Autor: idec_editor

The second transnational project meeting of the LOOP Partnerships took place on the 14^th and 15^th of December at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. The meeting was the first to be conducted face-to-face and the partners actually met each other after 10 months of working together at distance on this project!

During the meeting, the results of the desk and field research in Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Italy and Germany were presented to compare them and prepare the comparative report, which will be ready in February 2022. Also, the activities for the next 6 months were planned.

In addition, a policy workshop took place with the participation of representatives of the public authorities from Portugal, Slovenia, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Germany and Italy focusing on how the induction programmes can be adopted in their countries.

At last, two Teachers word café events were organised, one with Portuguese teachers online and another with Slovenian Teachers face-to-face to discuss how the induction programmes can be put into practice and how the teachers’ career can be more appealing in terms of motivation and professional development.

Our host, the University of Ljubljana, is the oldest and largest higher education and scientific research institution in Slovenia. We would like to extend our gratitude for the excellent organisation and hospitality during our stay in Slovenia.

We need your participation, too! We invite you to be a member of the LOOP Network by subscribing @ https://empowering-teachers.eu/loop-network/ and take part in the co-design sessions for the teachers’ induction programme and the mentors’ capacitation programme and participate in the field trials experimentation phase acting as first users of the new policy tools for teachers career!

Stay tuned for our activities and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/LOOPEmpoweringTeachers/ and https://twitter.com/LoopTeachers

According to Expresso newspaper, a study from the Nova School of Business and Economics University estimates that, by 2030, 40% of the 120 thousand Portuguese teachers will be retired and so, it will be necessary to hire on average 3.400 new teachers each year during this decade. The problem lies in the fact that, even though the number of students is thought to decline by 15%, the volume of teachers expected to retire is still higher than the decrease of students. In addition, in the last school year, 1.567 students graduated in education, a number that is lower than half of the new teachers’ demand. This need for new teachers will be more visible in the North of the country, mainly in pre-schools and elementary schools.

However, Diário de Notícias states that this problem of lack of teachers is not just a future scenario. There is currently a shortage of teachers in the regions of Lisboa e Vale do Tejo and Algarve, especially in the areas of Informatics, English, Portuguese (mother tongue) and Geography in secondary schools.

To address this issue, as stated by Observador, the Portuguese Ministry of Education is developing a programme to train graduates from other areas besides education, to become teachers. For that, people that want to embrace this career will need a higher education degree and will go through a process that includes a one-year internship in the school in which they will teach in the following years, as well as a theory-based training programme done at distance by a higher education institution. This process has been foreseen by the Portuguese Government since the 1980s but was never implemented.

In this sense, the LOOP Project can be beneficial as it aims to empower teachers’ personal, professional, and social continuous development, by providing an innovative peer-induction programme for new teachers initiating their careers. This programme aims to provide guidance and mentoring supporting the professional development and social-culture integration of the teachers in their hosting schools, increasing their motivation.

University of Vic- UCC launches the survey of LOOP project in Spain with 3 questionnaires (in Catalan) on policies, practices and needs regarding induction programs for beginning teachers:

If you are School Directors or Leaders, please click here.

If you are teachers with less than 35years old and up to 5 years of professional experience, please click here.

If you are teachers with more than 45years old and more than 20 years of professional experience, please click here.

Please participate by filling in the survey and by sharing it with your colleagues!

University of Ljubljana in cooperation with the Slovenian Ministry for Education, Science and Sport has prepared the national version of the questionnaire on policies, practices and needs regarding induction programs for teachers beginning their careers and experienced teachers entering into the role of mentors, as well as school leaders overseeing the entire process.

You can find more on the project as it is being run on the national level at the university site in Slovenian

In order to access the survey, you are invited to click here. All of the target groups of respondents click the same link and are later directed towards the questions for their target group.

Thank you for participating in the survey and sharing it with your colleagues!