教職課程認定・実地視察の機能 : 教員養成の質保証をめざす(<特集>社会変動と教育経営)

抄録

Improving the quality of the teaching profession course is of key importance as a policy issue. Looking at the current features of the course, we can see reinforced screening for prior evaluation for course approval as well as the enhanced field inspections conducted by the Course Approval Committee for post-evaluation purposes. However, it must be noted that the actual conditions and issues regarding both of these functions are still more or less a mystery. For this paper, I first drew up an accurate view of the current structure of these teaching profession course approval functions, focusing specifically on inherent problems and operational issues. Next, I revealed essential markers for the teaching profession course found in field inspections, and points of attention for future development. Finally, bearing in mind the roles of these functions, I discussed expectations of autonomous efforts to be made by universities to assure quality in teacher preparation. While opportunities for prior consultation are being provided (from April to the middle of June every year), applications for the teaching profession course are reviewed and screened. If revisions in content are seen as being needed as a result of the reviews, the applying university will receive guidance from the Educational Personnel Division of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In some cases, a series of four or five reviews and screenings may be necessary on documents submitted by a university. In the field inspections conducted in FY2012, university teaching profession courses generally fulfilled the Educational Personnel's License Act. However, the inspections also revealed instances where the laws were not being followed properly, and where subjects related to the teaching profession were taught only by certain full-time lecturers. All universities with Teaching Profession Course Approval need to thoroughly understand that, under the top leader's initiative, they have responsibilities as teacher-training universities that include a certain level of commitment to society to operate teaching profession courses properly while satisfying pertinent laws and the Standards of Teaching Profession Course Approval.