Education: Using media to promote K-12 science teachers

 – by Fanuel Muindi – 

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he recruitment and retention of high quality teachers is one of central tenets of many education systems around the world. Some of the strategies used by many countries to maintain their stock of high-quality teachers include better monetary compensation, continuing professional development, leadership training, and also performance based increases in pay. However, many countries – especially those in the developing world – continue to face shortages of high quality secondary education teachers in several critical areas including science and mathematics (1). An additional approach that developing countries must use to attract the most talented science students into the teaching profession is to employ more media campaigns across TV, radio, and also the web. Such campaigns must show how important science teachers are for the future, and the important place they occupy next to other respected professions in society. Overtime, such active exposure will help (i) inspire more young students to start thinking early about a career in science education and (ii) highlight the importance of science teachers in society which will in turn help slowly elevate the status of science teachers across all education levels. The success of the media campaigns will require coordination between schools, academic institutions, non-governmental agencies, foundations, and also the federal government to ensure the message is consistent. Of course, no single strategy is sufficient by itself as a number of factors govern the sufficient recruitment and retention of high quality science teachers. Media campaigns should be used as one part of a wider strategy in tackling science teacher shortage. problems in several developing countries. 

References

1.UNESCO, Wanted: Trained teachers to ensure every child’s right to primary education. POLICY Pap. 15 / FACT SHEET 30 (2014), (available at http://www.uis.unesco.org/Library/Documents/fs30-trained-teachers-to-ensure-right-to-primary-education-en.pdf).

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The CS Media Lab is a Boston-anchored civic science news collective with local, national and global coverage on TV, digital print, and radio through CivicSciTV, CivicSciTimes, and CivicSciRadio. Programs include Questions of the Day, Changemakers, QuickTake, Consider This Next, Stories in Science, Sai Resident Collective and more.

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