Teacher Training in ENS: Profiles, Identity, and Professionalisation

The upheavals in teacher training have spared no country. From intensive training programmes for in-service teachers to the new curriculum for prospective teachers, shifts in systems and models have sometimes occurred amid the inherent difficulties of evolving systems, which are by definition conservative as they must ensure long-term stability. However, this decade of changes and openings, although not without challenges, has allowed significant progress that deserves to be highlighted to identify and study the levers necessary for successful model changes.

As L. Porcher suggests, these models call for “mastery of multiple capacities: knowledge, pedagogy, didactics, and the evaluation of one’s teaching and learning.” Naturally, another parameter is emphasised by Lang-Perrenoud when he states, “This articulation between theory and practice is necessary, as one of the founding principles of training aimed at professionalisation.”

It should be noted that the Algerian university network comprises 106 higher education institutions across 48 wilayas, covering the entire national territory. This network consists of 50 universities, 13 university centres, 20 national higher schools, 10 higher schools, 11 Écoles Normales Supérieures, and two annexes. Executive Decree No. 16-176 of 9 Ramadan 1437 (14 June 2016) sets the standard status of the higher school (Official Journal No. 36, 2016, pp. 9–16).

Écoles Normales Supérieures are state institutions responsible for training teachers for the National Education system. Algeria initially had four ENS at the national level:

ENS Bouzaréah, Humanities (Algiers)ENS Kouba, Science and Technology (Algiers)ENS ConstantineENSET Oran

The growing demand for teachers increased this number to 11 ENS nationwide:

Central Region

ENS Bouzaréah – Cheikh Mubarak Ben Mohamed Brahimi El MiliENS Kouba – Mohamed Bachir El IbrahimiENS Laghouat – Taleb Abderrahmane

Western Region

ENS OranENS MostaganemENS Béchar

Eastern Region

ENS Constantine – Assia DjebarENS Skikda (Technological Teacher Training)ENS Sétif – Messaoud ZegharENS Bou SaâdaENS Ouargla

These institutions are responsible for teacher training for national education. In our work, we consider an identificatory model in which the trainer is assumed to have resolved their own identity crises and practices the profession because they have built valued competencies. It is normal to take them as a reference point or even a standard. Jean Rostand described the trainer’s challenge:“To train minds without conforming them, to enrich them without indoctrinating, to arm them without enlisting, to convey a force, to seduce them toward truth to guide them to their own truth, to give the best of oneself without expecting the reward of resemblance.”

Teacher trainers find it difficult to detach from the idea that they embody mastery or excellence, or at least an acceptable figure of the profession. If they thought otherwise, how could they have sufficient self-esteem to claim they can train others? This is even stronger in a profession where it is often said: “We teach what we are,” and where the legitimacy of the teacher trainer is grounded in teaching practice.

We suggest that thematising identity construction, according to life history and successive affiliations, could help the trainee teacher to decentre, to understand the singularity of their quest, but also its embedding in their generational history, culture, and social trajectory.

According to Alain Rieunier, there are three steps for a good teacher to become a trainer of trainers:

If they are fully capable of teaching but have never theorised their practice, which is essentially what they will be asked to do as a trainer of trainers.They will teach adults, not children or adolescents, which has consequences for the type of relationship required to form responsible teachers rather than mere implementers. Here, the method of teaching is at least as important as the content.Certain fundamental professional situations are specific to trainer training:

Designing a training plan based on a needs analysisDesigning reference frameworksObservation and evaluation techniques (including possible design of analysis grids)Techniques for running micro-teaching sessions to develop group facilitation skills

All of this requires mastery of techniques different from those normally used by teachers, without neglecting interview and meeting management techniques (pedagogical coordination council, scientific council, ethics council).

In higher education, quality assessment tools, particularly those giving students a voice, have spread widely in recent years. These tools aim to evaluate the quality of various objects: teaching, curricula, learning, etc. If assessment is conceived in a formative perspective aimed at professional development of the assessed entity (trainer or programme), it is legitimate to ask whether the tools actually serve this development.

In this study, we examine the quality of training in a higher education institution, starting by identifying three levels of influencing elements. We then propose an approach to analyse evaluation tools to determine to what extent they probe student perceptions of these elements. Finally, we illustrate this approach in an ENS context, showing how it enhances understanding, supports evolution, and guides the management of a training programme.

To measure the extent to which the evaluation tool covers the professionalisation dimension of trainer of trainers, we determine the percentage of questions targeting the following five axes:

Integration of researchProfessionality and professional identityPractitioner reflexivityKnowledge and skillsTheory-practice alternation

This is how B. Wentzel (2012) identifies markers of professionalisation rhetoric. Questionnaire results will inform us about these core elements.