Initial teacher education (ITE) varies across countries. In many educational systems, including Romania, universities are responsible for preparing future teachers, collaborating with schools for teaching placements supervised by a school-based teacher educator (SBTE). This blog post presents the Romanian SBTE’s perception of their preparation as mentors, based on a quantitative study.

Using a survey designed by the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development (InFo-TED) (Czerniawski et al., 2023) we investigated the perspectives of 116 Romanian SBTEs in preschool and primary education, regarding the professional training activities that are considered useful for mentoring, the activities already attended and their preparedness for getting involved in research activities as part of the mentoring process (Scortescu et al., 2024).

By comparing the international SBTE’s preferences oriented towards informal discussions with peers and the refinement of their teaching and mentoring skills (Czerniawski et al., 2023; Guberman et al., 2021), Romanian SBTEs distinguish themselves from their foreign counterparts by the specific professional development activities they would prefer to enhance their mentoring skills. Conversely, Romanian SBTEs assert that engaging in continuous professional training programmes for mentoring future teachers or exchanging experience with other countries can support them to give more specialised training to future teachers. International practices are acknowledged as significant educational assets since they have shown more efficacy in equipping teacher candidates for enhanced performance. The preferences for training activities might be explained by the formal requirements for continuing professional development: they need to achieve 90 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) each five years. Also, some of the SBETs had the opportunity to attend training activities delivered in the national programme, Professionalisation of the teaching career – PROF, earning at the end of the training a certificate as a mentor registered in the national register for mentors. This opportunity was part of the national policy for restructuring the school-based teacher mentoring system.

In keeping with the SBTEs from the other countries where the InFo-TED survey was carried out (Czerniawski et al., 2017), findings suggest that Romanian SBTEs conveyed their willingness to enhance their mentoring competencies in ITE, believing that professional development opportunities (including coursework, professional dialogues, and the sharing of best practices) and personal development opportunities (such as self-directed learning) were particularly beneficial.

‘School-based teacher educators need to master research competence both to be able to mentor future teachers while transferring theory into practice, as well as for fostering the habit to ground the didactic decisions on scientific findings.’

Another similar finding with the SBTEs participating in the international survey is the need of the Romanian SBTEs for improving their research skills. Such a need is influenced by the increasingly grounded pre-service education of future teachers on empirical educational research. The SBTEs, consequently, need to master research competence both to be able to mentor the future teachers while transferring theory into practice, as well as for fostering the habit to ground the didactic decisions on scientific findings. The results of our study reveal that Romanian SBTEs have little interest in engaging with research initiatives, the same as in many countries included in the InFo-TED study (Czerniawski et al., 2023; Guberman et al., 2021), preferring to concentrate on instructional activities. They explain the limited interest in conducting research by their limited research skills, and the need for professional training in this regard. Such results, in accordance with those of the European Commission (2021), highlight the concern for the continuous professional development of SBTEs both by participating in training programmes and by valuing research results, along with the need to improve the quality of teaching through evidence-based approaches.

In conclusion, the training requirements and practices of Romanian SBTEs exhibit minimal significant variations compared to those of their counterparts in other educational systems. The SBTEs see research capability for guiding teaching decisions as a weakness. This blog post provides insights for developing tailored training that addresses the identified training requirements, mainly regarding improving the research skills that would allow a better evidence-informed mentoring and teaching activity.

References

Czerniawski, G., Guberman, A., MacPhail, A., & Vanassche, E. (2023). Identifying school-based teacher educators’ professional learning needs: An international survey. European Journal of Teacher Education, 47(5), 1005–1020. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2023.2251658

European Commission. (2021). Council Resolution on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training towards the European Education Area and beyond (2021-2030). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32021G0226(01)   

Guberman, A., Ulvik, M., MacPhail, A., & Oolbekkink-Marc-hand, H. (2021). Teacher educators’ professional trajectories: Evidence from Ireland, Israel, Norway and the Netherlands. European Journal of Teacher Education, 44(4), 468–485. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1793948

Scorţescu, M., Sava, S. L., & Craşovan, M. (2024). Mentoring in initial teacher education: Practices and needs for continuing professional development of Romanian school-based teacher educators. SAGE Open, 14(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440241296912