7. The De-Professionalization of Teaching. In Uganda, teachers are provided with such detailed instructions of what should happen in every classroom at every grade for every school for every minute. So specific are the instructions, that they include pauses, questions to ask and comments to make on the specific answers that may be given. It is an example of governments assuming that the teacher is mindless and not able to make their own decisions - in this case, the Government commissioned Bridge International Academies (supported by the World Bank, Pearson International, Gates Foundation and the Zuckerberg Foundation) to develop these resources for their schools. Other Governments are not as blunt and direct - they crowd out the work of the teacher with over-burdened curriculum, assessment activities, reporting (now quickly becoming a daily activity - another feature of datafication), required professional development and accountabilities. The art of teaching and, most importantly, the ability to make judgements about what to teach, when and to whom is being lost in the pursuit of "standards". Professor Richard Milner, the Helen Faison Endowed Chair of Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh, looked closely at the issue of de-professionalization in a policy brief he wrote for National Education Policy Centre. He grouped teacher de-professionalizing activities into three broad categories: (1) alternative (fast-track or no-track) teacher preparation and licensure; (2) the adoption of policies that evaluate teachers based on students' test score gains, and specifically, those based on value-added assessment; and (3) scripted, narrowed curricula. The first two of these were mentioned above, and the third is a natural consequence of the first two. In many jurisdictions (US, England, Australia) these tendencies and others are making being a teacher a challenge and making substitution by both unqualified persons and technology more likely.

Recently, Fareed Zacharia raised this issue in his CNN broadcast GPS. His focus was on the changing perception of teachers in the community: once a role model and thought leaders, highly respected in the community, they are now seen as being more like technicians delivering programs designed by others supported by technology which they had no role in designing. It is makes it more difficult for them to be effective as teachers exercising professional judgement when this is the case.