Preparing teachers for tomorrow's schools : challenges for the Euro-Mediterranean region

Abstract

Every year since 1999, different groups of about twenty education scholars from around the Mediterranean meet in Malta to create a community of inquiry focusing on a specific theme that is of particular relevance to the region. The seminar is one of a number of research initiatives of the Comparative Education Program in Euro-Mediterranean Studies (CEPems) whose goal is: "To develop South-South and North-South dialogue in the field of education, and through this, to enhance the possibility of mutual understanding and co-operation among the people of the Mediterranean in the various spheres of life."

All the studies carried out thus far within the ambit of the CEPems activities have highlighted the pivotal role of the teacher in the enterprise that we call 'education'-no innovation, no reform, no shift in the way education is conceptualized can come about without the full-hearted support of the teacher. And yet, the teacher in most Mediterranean countries is underpaid and undervalued socially. Social status is low, and conditions of work are, in some cases, daunting to say the least. Teachers are at the front line of social change not only because they are (or are expected to be) catalysts of transformation, but also because they have to mediate the 'distance' between past, present and future generations in the confined space of the classroom. Teachers are called upon to transmit and reproduce the culture and values of their society, while at the very same time remaining open to-if not actually facilitating the learning of-new knowledge, skills, attitudes and technologies. And, as we are increasingly becoming aware, new learning is always connected to new forms of value and meaning systems that have an inexorable impact on social relations in any given community.