Since 2010, people who wish to enter the teaching profession in secondary education have to take the University Master’s Degree in Teacher Training for Compulsory Secondary and Upper Secondary Education, Vocational Training and Languages (MUFPS). The VSMA Framework, adopted by AQU Catalunya, aims to guarantee the efficiency and quality of university degree programmes through the validation of new teaching proposals, the monitoring of their implementation, the assessment of any modifications they may undergo and their cyclical accreditation (in the case of master’s degrees, this is carried out five years after implementation). It is precisely in the accreditation phase that an in-depth assessment of the degree is carried out to check that the study plan is being implemented in accordance with the initial project.
More than a decade after the University Master’s Degree in Teacher Training was first started, receiving its first accreditation in 2015 and renewal in 2020, AQU Catalunya has published the
Cross-sectional Report on this master’s degree programme, which aims to assess how the quality of this master’s degree has evolved, as well as its strengths and weaknesses. In particular, the report shares the results of the master’s degree’s accreditation renewal as well as other data related to its running, such as the results of the survey of students’ satisfaction after completing the master’s degree, of the job placement survey and of the survey of education centres regarding the skills of the new teaching staff.
The results of the latest accreditations of the MUFPS allow us to affirm that there has been an improvement of its quality in all the evaluated standards, which affect the quality of the training programme, the relevance of the public information, the effectiveness of the internal quality assurance system (IQAS), the adequacy of the teaching staff, the effectiveness of the learning support systems and the quality of the training programme results. The results among universities have been heterogeneous: two universities have achieved standards valued as progressing towards excellence, another two have met all the standards, and the rest of the universities will have to devote efforts to better preparing teaching staff and improving the quality of results or the effectiveness of their IQAS.
In this respect, the most relevant aspects where there is room for improvement are as follows:
- Increase the participation of stakeholders in the development of the IQAS as well as encourage and increase the participation of all groups in assessment surveys, complementing and diversifying their use through different information collection systems, including self-assessment.
- Improve the evidence shown by the processes related to the revision of the IQAS, helping to systematise and temporarily sequence the continuous improvement of its procedures.
- Improve the teaching profile of the master’s degree programme’s teaching and research staff, increasing the percentage of doctoral teaching staff in accordance with the minimum required by current regulations (Royal Decree 420/2015, of 29 May), as well as the proportion of teaching staff with permanent links with the university.
- Improve
In addition, surveys of Master’s Degree in Teacher Training student satisfaction and graduate job placement show that:
- Overall student satisfaction with the MUFPS is low in comparison with the average for master’s degrees in the Catalan university system. The aspect they value most in their training is, by far, external training placements.
- Three years after completing the MUFPS, 74% of graduates are carrying out specific functions of this master’s degree, a percentage much higher than the average for Catalan university system master’s degrees (62%).
And, finally, the schools that receive the new teaching staff have the following needs in terms of their competencies:
- Greater ability to manage the classroom and to overcome deficits in basic psycho-pedagogical knowledge.