There are many international schools in Southeast Asia today and more are added each year. This reflects both the impact of globalization which has led to the growth of a large expatriate population in Southeast Asian countries and also a growing demand for good quality education from Asian parents. For many Southeast Asian parents, international schools means quality education for their children.

However, international schools do have a serious problem with regards to their teachers professional development. Many of these schools do not have on their staff trained and qualified teachers. Many of them are taken from the expatriate population that already live in the various Southeast Asian cities. Although I am not implying that untrained teachers make for bad teaching, it would be even better if such teachers are given a concerted and systematic training program with all the basic skills that they need as professional teachers.

Such experience and knowledge can make the classroom learning even more relevant for the students. A widening of the students’ horizons can and should be expected through such teachers. Students will be exposed to a more cross cultural perspective of things. A basic teacher training program can help such teachers be even more effective as agents for a truly global world.

Furthermore, studies have shown that teachers are more likely to stay if they feel that they can affect the outcome of the learning in the classrooms. Trained teachers would be better equipped with the tools and repertoire of skills that will help them exert a more positive impact on what goes on in the classrooms. Teacher training programs although can be costly, can actually contribute positively to the overall quality of the teachers in the school.

Click on this link if you want to learn more about enhancing teacher professional practice.

According to some studies, the lack of independence and control in the curriculum among teachers, affects their self-image and therefore their level of job satisfaction (see Smithers, 1990, and Mercer and Evans, 1991). Rice and Schneider (1994), also found that the degree that school administration empowers teachers in areas like pedagogy and contribution to administrative decisions have a significant impact on job satisfaction.

In a recent study of preservice teachers in Singapore, it was found that there almost 50 per cent of them do not perceive a good career prospect in their profession and they also would prefer to move out of teaching if they have an opportunity to do so. This is in a country where the teachers are among the best paid civil servants experiencing regular pay revisions and other incentives. Since most schools in Singapore are government-owned and there are almost 30,000 teachers, the MOE has also been busy trying to create more career progression opportunities for teachers. Still it is well-known that there is a high attrition rate among teachers in Singapore. Not to mention that according to one Straits Times report a while ago, teachers form the largest group of people to visit the local institute of mental health for various ailments.

The salary of Singapore teachers ranked among the best yet there seemed to be great difficulty keeping teachers. How does this compare to international schools in the region where generally the teachers’ salary is even lower than that of Singapore teachers? In addition, in most of these schools, career prospects is perhaps worse than in Singapore because international schools in the region are privately-owned, which usually means that there is not a huge organization in the background behind these schools for good career paths for teachers to look forward to.

Perhaps international schools in Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia and Thailand should seriously look into the findings by Rice and Schneider. International schools in the region should empower teachers even more in terms of pedagogy and decision-making. These seem to give teachers greater job satisfaction because of they would experience a sense  of achievement which can more than offset the negative impact of the lack of career prospects or potential for better pay. More training in the areas of pedagogy, and even in management especially on teaching-related issues, can help teachers to feel even better in the areas that the teachers themselves perceive to be very important to them in terms of job satisfaction.

The workforce of the future depends on even greater teamwork and interdependence then perhaps the workforce of today. Working in an interdependent manner suggests that people must learn to work co-operatively. Working co-operatively means that workers may see that they to work together for the common good of all. It means that they would have to work with those they like and also those that they don’t like. What becomes more important is the group goals. Individual goals would be met through these group goals. Such workers must be prepared well before they enter the workforce. Expecting people who have been conditioned to only work for themselves all their lives to suddenly work as a team is very unrealistic. This is where schools must do their part to teach the value of working and learning together.

Schools can help in this respect by making co-operative learning one of the core strategies for learning within the school environment. Instead of the usual group work where there is little structure for individuals to play their part in the roles and tasks  given to the group, in a co-operative learning strategies, a clear structure based on the principles of positive interdependence is created to ensure the individuals in a group must all do their part to achieve the group learning goals.

There are five ways in which positive interdependence can be structured into a group. They are:

a) Positive goal interdependence;

b) Positive reward interdependence;

c) Positive resource interdependence;

d) Positive role interdependence; and

e) Positive task interdependence

By positive goal interdependence we mean that the final product must be the a joint effort that requires a degree of consensus by each individual member. No one is allowed to submit an individual learning product at the the end of the task. Only a group product is permitted and members must come to agreement what that group product would be.

Positive reward interdependence means that group members know that the reward for their work is dependent on the eprformance of the group. For example, group performance will affect individual members scores. While a portion fo the scores is credited individually, another portion of their individual score will reflect the overall performance of the group. The message is that even if they did well individually, they must ensure the whole groups performs before they all get the best rewards.

Positive role interdependence requires specific team roles to be defined for each member of the team. One can be a team manager, while another keeps track of what has been done as the recorder while another ensures meetings are focused events and so on.

Positive resource interdependence is concern with the delegation of specific and differentiated learning materials to each member of the group. This is to ensure that no one member can dominate in completing the given tasks. Each resource will be part of a complete jigsaw which everyone is responsible for. Each piece of that jigsaw has to be completed by the specific member and only after its completeion can all the pieces be put together to complete the picture.

Positive task interdependence means that each member would have to complete his given task in order for the group to complete the group task. The group task would depend on specific contributions of the group members. The final goal is unattainable if even one member does not contribute to the outcome by neglecting the task that has been given to him.

Through structuring positive interdependence in a group setting. students would be forced to work co-operatively rather than individualistically as is the norm in many classrooms today. This would help changed the classroom environment from a drive for individual success to one of group success. This working together in a  school setting will help students to become the team player at their workplace or their larger community in the years to come.