Professional Competence In Teacher Education

The continuing cycle of practice and reflection leads to a dynamic and developmental concept of professional competence which is the ultimate goal of the model; that is, enhancing candidates’ professional competence. As Wallace explained, this professional competence can be used in two senses. The first one is initial professional competence. This is a situation in which individuals, basically student-teachers, have met certain minimum requirements for the exercise of their profession. In this case, their competence to teach can be proved by a certificate gained at the end of a teacher education programme. Once this kind of competence is acquired, there is no need for the candidates to go back to the programme. The second is continual professional competence. This is a situation in which professionals, basically in-service teachers, travel all their professional lives to acquire it but can never

Even if teachers are influential on students’ learning and achievement, they can maximize this influence only when they are supported by the institution and system leaders (Reeves, 2010). This is because they are part of the complex institutional system which extends from their own classrooms to institutional level, and even to the society at large, that directly or indirectly influences their teaching. Hence, they need an intuitional climate which provides them with support, encouragement, guidance, and direction in their teaching (SCEP, 2000). They need an intuitional climate wherein collaboration among teachers, teachers and their students, and teachers and administrators exists as effective teaching demands working in a shared environment (Kahn & Walsh, 2006). The idea is that as conditions in classrooms affect students’ learning opportunities, institutional climate affects, positively or negatively, teachers’ teaching and professional learning (Day & Sachs,