[Teaching assessment in recruitment of university teaching staff]

When a university teacher is recruited, should his capacity for teaching as well as his scientific maturity be evaluated? If this is the case, how must this assessment be carried out? With regard to the first question, despite the fact that present-day official requirements seem unclear and confusing, for some years now declarations from the Consensus Conference of the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) leave no doubt that assessment of teaching capacity should constitute a basic requisite for the appointment of teachers and their future career. The fifth declaration of WFME is quite clear about the need to train teachers to be educators and not only experts in their various disciplines, to ratify teaching capacities on par with capacities shown in biomedical research and medical practice. The WFME's recommendations, on the other hand, provide no useful elements for formulating the criteria by which to assess candidates' teaching capacities. The tables given therefore refer not to official documents, but to studies worked out by experts. In the first table regarding criteria for global assessment of candidates, it is easy to observe that teaching capacity is strongly penalized with respect to professional maturity. In the second grid, which is specific for teaching capacities, more precise criteria are suggested to characterize a teaching profile in various ways, such as finishing and updating experience in ateliers, familiarity with teaching instruments, use of articulated teaching methods and the possibility of assessment by students through questionnaires.