Over the past few years, England has increasingly been presented as a reference point in education debates elsewhere. Think of the emphasis on a knowledge-rich curriculum, or more recently, renewed attention to behaviour in the classroom. That makes it worth asking not only what England does, but also how England – and other systems – think about professionalism, quality, and what counts as a “good teacher”.
That is exactly what a recent comparative study by Ahmad Yahya Aseery on teacher standards in so-called top-performing systems sets out to explore. One clarification is important from the outset. The study does not tell us what a good teacher is. It shows how different education systems officially define this. On paper. In standards, frameworks, and policy documents.
At first glance, those definitions look remarkably similar. Across systems, we see references to subject knowledge, pedagogy, assessment, professional development, and ethics. That is reassuring. It suggests broad agreement. But on closer inspection, the same words often turn out to tell very different stories.
Take the term pedagogy. Yes, a hobbyhorse of this educationalist. In this comparison, the authors primarily use pedagogy to describe lesson design, instruction, classroom management, and differentiation. In practice, they treat it as didactics: the organisation and steering of learning processes. By doing so, they push a broader understanding of pedagogy to the margins. The educational relationship, normative judgement, questions of authority, formation, and responsibility receive far less attention. These dimensions are either relocated to a separate ethical domain or disappear from view altogether. This shift is not a neutral matter of wording, but a substantive choice about what counts as professional practice.
Seen in that light, the English model takes on a very specific shape. Policy defines the good teacher first and foremost in terms of responsibility and control. Standards spell out expectations in detail and tie professionalism closely to measurable progress and behaviour. To be professional, in this model, means to show that what you do works. The logic is coherent. At the same time, it rests on an underlying assumption of mistrust, one that only recedes once teachers have repeatedly demonstrated compliance and effectiveness.
Other systems included in the comparison start from a different premise. In Finland, Scotland, or New Zealand, the emphasis is much more on professional judgement, collective responsibility, and ethics. There, the good teacher is not an implementer of standards, but someone expected to apply them wisely, to question them, and sometimes even to reinterpret them. Less ticking boxes, more trust. And strikingly, in these contexts, pedagogy remains more closely connected to formation and responsibility, not just to instruction.
What this study ultimately makes clear is that such standards are never neutral. They not only describe what a good teacher does, but also who a good teacher is allowed to be. That makes them inherently normative choices, not merely technical ones.