|
A Case for Unified Teacher Preparation Programs
|
|
Esther Kau-to Leung
|
|
Abstract
|
| The unified teacher preparation is a responsible and cost-effective way to prepare quality general and special educators. Teachers are not equipped to address the varying abilities, disabilities, and diversity issues in the increasingly more inclusive classroom, which reflects the dynamics of society at large. Both general and special education teachers find themselves inadequate, and job dissatisfaction intensifies perennial teacher shortages. The unified approach provides a way to fundamentally change teacher education to ameliorate the quantitative as well as qualitative personnel needs. By identifying and integrating the critical knowledge and skills into a basic curriculum for pre-service teachers at the undergraduate level, teacher education can prepare a wide spectrum of teachers to be effective with the widest spectrum of children and youth. The outcomes benefit teachers, learners, families and society. This timely shift to a more efficient personnel preparation model may be difficult, but is achievable through visionary and resolute leadership, in partnership with committed and persevering stakeholders. |
|
Copyright 2000-02
by Special Education Society of Hong Kong Limited. All Rights Reserved.
|