Trends in Elementary School Teacher Preparation of Thailand Responding to Needs of Employers and Changes in Digital Society

Abstract

Elementary school teachers are ones playing an important role in elementary education, as they closely work with elementary school students. The preparation of elementary school teacher would be a crucial process and needs to be deliberately accomplished. This study aimed to (1) analyze changes in digital society effecting the preparation of elementary school teachers, (2) to analyze differences between the status quo of the preparation and what it should be and (3) to propose policies toward trends in the preparation of this group of teachers. The researcher used interviews of faculty members of nine Teacher Education programs, the related document analyses, the Need-Assessment Inquiry for Elementary School Teachers (NIEST) with 183 elementary school principals and two focus-group meetings with 20 elementary education experts and elementary school principals.
It was found that there were changes in digital society effecting the preparation (i.e., digital-media accessibility, care qualities and relationships within families, altering social norms and role-models, teacher professionality and unsettled education-policy establishment from the government). In terms of their qualifications, the elementary school teachers should possess necessary knowledge and skills (core knowledge for elementary school teachers, classroom-management skills, technological skills, essential skills for elementary school teachers in the digital society, spirituality as an elementary school teacher and working collaborative skills). There are congruence and incongruence between the status quo of the preparation and what it was supposed to be. The synthesized policies concerning about the trends should cover the preparation of all above mentioned qualifications and should be applied through inputs, processes, and products of the preparation.