Instead of bird-dogging the issue of teacher competence, the Department of Education is spending precious time and money on peripheral issues, like explaining to religious groups how they can tap into federal money through this program.

The boundary between curriculum enhancement and the third TTT purpose, professional development, is not clear-cut: curriculum enhancement necessarily involves professional development but TTT of this kind acquires the latter label when its purposes are quite explicitly directed at improving teacher competence.

The 1983 report "A Nation at Risk" focused on raising academic standards and teacher competence.

Edmund W. Gordon, interim dean at Teachers College of Columbia University, named three criteria for being a teacher: intellective competence, by which he said he meant problem-solving; social competence; and moral competence.

Reggio Emilia's approach does challenge some conceptions of teacher competence and developmentally appropriate practice.

If schools are serious about addressing the issue of teacher competence should it arise, they must do it in a fair fashion and not be constrained by a one-term time limit.

SHAPE, under the auspices of the Ministry of General Education, Youth and Sport and the Ministry of Higher Education, aims to strengthen teacher competence at local level by encouraging teachers, head teachers and local administrators to initiate their own productive work linked to teaching, and to evolve their own techniques and materials.

In the case of the education system there have been numerous problems concerning curricula, teacher competence, poor school performance, high drop-out rates, etc.

Finally, we're going to work with the newly created National Standards Board to establish standards of teacher competence and training that are as rigorous and demanding as the standards we set for our doctors and our other top professions.