The Concepts "Benchmarks and Benchmarking" Used in Education Planning: Teacher Education as Example

Overview & Synopsis

Planning in education is a structured activity that includes several phases and steps that take into account several kinds of information (Steyn, Steyn, De Waal & Wolhuter, 2002: 146). One of the sets of information that are usually considered is the (so-called) "benchmarks" and "benchmarking" regarding the focus of a particular planning project. The concepts "benchmarks and benchmarking" is the result of a particular methodology following the sequence of identifying positive and negative lessons to be learned from different education systems, after which best practices in and for particular situations are defined that can be formulated as benchmarks and benchmarking guidelines, which informs theory that can be applied in a particular setting. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to shortly explain the nature of planning in education, the methodology to determine benchmarks regarding a particular topic, the position of teacher education in the education system as well as the different important determinants of teacher education. The paper concludes with some examples of international perspectives regarding benchmarking for quality in teacher education. [For the complete Volume 13, Number 1 proceedings, see ED568595.]