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The teachers: their training and
development
The transformation of teacher training in progress
All institutions that provide
training to teachers are organized within the Federal Network of Teacher
Development
The Federal Network of Teacher Development can be defined as an articulate system of institutions which ensure the spread out of information to put into practice the national policies of teacher development, agreed upon by the Federal Council of Culture and Education. Its aim is to supply the organizing frame to ease the inner and interprovincial articulations which will unfold the federal plan of teacher development.
The Federal Network of Teacher Development is made up
of both public and private institutions whose mayor responsibly is
teacher training, as well as those
governmental and non-governmental -provincial, national and international-
organizations whose activity and/or production make a meaningful contribution
to teacher development.
The Federal Network of Teacher
Development has a federal organization
The Federal Network of Teacher Development is made up
of twenty-three "provincial heads" and a "national head" in the Ministry
of Culture and Education with the responsibilities of "coordination" and
"financial and technical assistance".
Its functions are:
State the criteria and approach to design the jurisdictional curricula for teacher training.
Fix the priorities of updating, training and research, according to the Agreements of the Federal Council of Culture and Education.
Provide technical assistance to the Network institutions in order to outline institutional projects and curricular designs.
Authorize and register provincial institutions which incorporate to the Network.
Supply information about the institutions authorized and registered in the Network.
Assess the institutions in their respective provinces.
The Teacher Training Institutions
are incorporated to the Federal Network of Teacher Development through federal
agreements on quality criteria.
Each Province and the Municipality of the City of Buenos
Aires will authorize the incorporation of teacher training institutions -public
and private- to the local networks of the Federal Network of Teacher Development
with the following criteria in mind:
a. the quality and the viability of the institutional-pedagogic project of each institution;
b. the qualified higher education (university and non-university) level of the managing and teaching staffs of each institution;
c. their teachers and managers (research and publications), bearing in mind the possibilities of the socio-economic-cultural context of the area/region;
d. the pedagogic and didactic production of each institution and/or their teachers and managers (curricular designs, texts and teaching materials, etc.), bearing in mind the possibilities of the socio-economic-cultural context of the region;
e. the historical development of enrolment and passing standards, of permanence and graduation in each institution, according to the socio-economic-cultural conditions of the population in question and the diversity of higher studies supply available in the area;
f. the amount, the characteristics and the results of the activities for teacher development organized by each institution;
g. the characteristics of the relationships between each institution and the rest of the educational institutions in a given community, specially through the insertion and quality of their graduates;
h. the characteristics of the relationships between each institution and the local community;
I. the amount and
the characteristics of the services provided to the community by each
institution.
The National Ministry of Culture and Education accompanies and technically assist the jurisdictional Heads of the Federal Network of Teacher
Development through the visits
of specialists, publications and frequent meetings to guide and exchange
experience.
The assistance primarily attempts to achieve the updating
of the Teacher Development Institutes for their later authorization:
incorporating the new contents, devising the new curriculum and the new
institutional organization, adapting the supply to the local regional needs
and training their staff.
The
electronic network of teacher
development
The implementation of the Federal Network of Teacher Development in the frame of the Federal Law of Education attempts also to integrate the updated technologies of information and communications through the putting forward of the Electronic Network of Teacher Development (REFFDC).
The use of multipurpose electronic networks give Argentina a concrete possibility of supplying the educational community with a magnificent tool to:
the exchange of experiences.
the acknowledgment of results.
the consultations among those in charge of activities.
the well-timed knowledge of technical information.
the spread out of information to complete the National Policies of Teacher Development.
These conditions foster the need to urge and develop a
permanent system of communications in order to facilitate the articulation,
cooperation and integration of the member institutions which, once connected
to the Network, are linked to the different experiences carried out in the
country, in the area and in the world through Internet.
National Equipment of the
TTI
To allow the functioning of the REFFDC, the National Ministry
of Culture and Education has distributed the following basic equipment to
1.050 TTI throughout the country:
PC AT 486, Super VGA monitor, modem-fax incorporated
Ink Jet Printer, Laser action
TV set
VCR
Camcorder
200 books of general and specialized methodology training
Such and equipment allows the TTI to be interconnected
through the Electronic Network, and to develop a specialized library, since
the essential bibliography delivered is basic reference material for in the
teacher development processes and the undergraduate training of both teachers
and professors.
Available
Services
Being members of REFFDC, institutions have free access
to:
Electronic Mail: REFFDC is destined to serve the TTI. Such a service, the one of the greatest demand in Internet, allows communication among uses all over the world through electronic messages sent to the addressee.
Lists of Common Interests: The FODOCOAR (fodocoar@secyt.gov.ar.) has been created to exchange opinions on academic topics related to Teacher Development.
Gopher: The Gopher Assistant (gopher://gopher.mcye.gov.ar) contains general interests information from the Ministry of Culture and Education and also documentary and regulating information from the Federal Council of Culture and Education, from the Federal Network of Teacher Development and from each one of the jurisdictions. It is available by telephone through the X25 Network of Starnet.
WWW: (http://www.mcye.gov.ar). WWW is the most modern and recently incorporated service to Internet and allows access to endless information in a multimedia frame combining hipertext, images, animation and sounds.
Teacher training in the transition period
The application of the Federal Law demands a great and
sustained effort to re-train 650.000 teachers
working in all the levels of education.
Closing 1994, the agreement with the provincial governments
to accept the programme of updating training of in service teachers was
concluded.
This training is offered by universities, TTI, provincial
and national educational entities, etc. The training circuit started with
courses on the new Common Basic Contents, but gradually the need to work
in the schools and to modify professional practice was added.
In 1995 U%$23.000.000
were destined to finance the teacher training projects carried out by
universities, TTI and technical organisms of the unions.
The Training
Circuits
Each circuit includes a number of modules -corresponding
to the different chapters of the CBC- that the teachers have to deal with
gradually to meet the needs.
Each module is assessed personally and individually. Though
the courses are not compulsory, teachers must accredit the necessary knowledge
to teach the corresponding level by the year 2000.
In 1995 4.601 courses
were given and by 1996, agreements have
been reached to give a total of 10.660
courses. The average attendance to each course in 35
teachers.
The Circuits are:
Circuit A: to perform in Initial Level - kindergarten classes of 5 year olds
Circuit B: to perform in EGB 1 and EGB 2
Circuit C: to perform in EGB 3
Circuit D: to perform in Multimodal
Circuit E: to perform in TTI
Circuit F: for managers at all levels
Circuit G: for
supervisors
The updating of teachers of
the TTI a strategic circuit
Among the circuits already mentioned,
Circuit E is considered a
strategic circuit because it is meant
to update the curricular training of the teachers of the TTI in relation
to the new CBC in the different levels of the Education System (Initial,
EGB, Multimodal).
To reach this goal, the National Ministry of Culture and
Education has set forth a national circuit to guarantee a qualified academic
supply that is equitably applicable all over the country. Every teacher should
attend courses of at least 300 periods in two years' time.
U$S 3.541.000 are assigned to these activities, which
are being carried out by both state and private Universities and also by
other higher-level academic institutions specially assigned through selection
boards of well-known excellence.
This curricular updating will be complemented with compulsory
training in the adecuate use of educational technologies of information and
communications.
A gradual incorporation of teachers of the TTI is expected,
starting with 25 % of the targeted
population (estimated in 18.000 teachers) in
1996.
This targeted population includes teachers of the following
disciplines (no matter the careers):
Mathematics
Physics
Chemistry
Biology
History
Geography
Philosophy
Language
Literature
Foreign Language
Methodology
Psychology
Society
Education System
School
Institution
In 1996 there have been approximately 18 total courses
and 3.815 teachers involved.
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