Workshop on Graduate Education in Educational Sciences and Teacher Training Held
September 22, 2018 / Ankara
CoHE organized the "Workshop on Graduate Education in Educational Sciences and Teacher Training" which was hosted by the Faculty of Education Hacettepe University on September 22-23.
Prof. Dr. Haluk Özen, Rector of Hacettepe University, Prof. Dr. Mehmet Şişman, CoHE Executive Board member, and Prof. Dr. Mustafa Safran, Deputy Minister of National Education, made a speech at the opening of the workshop.
189 faculty members from 41 faculties of education sciences, 29 directors of educational sciences institutes and experts from the Ministry of National Education participated in the workshop.
Hacettepe University Rector Prof. Dr. Haluk Özen expressed satisfaction that they were hosting the meeting on two important topics, education and teacher training.
Prof. Dr. Mustafa Safran, Deputy Minister of National Education, said that the Minister of National Education and faculties of education would carry out the studies on the professional development of teachers.
Safran noted that they cared about the support of the faculties of education on the topic and said, "We will structure teacher trainings with the Ministry of National Education, CoHE and the faculties of education. We will hold a meeting with CoHE soon. We will inform CoHE officials of the projects of the Ministry of National Education. We will carry out the studies on teacher training in accordance with this protocol."
"Everyone should shoulder responsibility"
CoHE Executive Board member Prof. Dr. Mehmet Şişman firstly talked about the arrangements of CoHE in the field of teacher training and the reasons for organizing the workshop.
Şişman shared the actual data on the faculties, programs, undergraduate and graduate students, academic staff, meetings and congresses, journals, articles, papers, dissertations, the number of books in the fields of educational sciences and teacher training. He described the expansion and growth in higher education as horizontal expansion and underlined that they were aiming for vertical expansion, which is the expansion of higher education in terms of quality.
"President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan emphasized the improvement of teacher training and the quality of teachers in the speech he made at the opening ceremony of the 2017-2018 academic year. We must discuss this topic and make an effective action plan," said Mehmet Şişman.
Şişman mentioned the workshops and panels conducted by CoHE and expressed his discomfort in not receiving any exciting ideas and projects on the topic from education scientists.
He noted that there had been a positive atmosphere with high expectations after Ziya Selçuk assumed the position of National Education Minister with his staff, and said that everyone should work through and shoulder responsibility in order to sustain the positive atmosphere and work for the benefit of the education system.
He also talked about the works the New CoHE had done about the faculties of education and teacher training and said, "We restructured the departments and updated the undergraduate teaching programs. We determined minimum scores for teaching programs. We have gradually started to close down the evening programs. We have changed the score types of some programs and started to reduce the number of quotas."
He stated that teacher training needs to be considered under two headings, namely pre-service and in-service training and added: "Out of one million teachers working at MEB, 1.43% of them graduated from graduate schools. %2.24 of them are associate degree graduates, 87.36% of them are bachelor's degree graduates, 9.29% of them are master's degree graduates and 0.14% of them are doctoral graduates."
The detailed report will be shared with the public
Following the opening speeches, sessions under seven main themes and 34 headings were held.
The two-day workshop included the following topics: "Standards for graduate programs in the fields of teacher training", "Graduate programs based on distance education", "Postgraduate education-training processes", "Interinstitutional cooperation and mobility in graduate education", "Topics of research, thesis and projects and their writing process", "Accreditation in graduate programs" and "Employment of graduates of teacher training programs".
The reports prepared by 34 working groups on the issues and opportunities of graduate education in the fields of educational sciences and teacher training were discussed in the closing session of the workshop.
The report of the workshop will shared with the public in the upcoming days.
Source: Anadolu Agency