| The College of Teachers as a Source of Division among Teachers |
| By Larry Kuehn, Director of Research and Technology, British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, Vancouver, Canada 
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| Teachers have a conflicted identity. On the one hand, many see themselves as “professional”, much like other occupations that have significant responsibility for the quality of service that they provide and significant control of their work. On the other hand, teachers are employees of the state (often a local element of the state). As workers they are subject to the state setting conditions of work and compensation for their work. The conflicted identify flows from this duality of being professional and worker. In their role as workers, the power of teachers to influence the conditions of their work and compensation requires that teachers act collectively. Teacher unions are institutions that aim to be the collective voice of teachers. They attempt to convince —or, if necessary, pressure— the government to provide adequate working conditions and salaries. The power of unions comes from the unity and solidarity of collective actions. It is in demonstrations, lobbying, participation in elections, or striking that this solidarity is expressed. The state has an interest in dividing teachers to reduce their power to influence. One approach to dividing teachers used in Canada has been the creation of a “College of Teachers”. A second collective organization that claims to speak for educators (including administrators as well as teachers) can become a competing centre for the allegiance of teachers. In its nature, a College of Teachers has a focus on the practice of the profession, but not the conditions under which the teacher is able to practice. The division fostered by the dual institutions of union and college can weaken teacher influence on the overall working conditions and compensation of teachers. One approach taken by some teacher unions to teachers’ conflicted identity is to declare themselves a “union of professionals”. If the union actually provides a collective voice on issues of practice —curriculum, pedagogy, administration, finance— as well as conditions and salaries, they may successfully maintain the unity of teachers across the conflicted identities. The BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), which represents all teachers in[1] the Canadian province of British Columbia, has attempted to bridge these realities and to be influential on professional issues as well as on working and learning conditions and compensation. One of the British Columbia government’s approaches to containing the influence of teachers through the BCTF was to create the British Columbia College of Teachers (BCCT), in 1987[2]. The College’s mandate was defined as governing entry to the profession (teacher education), regulating teachers by setting “standards”, disciplining teachers for unprofessional conduct, and carrying out professional development. To give the college credibility as an organization that speaks for educators, 14 of 20 positions on its board were to be elected by members of the College. The additional members were to be public representatives appointed by government to reflect the public interest. The extent of influence that the College would have in competition with the union was dependent on how much it took over the role of professional development. In this area the BCTF offered workshops for teachers, had a professional development program and specialist organizations that published journals, it developed curriculum resources, and prepared briefs on curriculum and other content issues and on specialist teachers’ qualifications. The BCTF developed a strategy to contain the role of the College. The key was to avoid the conflict that would be created if the College took over the professional development mandate and activities of the BCTF. The key to this containment was to elect College council members who were committed to a limited role for the College, so that it did not try to compete with the union. This strategy was based on endorsing candidates. Union members who wanted to run put forward their names for consideration. They communicated with the union locals in the electoral zone where they wanted to run. The union locals then decided which candidate to endorse. Those candidates not endorsed agreed then to withdraw their names from the election. In most cases, the endorsed candidates were elected. This strategy was generally successful. The College did develop a program of accrediting teacher education programs as a basis for automatic certification of graduates of those programs. It did create a process for disciplining teachers for unprofessional actions, many revolving around relations with students. Discipline included suspending or withdrawing teaching certificates from individual teachers after a hearing process. Some conflict developed between the BCTF and the College because of different roles. Specifically, the BCTF provides representation for teachers at disciplinary hearings held by the College and sometimes felt that actions by the College were more harsh than necessary. However, two key areas did not become areas of conflict. The College did not develop an extensive set of “standards” to tightly direct and control the work of teachers, nor did it try to compete with the BCTF’s professional development programs, as had been intended by government when the College was created. For fifteen years an uneasy stability or relationship between the union and the College continued. Then a new right-wing government was elected[3] in 2001, and a significant part of their agenda was to control teachers and the BCTF. The attack on teachers started with the government taking away labour rights: the legal right to strike was virtually eliminated by bringing in “essential services” legislation. Then the government imposed a contract on teachers that stripped all of the working and learning conditions from the collective agreements that had been negotiated over the previous fifteen years. Both actions were condemned by the International Labour Organization. Restricting the union’s negotiating power did not satisfy the government. They also wanted to use the College as a method of controlling teachers. In 2003[4] the government took over the College in a coup. They fired the elected College council members and replaced them with anti-union former school administrators and teachers. After fifteen months of the appointed council, elections were to be held again. However, now only eight of the twenty-member council were to be elected; the government would appoint the rest to carry out its program—a program to limit the autonomy of teachers as well as the influence of the union. The BCTF response was to organize a boycott of fees. One element of the creation of the College was a privatization of the cost as well as the process for teacher certification and discipline. Teachers must be a member of the College to teach and must pay annual fees to maintain their membership. The BCTF set up a “Democratic College Fund” and asked members to send their fees to the BCTF for this fund, instead of to the College. Some 20,000 teachers joined the campaign by re-directing their College fees. As the fee deadline approached, the school system faced a crisis. If fees were not paid, 20,000 teachers would no longer have a certificate to teach. Two-thirds of classrooms would have no teachers. Days before the deadline, the government blinked. The Minister of Education announced that the government was paying the unpaid fees for the 20,000 teachers and would again revise the law so that twelve—the majority[5] of council members—would once more be elected by College members. The Minister asked that the government be reimbursed, but teachers voted that the fees be returned to the teachers who had sent them to the BCTF. One other Canadian province has a College of Teachers, in addition to British Columbia, and governments in another have proposed a College in the past. A right-wing government in the province of Ontario brought in a College in 1997. The Council has 37 members, 23 of whom are elected by their peers and 14 appointed by government. Teachers there have been less successful in electing[6] union-supported candidates than in BC. One factor is that Ontario has four unions representing teachers in different parts of the school system, so is more fragmented than the single union that represents teachers in BC. Governments in the province of Quebec have also proposed a College of Teachers, on more than one occasion. However, the teachers’ unions there have successfully opposed the creation of a College, although the topic continues to be raised. In every country and province, education represents a significant portion of the state budget. Teachers are also the most unionized sector of workers, on the whole, with more than 30 million belonging to teacher unions affiliated with the Education International. These teachers have an interest in influencing the conditions and nature of their work and have proven to be effective in doing this through their unions—even if not as effectively as the members would like or need. Creating a College of Teachers has been one of the tools used by governments to reduce the unity of teachers and the influence of their unions. Colleges appeal to the very real desire by teachers to be professional in their work and to have public respect, but can be used to undermine the ability of unions to get the conditions needed for professional practice. In this time of globalization and “policy borrowing”, one might expect to see the creation of more such colleges. 
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