Fix standards for education by involving teachers to improve quality of education

10 November, 2012

Of late, there has been much talk about quality in education and raising its standards. One way to enhance quality in education is to identify various standards of education and instructional components, and plan actions to achieve those standards. And, for doing it there is a need for teacher-centrality in fixing standards and their achievement to make the educational reforms lasting through maintaining standards.

ACCORDING TO Audet and Jordan, the advent of standards can provide teachers a vision for the ends of education. They further state that the pedagogical standards for teachers affect all facets of education and make teachers deeply aware of the events that occur in classrooms. It is the processes and standards that are important; the noticeable improvement in achievement levels is a complementary outcome.

Advocates of standards hold that once standards are adopted, it becomes difficult to imagine a return to a system built on anything else but standards. But, learning about standards is neither complete nor direct; it is an on-going process. Further, translating standards into practice requires major transformation in the ways teaching and learning are viewed by educators. Also, standards are most effectively learned and demystified through their use and evaluative feedback.

According to National Science Teachers' Association of America (NSTA), standards quite simply refer to the level of quality. Further, Cars and Harris see standards as the basic structure from which a deep and rich local curriculum can be built.

Cullickson defines standards as 'a principle or specification or norm or criterion mutually agreed to by people engaged in professional practice, if met, will enhance quality'. He further says that for writing a standard, a statement is expressed in a sentence with two parts. The first part identifies the standard in the form of 'should statement' while the second part justifies the standard by an expression 'so that'. Thus a standard is 'a description of the expected level of performance or criterion in relation to a critical level of performance.' A standard when viewed in this form is a 'criterion – reference' in which performance is interpreted in relation to a pre – specified expected levels.

When viewed from the stand–point of standards, curriculum is regarded as a set of age-appropriate knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviours and values which students are expected to learn, and therefore, include the statements of expected student outcomes, description of materials and activities. In other words, curriculum is a planned sequence of all the activities in an institution that will be used to help students acquire the expected outcomes.

According to Harward Gardner, standards are the key to the progressive education. And, in the absence of such standards, education can become an excuse for laiseez–faire and anarchy. Further, standards cannot be imposed from without; they must arise naturally, as students and teachers work together over time in an atmosphere of mutual respect.