Page 5 - IDEA Studie 10 2018 Intelektualni dovednosti ceskych ucitelu

Study 10/2018 Czech teachers’ intellectual skills in international and generational comparison2 SepteMber 2018 Daniel Münich, Jana KraJčová Summary of key issues • The quality of teachers’ work is widely perceived as a key co-determinant of educational outcomes. This quality co-determines, among other things, the creation of human capital, future economic output and quality of life. Despite this, the quality of teachers’ work remains a phenomenon that is extremely difficult to define, let alone measuring it. Recent international surveys PIAAC and ALL offered the option of looking indirectly at teacher quality through general skills of the adult population in the participating countries. Teaching staff at Czech schools were among the selected population sample for these surveys. The surveys include information about their general intellectual abilities related to daily-use life-skills in the form of scores achieved by those adult individuals in reading, mathematics and ICT literacy (i.e. use of digital technology) tests. • This study reveals the levels achieved in and differences between general intellectual skills achieved by national populations as a whole and those achieved by teachers. Specifically it presents (a) an international comparison of older and younger adult populations and (b) a comparison of younger and older generations of teachers. Our comparison does not limit itself to presenting mean test score values, but also reveals the extent of heterogeneity in skills among the relevant populations of each country. We also offer a detailed overview of the issue of selection into the teaching profession, from both international and intergenerational perspectives. • The study focuses on the situation in the Czech Republic. Our analysis reveals that: (i) on average, Czech teachers’ intellectual skills remain average or slightly above-average in international comparison, both among the older and younger generations; (ii) the heterogeneity of skills among the Czech population, both young and old, is rather low; (iii) as in many other countries, there is evident intellectual selection into the teaching profession 2 The authors would like to thank Karel Gargulák and Václav Korbel for their useful comments to the draft version of the study. This study was produced with the support of Česká spořitelna Foundation, the project Učitel naživo (Teach Live) and as part of the Czech Academy of Sciences’ AV21 Strategy. It is based on research carried out as part of Czech Science Foundation project GA ČR P402/12/G130. 3