Is Teaching a Profession?

The answer to this question is not straightforward, unless of course you are a teacher or are working towards being a teacher, in which case, of course, for you, teaching is a profession.  The current state of play is that teaching is now a profession, but it hasn’t always been considered as such. Teaching is one of those jobs, occupations or vocations where for a very long time it wasn’t considered a profession, and to some maybe, it still isn’t. This is a problem.

Firstly, we should establish what constitutes a profession?  The Australian Council of Professions defines it this way:

A Profession is a disciplined group of individuals who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by the public as possessing special knowledge and skills in a widely recognised body of learning derived from research, education and training at a high level, and who are prepared to apply this knowledge and exercise these skills in the interest of others. 

You can see why teaching should is considered a profession, right? Teachers in Australia require a four-year professional degree; have nationally recognised professional standards; a regulating body; mandatory continuing professional development; and, must follow a professional code of conduct and ethical standards. 

So teaching, at least here in Australia is a profession, right?  Well, that answer gets complicated when we look at how, and more specifically when, this was introduced. Let’s take each of the items above in turn:

1. Teachers require a four-year professional degree. This only became mandatory in 2005, at least in NSW. Before 2005, teachers did not have to have a specific teaching qualification, if they had a relevant degree. Or, in absence of a relevant degree, they could have had a two-year teaching qualification. As of 2005, teachers who did not an approved teaching, regardless of the other degrees they held, had to enrol in an approved program and had five years to get that qualification. This means that up to 2010 there were teachers in schools who were not, given today’s standards, suitably qualified.

Whether or not this was the right move is contentious. Some of these individuals had doctorates and/or decades of experience in industry, but lacked a formal teaching qualification. One side argues that having PhD-qualified scientists teaching our students physics or lawyers teaching our students legal studies is exactly what we need, regardless of a teaching qualification. However, on the other side, is the argument that domain expertise is not the same as being able to explain complex concepts and engage an apathetic 13yr old.  My feeling is that while domain expertise is one facet of teaching, the professional knowledge of a teacher extends far beyond subject-specific knowledge and requires specialist instruction (but of course I think that, I’m a teacher educator).

2. Professional Standards

Professional standards provide a framework and parameters for a profession. They guide teachers in their work and, in the case of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST), provide a progressive and useful guide for the professional development of teachers from the Graduate Stage through to Lead Teacher. While different states and territories may have had their own sets of standards or similar before the establishment of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), the nationally recognised APST didn’t come into effect until 2011. In NSW, there were similar ‘elements’ of the teaching profession from 2005, but before that there didn’t seem to be a structural framework or professional standards.  

3. Regulating Body for Accreditation

Things get interesting when we look at the regulatory body for the profession. AITSL was established in 2005 to provide national leadership for the states and territories in promoting excellence for the profession of teaching and school leadership. While AITSL provides national leadership, the actual regulation of the profession is done in the individual states and territories, each of which has its own specific rules and regulations for the profession, which includes how the accreditation of maintenance of the accreditation of teachers is managed as well as the accreditation of initial teacher education programs. In NSW, the regulator also regulates entry into teaching by setting minimum standards for entry into initial teacher education programs. What is important here, is that despite AITSL leadership, a national curriculum, and national standards for the profession, there is no national consistency in the regulation of the profession.

4. Mandatory Continuing Professional Development

Continuing professional development, similar to the above items, became mandatory with the national standards and the nationally recognised accreditation scheme. Once teachers attain professional competence, the minimum level required to remain in the profession, they must undertake 100hours of professional development in each five-year accreditation period. Failure to meet the requirement may result in not being allowed to teach. The caveat here is that this requirement only applied to teachers employed under the scheme since 2005; that is until 2018 when all teachers in NSW were brought under the scheme. Those teachers who were teaching before October 2004 were grandfathered into the scheme in 2018 and now must comply with the new requirements. The expectation that these teachers meet the 100hr requirement will manifest in 2023, when it is expected many of those older teachers, 28% of whom will be at retirement age by 2024, will find this an incentive to retire; culminating in  state-wide teachers shortages.

5. Code of Conduct

Almost every state and territory have either a code of conduct and/or ethical teaching standards for teachers and many, if not all, of those that do exist, have been in place for some time.  These codes/standards help schools and staff manage staff conduct; manage teacher performance; and, manage complaints. These are similar to what one would find in most, if not all, professions.

So, is teaching a profession? Well, it’s complicated. It is certainly moving in that direction and within a few years one can imagine that the majority of the teaching workforce will have started teaching or are comfortable with the adoption and requirements of the APST, teacher accreditation at the various levels, and the requirements of continuing professional development, but I don’t think we are there yet. It takes time to change a culture and teachers and teaching has an entrenched culture, one that I consider a culture of mediocrity. This is not to say that all, or even most teachers are mediocre, but rather that the system doesn’t promote or recognise, in any meaningful way, excellence; therefore, there is little incentive for teachers to be, excellent.  While the standards offer a way for teachers to progress from Proficient, the lowest level of accreditation necessary to continue teaching, to Highly Accomplished or Lead Teacher (HALTs), there is little to no incentive to put in the effort (and pay) to be accredited at those higher levels. To highlight the lack of incentive, in the seven years between 2012 (when these accreditation levels were introduced) and 2019, the total number of HALTs accredited (n=709) equates to 0.24%  of the teaching workforce n=~300,000) (AITSL, 2020).

Common in other professions is accountability, performance reviews, KPIs or similar, regular check-ins with management and professional autonomy, most of which are lacking within the teaching profession. Teachers are accountable for their work, to a degree, but how far does that accountability extend in reality? What and who are they accountable to? Students? Parents? The principal? I would argue that they are only accountable to themselves, in so much as they turn up each day and attempt to teach the students something relevant. They are not accountable for the progression of students from year to year or for improving student performance, but should they be? Teacher accountability is essentially a personal responsibility to oneself, one’s students and maybe the profession more generally. This could be misperceived as professional autonomy, but in many cases, it is not. While professional autonomy does exist, to an extent, it is limited by several factors, not the least of which is the curriculum, standardised tests and increasing pressure to collect data, which in some cases necessitates over-assessment.

The part of the profession that is most lacking is in performance reviews, professional goal setting and regular check-ins with management – all of which go hand-in-hand. How does a teacher know if they are doing a good job in the classroom besides through self-reflection? In the schools where I’ve heard of professional goal setting, it has more to do with professional development, professional learning and career aspirations than it does with improving the processes of teaching and learning in the classroom. I’ve heard of some schools where the principal or other member of the leadership team makes regular visits to observe classes, but these are few and far between. And, even in the schools where this does happen, I have not heard of a scenario where those leaders meet with the teacher afterwards to discuss what they observed. Outside of initial accreditation, which requires two structured observations, teachers get very little feedback on their teaching performance. They often get feedback on the administrative side of their job – especially the community-facing aspects, such as students’ reports, which seemingly go through endless checks before being released, but on the main facet of their job, teaching, they receive little to no feedback. Part of the entrenched culture of teaching is that many teachers find it offensive to have other teachers or school leaders in their classroom observing them, whether for evaluative or professional learning purposes. Personally, I think all classrooms should be open, as long as it does not distract students or detract from the learning, to all other teachers and parents where possible. What teachers do in the classroom should be celebrated and shared with constructive feedback accepted as an attempt to improve practice and outcomes for students.

In summary, I think the teaching profession is moving in the right direction, but it is not there yet. The entrenched culture of mediocrity in teaching needs to be pushed aside; it needs to become an artifact of what teaching was in the past.

The new generation of teachers who are accustomed to being observed and provided with constructive feedback; who want to continue to learn; who want to progress up the accreditation ladder; and, who want more autonomy, responsibility and accountability need to emerge, but also be compensated appropriately and fairly, not for their time in the profession, but for their expertise, their qualifications and their performance. When that new generation of teachers becomes the norm, then teaching will truly emerge as a profession that attracts the best and brightest.