RESTRUCTURING TEACHER EDUCATION: ASSESSING TEACHERS' SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE COMPETENCY FOR PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION

The study was aimed to assess teachers’ subject matter knowledge competencies for professional licensing. The main focus of this study was to develop teacher evaluation mechanism for secondary schools’ teachers. Objectives of the study were (a) to study the national and international teacher evaluation mechanism gauging the performance of secondary school teachers; (b) to assess the secondary school teachers’ subject knowledge competency based on national professional standard in Pakistan for professional certification and (c) to recommend strategies for the improvements how teachers improve their subject matter competency for professional licensing. To conduct the observational survey research, a sample of 453 participants (teachers) from six districts of Punjab was selected to observe the teachers in field directly. An observational checklist was developed on bases of prescribe levels of teacher accreditation by Policy and Planning wing of Ministry of Education, Pakistan. The collected data was analyzed with the help of software SPSS version 16 by using statistical formulas of Chi-Square, simple mean and percentage. The analysis of various levels indicated that maximum number of teachers were at level-0 Not Demonstrated Teacher (Certification Level) that were 57.8% of the total teachers observed. This analysis concludes that most of the teachers generally did not know about national curriculum framework. A small number of teachers have heard about curriculum frame work but did not go through document.