Constructing Scenarios for the Future of Teaching in Flanders

1. Introduction

Abstract

The concept of a profession evolves over time. New forms of professionalism focus on connective relationships, as well as other elements such as autonomy, career development and status. Creating a thriving profession of teaching is an area of high priority for countries in the OECD. How can we anticipate the future of the teaching profession? How can we create preferred futures that value current professionals, inspire future teachers and respond to current challenges? This chapter introduces concepts for new professionalism in teaching and outlines two tools that have been developed to shape positive, sustainable futures.

Context and rationale for the work

What if you had the opportunity to shape young minds and make a lasting impact on society? For many, this is the driving force behind becoming a teacher. According to the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) in 2018, an astounding nine out of ten teachers indicated the desire to influence children’s development and contribute to society as their primary motivation for joining the profession (OECD, 2019[1]). Reflecting on the first TALIS survey conducted ten years earlier, eight out of ten teachers were confident that with perseverance they could make progress with even the most difficult and challenging students (OECD, 2009[2]). Yet, the world has become increasingly complex and fast-paced, placing greater demands on schools. Many teachers in the 2018 survey expressed that being a cornerstone of society in fact comes with significant pressure and high stress levels (OECD, 2020[3]). What does this mean for the future of the teaching profession? How can society better support teachers in their roles?

It is no surprise that contributing to society is such a motivating force for the teaching profession. Ample evidence points to the value of a quality education for individuals, communities and economies. Higher education levels are associated with greater physical and mental health, broader economic opportunities, lower crime rates and opportunities to contribute to shaping more prosperous societies. Teachers and schools can play a leading role in helping to empower children to participate actively in society, including embracing the opportunities and navigating the risks of the daily digital world (OECD, 2024[4]). Therefore, it is also not surprising that there is strong political support for the importance of having quality teachers who can teach in a way that suits both educators and their students (Schleicher, 2016[5]; OECD, 2023[6]).

New societal trends and accelerating digital advances have had a profound impact on societies and working life, including for the teaching profession. Consider evolving attitudes to working life, a desire for greater life and work balance, flexibility in working times and arrangements, and the opportunities and challenges that technologies, including artificial intelligence can offer. These evolving opportunities and attitudes influence the choices of all professionals. More experienced professionals may consider earlier retirement or a career change. In TALIS 2018, on average 67% of teachers aged 46 or older were considering leaving the teaching profession within five years (OECD, 2020[3]). Other experienced professionals may be considering coming in to teaching as a second career.

Equally, young people entering the workplace have different expectations for their working life – and their life outside work - and might not wish to stay in one profession their entire career. In TALIS 2018, newer teachers who had been working for less than five years expressed greater motivation to help children in less advantaged communities and attached less importance to job security, compared to more experienced teachers (OECD, 2019[1]). In 2024, many countries are experiencing increasingly tight labour markets meaning there is greater choice for younger and older adults for their working lives. At the same time, many education systems are facing teacher shortages or will need to prepare for them (OECD, 2023[6]; United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession, 2024[7]). This context demands a serious re-thinking of the core aspects of the teaching profession and what professionalism means.

New professionalism and the future of teaching

The study on constructing scenarios for the future of teaching in Flanders is part of broader work at the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). The New professionalism and the future of teaching project offers the space to collectively and profoundly reflect on policy questions that are common in OECD countries. How can the teaching profession remain attractive for experienced teachers, newer teachers, and future teachers? What career and development opportunities will it need to offer? How can we reframe thinking about these issues in different ways to create innovative approaches? The project helps key stakeholders engage with research and ideas for next practice to have an informed and enthusiastic discussion about preferred future scenarios for teaching. To support this, the project has conducted conceptual work, both mobilising the OECD knowledge base on teaching, through earlier and ongoing data collection, research and reviews of teaching policies (OECD, 2019[8]; OECD, 2019[1]; OECD, 2023[9]) and identifying the frontiers of research on professionalism. It developed a theoretical framework and tools for working in specific countries and looked to engage with education ministries to test these out. The study in Flanders is the first application of these and is part of a series of three studies in 2024. The other two studies are in Austria and Wales (United Kingdom).

Over two years, the project has conducted desk-based research and bilateral discussions with policy makers and researchers in different countries to identify priorities and research in different contexts. The project has highlighted the value of a focus on concepts such as teaching as a knowledge profession, teacher individual and collective professional identity, and ‘connective professionalism’, including collaboration in and around the school as a support for teachers (OECD, 2021[10]; Suarez and McGrath, 2022[11]; Mezza, 2022[12]; Nilsson Brodén, 2022[13]; McGrath, 2023[14]). TALIS 2018 has revealed that collaborative work is part of many teachers’ working lives and that it appears an attractive way of working, with collaborating teachers reporting comparatively greater satisfaction with their job and lower stress levels (OECD, 2020[3]). This is observed both on average internationally, and across countries with different cultures, education systems and governance structures, such as Australia, Chile, the Netherlands and Korea. TALIS 2018 also shows that collaborative work can take many forms within schools and that around one in five teachers on average report frequent and deeper forms of collaboration such as team teaching, collective professional development and observing each other’s classes (OECD, 2020[3]).

The project has also established a set of principles to underpin more effective collaboration to support teachers in their work ( (Nilsson Brodén, 2022[13]) and argues that it is worthwhile to explore how to build or strengthen connections around teachers and schools. How could we encourage meaningful and rewarding collaborative work for teachers even further? How can we mobilise the considerable expertise within schools and tap into specialised expertise outside schools to support teachers in their work and professional development?

To mobilise the knowledge base and conceptual work, the project has developed a theoretical framework, which is concisely described in this publication, that can be used with stakeholders in different countries. It uses futures methodologies to allow stakeholders to construct a shared vision on what the teaching profession could look like in the future. These methods do not attempt to predict the future (OECD, 2021[15]; Holfelder, 2019[16]) but provide a means to examine possible futures which can impact on short and long term planning (McGrath, 2023[14]; Kuo-Hua and Hsu, 2020[17]). Anticipating future developments (Kuo-Hua and Hsu, 2020[17]) and the use of strategic foresight (Fuller, 2017[18]; Amsler and Facer, 2017[19]) can shape (Holfelder, 2019[16]) the system in preferred ways rather than waiting for the future to appear.

As part of the project, two tools were developed to move from the theoretical work to supporting education systems in practice. The Personas tool (see Box ‎1.1) is described in detail by Nilsson Brodén (2022[13]). In short, personas are a way of capturing a broad range of teacher characteristics, research evidence and data into fictional ‘teacher personas’ to ensure that possible directions in education policy account for the diverse nature of the teacher workforce. A persona for future teachers also serves as a provocation to consider how to keep the teaching profession an attractive choice for future professionals.

Box ‎1.1. OECD Personas tool: how to consider teacher needs and diversity in policy making?

Respecting teacher professionalism and professional autonomy is considered an important aspect of the perceived chances of success for changing policy, as well as the possibility for teachers to be able to influence decisions that affect them (OECD, 2019[8]). Sometimes, ideas seem great on paper, yet do not create the same result in practice. Often, policymakers suggest reforms, yet teachers might disagree, or the other way around. A result is tension between policymakers and the workforce which hampers progress, when all stakeholders agree changes are needed.

Teacher personas are meant to serve as a tool to help with this, as they strive to highlight individual and contextual needs of different teachers. One of the clear advantages of working with personas is the ability to highlight diverse backgrounds, ages, experiences, and other categories and traits that shape the teacher workforce through each individual teacher, which could not only benefit policymakers, but also further the thinking of school boards and school teams. Viewing challenges and opportunities through the lens of different teachers creates a more nuanced understanding of the diversity of possible responses to policymaking.

Personas have been described as a possible addition for the educational policy making toolbox by Nilsson Brodén (2022[13]). Personas are versatile and evidence-informed, but also provide a ‘face’ to possible policies involving teachers. Research-based teacher personas are an attempt at creating a “tool to better align the design of the “product” [proposed policy] with the needs of the intended “users” [the teacher workforce] (Nilsson Brodén, 2022, p. 3[13]). The concept of personas was first developed for interface testing of software in the 1990s and then have consequently been actively picked up by other sectors, such as marketing and product development More recently, they have also been used in education, including use of student personas that student teachers can engage with (Weinhandl et al., 2023[20]); teacher personas to support “user-centred design” (Education Services Australia, 2019[21]) policy development; and education stakeholder personas to support person-centred and futures-oriented policies and services (OPSI, n.d.[22]).

Using data to construct personas are a relatively new phenomenon (Huynh et al., 2021[23]). Both research and data on education and the teacher workforce is plentiful, both in the international context, but also on a system level. Nilsson Brodén (2022[13]) argues that OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) could serve as a source of data from where education systems can build the fictional teacher characters to better anticipate responses from their workforce on proposed policy reforms. For the purposes of this study, the developed teacher personas are data-driven and primarily based on findings from OECD’s TALIS 2018 research, which surveys teachers and school leaders about working conditions and learning environments at their schools to help education systems face diverse challenges (OECD, 2020[3]). Additionally, the developed teacher personas draw heavily from Flemish data and research from the system and context they work in. The personas created in this study can potentially receive an update based on the TALIS 2024 results.

It is important to note that personas are in no way shaped to replicate ‘real’ people (Nilsson Brodén, 2022[13]). They merely serve as informative, fictional characters that can help guide policy options and should only be used as such.

The second tool, the Ambition loops tool, is described in detail by McGrath (2023[14]). In short, the tool revolves around a broad set of ‘What if…’ statements for a range of stakeholders, such as teachers, school leaders, teacher educators, parents, students, researchers, policy makers and others active in or around the education sector. These stakeholders can interact with the statements to decide on ambitions and possible directions for the future of the teaching profession (see Box ‎1.2).

Box ‎1.2. The OECD ambition loops tool: how to strengthen connections for the teaching profession?

What if… we create space to think collectively about the future?

The Ambition loops tool is structured using a series of “what if…” statements to support the co-creation of preferred scenarios for the future of teaching. The focus on “what if” (McGrath, 2023[14]) can extend thinking beyond a starting point of current practice. The study includes statements of ambition to strengthen connections for the teaching profession and support their professional development and work. There are ambitions for the school community, partners in the education sector – including teacher educators – and also in broader society, including health, welfare, culture, education technology (EdTech) and sustainability. Each “what if…” statement collates a number of “ambition loops”.

Ambition loops (McGrath, 2023[14]) are research-based statements that can support dialogue among different actors. McGrath (2023[14]) defines the concept of “ambition loops” as “a combination of bold action statements that can be used with teachers and other partners to create a set of positive feedback loops that reinforce each other for the purpose of transforming practice and policy over the medium term” (p. 9[14]). Ambition loops identify possible actions that different partners can focus on related to a “what if” topic which can then be combined or “looped” with the actions of other partners to generate positive, sustainable directions for the future of teaching/schooling. For example, on the topic of a healthy work environment as a priority for supporting teacher well-being:

• Ambition loop: Teachers protect and promote a healthy working environment and take responsibility for themselves, each other, their students and the school they work for

• Ambition loop: School leaders are supported to play an important role in teachers well-being, as well as their own

• Ambition loop: Policymakers respond to the specific challenges of teaching in different contexts by focusing on a healthy working environment (especially for beginning teachers working in schools in less advantaged communities).

Ambition loops are successful when they create action-oriented synergies through collaboration of different actors towards a positive vision for the future. As such, each “what if” includes statements of ambition for specific actors within the system.

Both tools have been adapted for use in the Flemish education system and have supported the construction of scenarios for the future of teaching in Flanders.

Structure of this publication

This publication presents the results of the project methodology applied in Flanders. It is structured as follows. The second chapter describes the context, aims and methodology of the study, including specific research questions set by the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training. The third chapter presents the Flemish teacher personas, which were constructed for the purpose of this study. The fourth chapter presents a set of six preferred scenarios for the future of teaching that were developed by Flemish stakeholders, working with the ambition loops tool. Lastly, the fifth chapter presents reflections by the OECD team on possible lessons for transformation that can be drawn from the study.

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