The impact of initial teacher education quality on secondary school leavers’ learning achievement

Introduction. The article presents an analysis of the results of an empirical study on the problem of ensuring the quality of general secondary education. The purpose of the article is to identify the influence of teacher education quality on the effectiveness of secondary education. Materials and Methods. The empirical study was carried out using the document analysis method. Research data were collected from school websites in the Altai Krai (the Russian Federation). The criteria for selecting schools were the maximum and minimum Unified State Examination scores of school leavers in 2018. The authors analyzed the teaching staff of schools according to the criteria of their qualification (degree) and continuing professional development. The authors analyzed the types of degrees completed by teachers in order to identify correlations between teachers’ academic degrees and school leavers’ Unified State Examination minimum and maximum scores. A comparative method was used to compare the influence of teachers, who have academic degrees in Education from Pedagogical universities with that of teachers who completed degrees in any other fields, on learning achievement of their students. Results. The article reveals the impact of initial teacher education on the effectiveness of secondary general education. The authors emphasized the role of degrees in Education from the regional pedagogical university in getting maximum and minimum exam scores by school leavers. The influence of initial teacher education on school leavers’ learning outcomes in different districts of the Altai Krai is compared. The article provides recommendations on the effective use of the potential of a pedagogical university in ensuring the quality of secondary education in the region. Conclusions. The study revealed the correlation between the type of initial teacher education and school leavers’ learning outcomes. The positive role of teacher education in ensuring the quality of secondary education has been proved. Keywords