A proposed model for the in-service education ladder

It is widely accepted by teacher educators worldwide that the education of teachers should be a lifelong process, rather than being limited to the relatively short period of initial teacher education before a teacher embarks upon his/her professional life. In-service teacher education (or INSET), as one of the three important distinct phases of teacher education (the other two phases are: initial teacher education and induction of beginning teachers), has been shown to be very important for teachers in their professional development. For developing in-service education comprehensively and systematically to cater for the whole range of needs of teachers in their professional development, including their updating and retaining needs, extension needs and conversion needs, there is now a trend towards developing an “in-service ladder” as a useful planning and developmental framework. In this paper, a model for an “in-service ladder” for supporting teachers in their professional development is proposed. In addition, how teachers could benefit from the structure, its influence on setting schools/government policies in the design of courses for the professional development of teacher education, and examples of courses to meet various needs of teachers at different stages, will also be discussed.