Teacher management and development: Reform syndrome & paradigm shifts

In the past 15 years, there have been numerous reforms and initiatives in many countries in the Asia-Pacific region to change education and promote new learning for preparing the future of their new generation. Unfortunately, many of these educational reforms with good intentions and huge resources investment have been found ineffective and unsustainable if not totally failed. One of major reasons for this is the poor management of teachers and their professional development at the institutional and system levels to prepare and support the numerous changes and initiatives. Reflecting on the trends and waves of educational reforms in the Asia-Pacific region, this keynote speech aims to introduce an international lesson on the emerging educational syndrome of educational reforms across the region and illustrate its negative impacts on teacher ecology and teacher management. Then, the speech draws implications for developing a holistic approach to management and planning of teachers and their sustainable professional and career development from this lesson and the world’s best performing educational systems. Finally, the address highlights the paradigm shifts in teacher management in echoing the three waves of educational reforms in the last two decades and draw further implications for formulating teacher management policies in ongoing and future educational reforms towards students’ new learning and sustainable development.