Welkomsttoespraak Bussemaker (OCW) International Summit on the Teaching Profession

Toespraak | 13-03-2013

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to the 2013 International Summit on the Teaching Profession.
We in the Netherlands are proud to be your hosts for the next two days. As the Minister of Education, it is a great honor for me to welcome you here.

This morning a number of other ministers of education, the Dutch deputy minister and I visited a Dutch school, to see how we do things here in the Netherlands and to learn about this school’s peer review system.

The next few days we will be spending here in the exchange building known as the Beurs van Berlage, which was built at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Just as goods, currencies and securities were once exchanged in this building, we will be devoting our time together to exchanging our knowledge and experiences on the teaching profession.

In attendance at this summit are five hundred representatives from the twentyfive best performing countries and the five fastest risers, as specified by the 2009 PISA study.
We are united by the conviction that teachers are invaluable to our society.
By the realization that you can only maintain that top position by continuing to invest in your teachers, because education is only as good as the teacher in the classroom.
And by the knowledge that we can learn from one another and inspire one another.

Because giving and receiving feedback, keeping each other on our toes with regard to quality, is the key to good teaching.
This applies to countries and governments.
And it applies to teachers.

During last year’s Summit, we noted that reforms don’t work if they are top-down – if teachers are treated as just ‘part of the problem’. Teachers need to be central to solutions, we said.

Therefore, as your host country, we have invited teachers to be present during the official part of this Summit.
One hundred and fifty teachers are present here.
I want to extend a special word of welcome to them and I invite them to join in our discussions. Because policy should not be about teachers.
Policy should be drafted and implemented together with teachers. It’s their, it’s your profession, after all.

We also wanted to give teachers a podium outside the official program, so that teachers themselves can showcase their wonderful and important profession, and demonstrate that they are proud to account for their teaching activities. In the Glass Room on the sidewalk just outside, some of our best teachers will be giving lessons throughout the day.

These Glass Room lessons literally show that teachers are the ‘street-level experts’ of our society.
Just as we here in this room are facing major policy challenges, our teachers are out there on the front lines of society. They work with young people every day, and with generations upon generations throughout their careers. They must always find new ways to relate to their students, while preparing them for the world of tomorrow.

The complexity of the profession places high demands on teachers’ professional competencies. This is a challenge of an individual and collective nature: good teaching takes place individually in the classroom and collectively within the profession.

So for the next two days, let us keep the following core aspects in mind as we discuss the teaching profession:

• the requirements that we as a government and society set for the training, professionalism and development of teachers, because of their value for the future of our young people and our society;
• and the professional space that teachers need to do their job based on their own mission, values and identity, but always as part of a community with their fellow teachers and school administrators.

Ladies and gentlemen, the bell tower of this building features two quotes from a poem by an advisor to the architect. In Dutch they say: ‘Beidt uw tijd’ and ‘Duur uw uur’.

The poet was expressing: “Bide your time... do not hurry, but do not let chances slip away.”

This is the message I would like to give you for the next two days. I hope that you will find this Summit to be both inspiring and educational.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.