract mechanism adopted by the government-funded normal student orientation training policy is consistent with the socialist market economy and Chinese traditional culture, which shows that the policy is basically in line with the characteristics of China’s national conditions and formulated. Contract is produced by commodity economy, and is socialized and generalized with the development of commodity economy. The spirit of contract is emphasized in the contract society, which is the implicit requirement and important cornerstone of the socialist market economy and the modern society ruled by law. From the historical and cultural point of view, this spirit of contract has been deeply embedded in Chinese traditional culture. The cultural contract of “faithfulness” and “propriety” and the spirit of honesty and observance of propriety existed widely in ancient China, which regulated various relations in society and maintained the stable operation of society by means of “propriety”. In the policy of public-funded normal college students, local governments and students have a two-way choice, fully respect the autonomy of students in signing contracts, and uphold the principle of freedom of contract on the whole. After the students sign the contract, they have the responsibility

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and obligation to fulfill the contract, and they need to keep their promises, and return to the grassroots level to teach in compulsory education schools after enjoying the benefits of school. In the sense of social atmosphere, it is the manifestation of advocating and practicing the spirit of contract (Guo, 2005; Shi & Englert, 2008; Cheng, 2021; Yuan & Shen, 2021).The policy of publicly-funded normal college students has accurately grasped the problem of contract objects, and enrolled students registered in planned counties (cities and districts), and most of them come from remote areas or rural families, showing the characteristics of “localization”. In the public education policy of normal college students, the family economic capital of public normal college students is generally weak, the school government consultation share is large, and local employment is favorable. All these advantages will make students perceive that the benefits brought by abiding by the contract outweigh the costs, thus promoting the effective implementation of the contract and ensuring the training of high-quality teachers and good allocation of teacher resources. The localization mechanism of the government-funded normal student policy can effectively promote the automatic implementation of the contract, which has two geographical relations. First, geographical relations can enhance adaptability and high stability, and local employment is more in line with the career orientation of new teachers. The policy of orientation training of government-funded normal university students is in line with this research suggestion. In this policy, most of the directed teachers come from rural areas and are employed near their hometown or in rural areas with similar environment. Due to the close geographical relationship between their places of life, growth and study, and the places where they teach, they are more adaptable and have a higher retention rate when teaching. From a macro-perspective, the policy of training normal university students at public expense can also reap greater social benefits. Secondly, the geographical relationship can stimulate the emotional feelings, which can enhance the teaching willingness of government-funded normal students. German sociologist Max Weber divided social action into four types: instrumental rational action, value rational action, emotional action, and traditional action. He recognized that in addition to instrumental rational behavior, there are also a large number of non-rational behaviors in social life, which are dominated by belief, habit, imitation, emotion, and instinctive impulse. In the government-funded normal student policy, it is those who themselves come from rural areas or are interested in rural education who will actively choose to teach in rural areas. This policy has selected the right rural teacher candidates. The government-funded normal students from rural areas have a better understanding of the current situation and fate of rural children, and are more able to generate emotion and identity for rural primary and secondary school students, so as to have a greater sense of mission and responsibility to serve the education in their hometown. It can be seen that the education policy of publicly-funded normal college students can find theoretical basis in contract mechanism, cultural contract spirit, localization mechanism, contract self-implementation, geographical relations, social action, and other perspectives.

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8.2.2 The Issue of Educational Equity Aimed at the Policy of Publicly-Funded Normal Students Equity is one of the most important value orientations in the design of national education system, and educational equity is an important path to realize social equity. The three-dimensional theory of educational equity proposed by Swedish educationist Thorsten Hussen has been widely recognized by the academic circle. He believes that educational equity mainly includes individual starting point equity, process equity, and result equity. From the overall planning of teacher training to the balanced allocation of teacher resources, the education policy of publicly-funded normal students aims at the educational equity of both the students and the education development of the student origin, and plays an important role in the realization of educational equity in the three dimensions. “Starting point fairness” mainly refers to the equality of students’ admission opportunities. Since the implementation of the college enrollment expansion policy, the opportunities for students in both rural and urban areas to receive higher education have increased, but the proportion of students from rural areas entering first-class universities has decreased significantly (Guo, 2005; Shi & Englert, 2008; Cheng, 2021; Yuan & Shen, 2021; Meng, 2021; Gu, 2006; Fan & Sun, 2012; Du, 2020; Li & Xue, 2021, 2022; Li et al., 2020; Li, 2020). On the other hand, the government-funded normal student policy, with the help of the national policy compensation, expands the opportunities for students with financial difficulties to receive higher education in first-class colleges and universities in the path of teacher education, and tries to break the plight of poor students who are aspiring to teach and have no access to high-quality teacher education. On the other hand, the policy of public-funded normal students has also improved the starting point equity in the educational environment of the origin. The distribution of talents of public-funded normal university students has become an important channel for the supplement of high-quality teachers in rural areas, which reduces the regional differences in teacher resources between urban and rural areas, first-class cities, and remote areas to a certain extent. Meanwhile, the on-demand distribution of teacher resources can also narrow the differences in education levels within the same region, so that local primary and secondary school students can enjoy better and more equal compulsory education as much as possible. “Process equity” refers to the equality of ensuring that individuals can receive the education they need in the process of receiving education. As mentioned above, there is a large gap in economic and educational development between regions and between urban and rural areas in China, and the market adjustment mechanism is easy to lead to a structural imbalance in the allocation of teachers—more graduates will choose to study and teach in regions with better conditions, which will make students in economically and educationally underdeveloped regions more and more unable to enjoy fair and highquality educational resources. In this case, the state’s macro-intervention and control is very necessary. On the one hand, the policy of publicly-funded normal students realizes the effective docking of the supply side and the demand side with the national macro-control, demonstrating the leading role of the national logic in ensuring the

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fairness of the compulsory education stage (Li et al., 2020; Li, 2020). On the other hand, in order to guarantee the equality of publicly-funded normal students whose families may have financial difficulties in the process of receiving higher education, the national government gives subsidies to the tuition fees, accommodation fees and living expenses of publicly-funded normal students, and eliminates the possible negative effects of adverse factors such as the family of origin and economic status on their learning process through state financial subsidies. In order to ensure that public-funded normal students enjoy equal educational resources and fair learning process. “Outcome equity” refers to the relative equality of opportunity in students’ academic achievement. The policy of government-funded normal college students is a policy measure that the state takes effective measures to help those who lack congenital family education to obtain maximum academic achievement. The teacher establishment system is a personnel management system that manages and allocates teacher resources under the leadership of the state, and is an important institutional lever for the state to control human resources logically. The publicly-funded normal student system protects the academic achievement and employment of publiclyfunded normal students by providing them with the opportunity to join the staff. The state uses the staffing lever to deploy human resources to ensure that publicly-funded normal students with unfavorable factors can achieve fair education results in the stage of higher education, and also to achieve a balanced supply of teacher resources between regions and between urban and rural areas (Guo, 2005; Shi & Englert, 2008; Cheng, 2021; Yuan & Shen, 2021; Meng, 2021; Gu, 2006; Fan & Sun, 2012; Du, 2020; Li & Xue, 2021, 2022; Li et al., 2020; Li, 2020). It is worth adding that the optimization reform of the training policy of excellent normal students from “free normal students” to “public-funded normal students” also has fair value. It can be seen that the education policy of publicly-funded normal students plays a great role in promoting the education equity of both publicly-funded normal students and rural and remote areas in the three dimensions of starting point equity, process equity, and result equity. The reform from “free normal students” to “public-funded normal students” has also eliminated the problem of educational equity between urban and rural areas, normal students and non-normal students, and this policy has greater educational equity value. On August 10, 2018, The General Office of the State Council promulgated and implemented the Measures for the Implementation of Public Education for Normal University Students directly under the Ministry of Education. The Measures for the Implementation of Free Education for Normal Students in Normal Universities directly under the Ministry of Education (Trial Implementation) approved by The State Council and forwarded by The General Office of the State Council on May 9, 2007 and the Opinions on Improving and Promoting Free Education for Normal Students approved by The State Council and forwarded by The General Office of the State Council on January 7, 2012 were repealed simultaneously. The Measures improve and perfect the public education policy of normal university students from the aspects of selection and admission, performance of contract teaching, incentive measures, and condition guarantee. The first is to establish a public education system for normal students, the “Measures” stipulate that national public normal

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students enjoy free tuition, accommodation fees, and subsidized living expense policies, and support local exploration of free training, return fees, tuition compensation and national student loan compensation and other public funding methods. The second is to adjust the tenure requirements. The Measures adjust the implementation service period of government-funded normal students to 6 years, which is just enough to complete the teaching cycle of primary or middle school. At the same time, reflecting the preference to support the construction of teachers in rural areas, public-funded normal students who work in urban schools should serve as teachers in rural compulsory education schools for at least 1 year. The third is to refine the implementation management policy. The Measures clearly stipulate the key links in the process of publicly-funded normal students, and further refine and standardize them for a variety of situations. Fourth, we will intensify efforts to ensure policy implementation. The “Measures” attract outstanding talents to apply for government-funded normal university students by improving the recruitment selection method, improving the study incentive assessment, and developing commendations and awards. The Measures for the Implementation of Public Education for Normal Students in Normal Universities directly under the Ministry of Education reduce the cost of learning for students, adopt a variety of exemptions and public subsidies, and provide a path for students who are excellent in study but from poor families to continue their studies, promote education equity, and attract outstanding talents. In addition, taking normal university students as the training target, after the state helps poor students to continue their studies, using what the students have learned in the training stage to train excellent next generation for the country is a two-way mutual assistance. Through two-way selection and other ways to effectively implement the teaching school and position for each graduate of the public-funded normal students, but also fully consider the will of both the school and the public-funded normal students, and provide conditions for better promoting teaching and promoting education equity. The compulsory education stage implements the “6 + 3 or 5 + 4” school section model, in most areas, the “6-year” performance period can be exactly or include a whole teaching cycle, give full play to the service value of public-funded normal students, and through the policy tilt to rural areas can better make up for the lack of teachers in rural compulsory education stage. It provides a certain guarantee for promoting the equity of urban and rural education and improving the educational situation in rural areas. The more detailed and standardized performance process of publicly-funded normal students can improve the completion degree and completion effect of the performance, and respect the will of each publicly-funded normal student is also a reflection of educational equity. Public-funded normal students come from six affiliated normal universities and Yunnan, Jiangxi, and Fujian Normal universities. By improving the quality of public-funded normal students applying for the examination and the quality of the examination schools, the combination of strong and strong can achieve the effect of “1 + 1 > 2”, which is conducive to improving the overall level of teachers and promoting education equity (Gu, 2006; Fan & Sun, 2012; Du, 2020; Li & Xue, 2021, 2022; Li et al., 2020; Li, 2020). The policy of the state for government-funded normal students is not only the general direction and the overall policy from the macro-perspective mentioned above, but also

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the further and detailed policy for the employment of government-funded normal students. For example, on December 29, 2022, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on the Employment of publicly-funded normal Graduates of normal universities directly under the Ministry of Education in 2023. This kind of notice on the employment of publicly-funded normal graduates will be issued every year by the General Office of the Ministry of Education, as the specific guidance for the employment of publicly-funded normal graduates every year. It can be seen that the state attaches great importance to the policy of government-funded normal students. The circular pointed out that it is necessary to ensure that all 2023 government-funded normal university graduates are arranged to teach in primary and secondary schools. Give full play to the service role of publicly-funded normal college students in the compulsory education stage, and better maintain education equity. The first is to strengthen employment education, the second is to optimize employment services, the third is to implement all posts, the fourth is to fill in the data in a timely manner, the fifth is to standardize cross-provincial teaching, the sixth is to strictly implement the contract management, and the seventh is to do a good job in policy implementation. At the same time of holding recruitment activities, empty recruitment will be accepted to ensure that government-funded normal students have jobs, to ensure the steady progress of the government-funded normal students policy, to fill the shortage of teachers in various regions, and to maintain education equity. Strengthen employment information statistics and reporting work, timely docking of public-funded normal students graduates with schools, improve the completion efficiency of public-funded normal students in all aspects, timely update the signing data of public-funded normal students, ensure the standardization of the performance process of public-funded normal students, maintain the implementation of public-funded normal students policy, and promote education equity. The policy of government-funded normal students is not mandatory or rigid. When the graduates of government-funded normal students personally need to teach across provinces or other schools have needs for government-funded normal students, crossprovincial teaching can be carried out if the cross-provincial teaching conditions are met and the procedures are implemented. Government-funded normal students and the schools where they come from have always been a “two-way choice”. Only by respecting the will of both schools and students can the public-funded normal student policy be stable and long term, and standardizing its process is to better maintain the authority of the public-funded normal student policy and prevent people with intentions from taking advantage of the loopholes. Government-funded normal college graduates are not allowed to refuse to perform the contract after enjoying the national policy benefits without special reasons, which is not only a respect for the “spirit of contract”, but also to maintain the implementation of the government-funded normal college policy. Government-funded normal college students can enjoy credit deduction, score reduction, and various state subsidies, and return to the place of origin for teaching support after graduation. This is a “win–win” situation for the stateand publicly-funded normal students, which is conducive to promoting educational equity (Guo, 2005; Shi & Englert, 2008; Cheng, 2021; Yuan & Shen, 2021; Meng, 2021; Gu, 2006; Fan & Sun, 2012; Du, 2020; Li & Xue, 2021, 2022; Li et al., 2020; Li,

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2020).Only by solving the worries of public-funded normal students can they better carry out teaching work. At the same time, through the “national training plan” and “provincial training plan” to improve the teaching level of public-funded normal students after their arrival, strengthen training, and help the growth of public-funded normal students’ teachers, it is also an important part of promoting education equity. Improving the treatment of publicly-funded normal students, especially the preferential policies for rural teachers, is conducive to promoting the equity of education in urban and rural areas, promoting the selection of publicly-funded normal school graduates in rural areas as the place to perform the contract, improving the treatment of teachers and enhancing the confidence of teachers in performing the contract, so as to achieve the purpose of publicly-funded normal students helping the development of rural education and promoting the equity of education. In addition to the relevant policy documents on publicly-funded normal students issued by the central government, various provinfunded normal students issued by the central government, various provinces and municipalities have also issued some documents on the policy of publicly-funded normal students according to their local needs, so as to make the policy “tailored to local conditions”, further refine and standardize the publiclyfunded normal student policy, and promote the equity of local education. For example, the local training of local government-funded normal students, here Hunan Province as an example to illustrate, Hunan Provincial Department of Education issued the Hunan Province public education Implementation Measures for normal students, and public education for public normal students is divided into two categories. The first one refers to the training and management mode implemented by the state in normal universities directly under the Ministry of Education for undergraduates majoring in normal majors, in which the central government bears the tuition and accommodation fees and grants living allowances during the school period. The first type refers to the oriented training management mode implemented by Hunan Province in provincial colleges and universities for normal majors and junior college students, with the provincial, municipal, and county finance bearing the tuition fees, accommodation fees, teaching materials fees, and military training clothing fees during their study in school, and specially training teachers in rural primary and secondary schools, kindergartens, secondary vocational schools, and special education schools. Fully considering the needs of Hunan Province to recruit public-funded normal students, the two different types of public-funded education methods not only enrich the public-funded education methods, improve the variety of choices for students, but also expand the enrollment scale of public-funded normal students, improve the guarantee for the introduction of excellent educational talents in Hunan Province, and help promote the educational equity in Hunan Province. At the same time, in order to promote the development of rural education in the province, the resources of publicly-funded normal college students in most provinces are tilted to the countryside. For example, in 2020, Henan launched the “Rural School” local publicly-funded normal college student training plan. The aim is to supplement teachers for the areas in which teachers in rural compulsory education schools in the province are generally absent, in short supply, with outstanding weak disciplines, good working foundation and high enthusiasm, promote the balance of urban and rural education, safeguard the

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educational rights and interests of rural areas, give full play to the positive role of publicly-funded normal students in rural revitalization, and promote the equity of educational resources. The state’s targeted training of public-funded normal college students is limited to the compulsory education stage, and preschool education stage is equally important for various provinces, regions, and municipalities. For example, the Department of Education of Gansu Province adheres to the principle of public welfare and universal benefit in order to meet the expectations of the people for “education before learning”. The preschool education major is included in the training scope of government-funded normal college students at the provincial level, which guarantees the professional and high-quality teacher supply from the source. At present, educational equity and student development are not limited to the compulsory education stage, and the equity and development of preschool education are equally important. In order to run a good education that people are satisfied with and promote the inclusive policy of education, it is a historical trend to incorporate preschool education into publicly-funded normal college students. The current level of economic development is not enough to expand this local policy into a national policy, so it is reasonable and correct for local governments to combine their own economic level and educational needs to include preschool education in the training scope of government-funded normal college students. The more educational equity is covered, the closer we are to true educational equity (Guo, 2005; Shi & Englert, 2008; Cheng, 2021; Yuan & Shen, 2021). From the official launch of the central government’s policy on publicly-funded normal students in 2007, to the revision, improvement, and re-enactment in 2012 and 2018, it can be seen that the state attaches importance to and supports the policy on publicly-funded normal students. Government-funded normal students are a “win– win” choice for the students themselves and the country. While reducing tuition fees for students and providing various state subsidies, the government also pays attention to the employment training of government-funded normal students after graduation, and strives to give full play to the effectiveness of the government-funded normal student policy to promote education equity and rural revitalization. A variety of incentive measures are taken to attract outstanding students to apply for publiclyfunded normal students. The effect of “1 + 1 > 2” of excellent students + excellent normal colleges enables the policy of publicly-funded normal students to be carried out steadily, and the help to rural areas is slanted. It also promotes the selection of publicly-funded normal students’ graduates in rural areas as the place to fulfill their commitment, which is conducive to promoting the balance of urban and rural education and rural revitalization. We will safeguard educational equity and rural students’ rights and interests in education. The operation of the policy of publicly-funded normal students is becoming more and more perfect. The “supply–demand correspondence” between publicly-funded normal students and primary and secondary school teachers and the certification of the qualification of primary and secondary school teachers without examination greatly reduce the link cost of the entry stage of publicly-funded normal students, promote the timely entry of publicly-funded normal students, and conduct induction training, so as to link up the transformation of publicly-funded normal students from students to teachers. Get to work as

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soon as possible. According to their own educational needs, local governments have promulgated various policies for government-funded normal students. For example, local government-funded normal college students are trained at local expense. Pay attention to the education in rural areas of the province, and tilt the resources of publicly-funded normal college students to rural areas; preschool education will be included in the training scope of provincial public-funded normal college students. These are all policies in line with the specific situation of the province according to the economic level and educational needs of the province. It is believed that through the supplement of relevant policies of the central and local governments and the change of “adapting to local conditions”, the policy of publicly-funded normal students in China will be more perfect and implemented more thoroughly, and the promotion of educational equity will be more significant. The policy of public education for normal students means that the central government is responsible for arranging the tuition fees and accommodation fees for normal students during the school period, and providing living subsidies, but students generally return to the source province to engage in education for at least 6 years after graduation. It has been 15 years since “free normal students” began in 2007 and changed to “government-funded normal students” in 2018. The Ministry of Education and relevant colleges and universities have also carried out statistics on the relevant data in the implementation process of this policy, and this paper analyzes and studies part of the implementation data (Fan & Sun, 2012; Du, 2020; Li & Xue, 2021, 2022; Li et al., 2020; Li, 2020). On October 21, 2021, Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng delivered a report on the construction of teachers and the implementation of the Teachers Law at the 31st meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. According to the report, there are 696 colleges and universities offering teacher education nationwide, with 2,615,800 students majoring in normal education on campus. Since 2007, normal universities directly under the Ministry of Education have offered free education to normal students (changed to government-funded education in 2018), with a total enrollment of 123,000 government-funded normal students, and 90% of the graduates have gone to central and western provinces to teach. At present, 28 provinces in China implement public education for local normal college students through various ways such as free study and return to work. Every year, about 45,000 governmentfunded normal students teach in rural areas. By the end of 2020, 36.93 million people had obtained teaching certificates. First of all, a total of 123,000 governmentfunded normal students have been enrolled, and 28 provinces have participated, which are very good data, indicating that the implementation of the public-funded normal student policy is strong, and the benefits of this policy are very wide, and it is widely accepted by the society. Through the public-funded normal college student policy, more than 100,000 high-quality young people have been able to study and work in the education industry, which is not only conducive to the realization of self-value of young people, but also has a great impact on the country’s macroeducation equity. For young people, having the opportunity to develop themselves while enjoying the country’s high-quality resources is conducive to obtaining stable jobs and exerting their own value. At the same time, the expenses of public normal university students during the university are paid by the state, which greatly reduces

8.2 The Historical Analysis of the Public-Funded Normal Student Policy

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the economic pressure of young people in the process of studying, provides economic security for students from poor families to go to university, so that every student can enjoy the dividend of education development, reflecting the further development of China’s education equity policy. As far as the country is concerned, a large number of publicly-funded normal students have alleviated the shortage of teachers to a certain extent, promoted the improvement of primary and secondary education resources, effectively promoted the development of the basic education industry, enhanced the strength of teachers in remote and rural areas, thus improving the development level of backward areas in education, and promoted the development of education equity from a macro-perspective. According to the data of the Ministry of Education, the central government has increased its support for normal education, and the average allocation standard for central university normal students and public-funded normal students has increased by 3,000 yuan and 5,000 yuan, respectively. At the same time, when allocating special funds for central universities to improve the basic conditions of running a school, normal colleges are favored (Guo, 2005; Shi & Englert, 2008; Cheng, 2021; Yuan & Shen, 2021; Meng, 2021; Gu, 2006; Fan & Sun, 2012; Du, 2020; Li & Xue, 2021, 2022; Li et al., 2020; Li, 2020). During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the central government invested 2.7 billion yuan to implement the plan to improve the quality of teachers in vocational colleges and promote teachers to carry out modular teaching reform based on the vocational work process. The large amount of funding shows the strong support of the state, and also reflects the high expectations of the state for this policy and the strong determination of the state in the process of promoting educational equity.

8.2.3 The Balance Problem Not only Restricts the Regional Development, but also Hinders the Realization of the Overall Educational Equity in the Country The government-funded normal student policy guides teachers to flow to less developed areas in education, and to teach in the central and western regions increases the number of teachers in the central and western regions, improves the quality of education in the central and western regions, and promotes the development of educational equity between regions. At the same time, the flow of public-funded normal students is in line with the national strategy of “western development” and “Central rise”, which is in line with the national development needs and conducive to the realization of the overall interests of the country. The more than 40,000 government-funded normal students who teach in rural areas every year are also gratifying. As we all know, due to the lack of development in rural areas, poor teaching conditions, and lack of teachers, rural education has always been the focus of the education development. The government-funded normal university student policy has effectively promoted the change of rural education situation. The inflow of teachers into rural areas makes up for the shortage of teachers, guarantees the development of rural basic education,

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and is conducive to promoting the process of urban and rural education equity. But at the same time, education in rural areas still exists teachers “cannot stay” situation. There are still cases of government-funded normal students leaving their jobs for a short period of time and breaking their contracts in rural areas. Therefore, increasing the number of teachers in a short period of time may not guarantee the long-term development of rural education. The advantages of guiding the flow of teachers generated by the government-funded normal student policy need to be affirmed, but the problem of education development in rural areas has not been completely solved, and how to make teachers “stay” and “teach well” need to be further explored. On the other hand, with the development of urbanization, a large number of people from rural areas move to cities, and the number of rural students is gradually decreasing. If more than 40,000 government-funded normal college students continue to flow into the countryside every year in the future, there will inevitably be a waste of educational resources, and at the same time, it will increase the burden of rural resources, resulting in a “lose-lose” situation. Therefore, the future training of governmentfunded normal students should focus on improving the quality, rather than just relying on a large number of teachers to support the development of rural education. From the published data, the employment rate of government-funded normal students under agreement and contract has reached more than 99%, and the non-employment rate is