dc.description.abstract | Many countries have embarked on creating standards of teacher competencies
with the ultimate goal of improving teaching in their schools. The aim of
this paper is to compare Standards of teacher competencies in Serbia with
those in countries/regions which perform well on PISA (Australia, Singapore,
Ontario, Estonia, the Netherlands and Slovenia) in order to highlight
important similarities and differences which potentially account for teacher
quality in those countries, as well as inform policymakers in Serbia on how
to reformulate standards of teacher competencies and, consequently, improve
teacher quality and pupil outcomes. The criteria on which sets of standards
in different countries are compared are: development of standards (who and
how developed the standards), content of standards (subject knowledge,
didactics, etc.), differentiation of standards (existence of separate sets
of competencies for novice teachers, experienced teachers, etc.), purpose of
standards (teacher certification, performance monitoring, career
progression, accreditation of teacher education providers, etc.), and
context in which the standards operate (whether they are a part of a larger
framework of standards and educational practices or not). Several important
differences exist between the Standards of teacher competencies in Serbia
and selected countries, the greatest being the much higher level of
utilisation of standards in various segments of teacher professional lives
in those countries than in Serbia. Recommendations for the improvement of
standards of teacher competencies in Serbia are draw | en |