The European Union (EU) encourages Member States to “foster co-operation with third countries and the competent international organizations in the field of education” (Maastricht Treaty, 1992:29), in order to produce a teacher workforce capable of educating young people to live in a changing, globalised world. Turkey, as an aspirant EU member, is eager to be part of this cooperation, in order to improve the quality of education offered to Turkish young people.

There have been major reforms in the Turkish educational system within the framework of the requirements for full membership of the EU. One requirement is that there should be conspicuous development in educational spheres, including teacher education. In this context, Turkey has given particular attention to teacher education and defined a set of Teacher Competencies for use in the training of pre-service teachers. The new Teacher Competencies are largely based on the Teacher Standards of England and Wales, with Britain being considered a model of good practice in teacher education.

In a global world, comparative studies are of vital importance in education, supplying an opportunity to investigate and understand different cultures and systems. This study provides an overview of the similarities and differences between the Teacher Standards and Competencies in the two countries, and presents the views of pre-service teachers with regard to the effectiveness of the Standards/Competencies for developing good practice in beginning teachers.

The research is in two phases:  

Phase 1

This first phase involved exploring the understanding of pre-service teachers in England and Turkey regarding the Standards and Competencies and how they relate to the respective cultural contexts and national education systems.

Phase 1 Findings reported at ECER 2009 included:

• In Turkey, establishing an effective learning environment is the joint responsibility of teachers, parents and students, whereas in England, there is a narrower interpretation linked to behaviour management and routines.
• Turkish pre-service teachers felt they did not know enough about how to teach learners with SEN, whereas in England they felt confident in teaching a range of learners
• English pre-service teachers were able to have contact with parents, but in Turkey this was not possible

Phase 2

This paper reports the second phase of the project and is concerned with how the pre-service teachers apply their interpretations of the Competencies and Standards to their professional lives.

The main research question posed in this phase was:

• How useful are the Teacher Standards and Competencies for teachers in the early stages of their careers in becoming critically reflective and culturally sensitive practitioners?

Throughout, the paper will draw on theoretical frameworks associated with the notion of the reflective practitioner (Schon, 1987); the construction of teachers’ professional identities (Keogh, 2005) and how these relate to the nature of their national education systems and cultural contexts; and the relationship between ITT, NQT and EPD. This second phase will explore the data to a deeper level of analysis and provide an important insight into the professional lives of beginning teachers.

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