When teaching students / training trainees in a professionally oriented college or university context, a very key element is needed in instructor, teacher or trainer profile: professional knowing & doing as well as having a sense of belonging to a either a hybrid or sole disciplinary area. The most distinguished/ golden rule is when the teacher, trainer or instructor succeeds in transferring the doing and knowing of the profession to the students....including developing the corresponding identify ( or what is referred to in education literature with self-concept). Of course , students can not make sense of the new knowledge and practice since they have never been exposed to the environment yet unless they did so via internship or occasional access.
Nowadays , many programs in academia claim to provide future/practitioners/ professionals ( as they say) and this creates a certain type of misalignment in terms of existing human resources and needed outcomes in the program. This is due to the lack of such pertinent profiles. The victim in this operation is, of course, the student and the institutions image/ brand name......on along term. Therefore, quality and supervision of instructor profile and competencies becomes necessary to guarantee a decent level quality of education and assure parents and society alike of the serious and relevant mission of the institution. In a public university context, this remains a far reached outcome, at least in most of intuitions. In the private Higher Ed sector, the objective can be reached and fulfilled to a certain level. Parents want to ensure that clear mechanisms ( pedagogical & professional) need to be in place to make sense of their investments, an that it should be fair.
Last, the ache's heal is in the human factor ( faculty, instructor, student, parents) and not in the object ( content, courses, assessments...etc). For example, investing in humans intervening in the educational contexts and set criteria for them to practice the profession ( even at private sector level) is a fundamental requirement to ensure quality in education. You cannot provide ' transitioning solutions' that could ruin the face value of the intuition - even if you do so temporarily. It is risky. It belittles from the good standing of the institution in place. Brining in an academic or 'someone in the team' to do the temporary task, although not qualified to do so, may impact negatively on students and minimize from their motivation towards learning and may change their perception towards the entire department/institution.
The above reflections has application in translation & interpreting programs, especially those oriented towards developing professional and market oriented competencies without neglecting or sidelining the academic component( the practical/less abstract and transferable skills and abilities)
Fouad
