TVET and Teacher-Training Curricula: A Developed National Perspective

Abstract

The theory of teacher training for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) cannot provide practising educationalists with a water-tight answer to one of the most vital and crucial questions: how much time is required to educate a TVET professional? Unlike most other training fields, TVET teacher training is double-targeted, as two majors (teacher training and a specific vocational training) are to be mastered equally. It could be concluded that this type of training would require twice the time and twice the effort compared to singlefield training. However, this is not commonly observed in TVET teacher training, which can be attributed to the limited training periods followed by most students who are in search of full-time employment—and preferably as soon as possible. Russian university TVET teacher training is carried out according to the State Educational Standard, which provides an obligatory framework and content for training and is worded and issued by the Ministry of Education (Russian Federation. Ministry of Education, 2000). The standard training periods are four and five years, and graduates obtain their bachelor’s or advanced professional TVET teaching degrees respectively. In order to understand the Russian TVET teacher training system better, it is thought appropriate to resort to a comparative analysis here. Therefore, to provide the maximum coverage, it is reasonable to compare Russian and American systems in this chapter. The basic principles of academic subject clustering and sequencing are relatively similar in the Russian Federation (hereafter Russia/Russian) and the United States of America (hereafter USA/American). General science and mathematics are studied during the first and second years of training, and general and specialized vocational subjects are studied during the third and fourth years; the fifth year is for achieving a degree of mastery of the chosen major. A noteworthy difference in schooling is the fact that Russian universities start humanities, psychological and teacher training during the first stage (from the first university year), whereas in American universities these subject clusters are typically postponed to the senior (graduate) stage.