TEACHER QUALITY: DOES IT REALLY MATTER?

This paper provides an introduction to the EPP-ED Hearing on Teacher Quality: Does it really matter? The principal audience is a public hearing in the European Parliament. The paper outlines how the role of the teacher has diversified from its core role of transmitting socially-valued subject knowledge and skills to concerns for the social inclusion of the teacher’s students and the pedagogical knowledge that may contribute to teaching effectiveness. This diversification has also included a change from a role essentially related to localized issues to a role driven by national policies. More recently, the teacher’s role has been influenced by international perspectives, through collaborative research on teaching effectiveness and the publication of comparative data of the performance in curriculum subjects by students from different countries. Some aspects of this diversification have been seen as under-mining traditional views of teacher’s professionalism; other analyses suggest that the teacher’s role may be transmuting into one that reflects ‘democratic professionalism’. The pape