Coalition ‘alarmed’ after students with Atars as low as 17.9 accepted into teaching (1 Viewer)

BLIT2014

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Simon Birmingham says unis should only admit students likely to pass government’s literacy and numeracy test


Students with dismally poor high school results are being accepted into university teaching courses, setting off alarm bells about the quality of some Australian educators.

The university sector, however, says low scores do not tell a student’s full story and only represent a tiny number of teaching admissions.

Figures released to a Senate inquiry show one student was accepted to a teaching course at a Victorian uni in 2018 with a score of 17.9 out of a possible 99.95, while the lowest score accepted at another institution was 22.1.


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The federal education minister, Simon Birmingham, said Australians rightly expected that school students were taught by the best and, while scores were not everything, the data was alarming.

“Our kids deserve no less than high-quality teachers, with high-quality skills,” he told reporters on Sunday.

Birmingham said the commonwealth, unlike state and territory governments, does not have the power to set minimum entry scores. But it has introduced a literacy and numeracy test that teaching graduates must sit to confirm they have skills in the top 30%.

He urged universities to only admit students likely to pass the test, and asked states and territories to ensure the testing is implemented.

The Australian Education Union president, Correna Haythorpe, said a test at the end of a degree was “the wrong way around”.

“You actually need to know before a person goes into a course whether they have those issues,” she said.

Haythorpe said educators wanted the federal government to take the lead on introducing minimum teaching entry scores.

“There needs to be accountability mechanisms built in as well, so that universities don’t use backdoor approaches,” Haythorpe said.


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Victorian institutions accepted the two lowest entry scores, despite the state government having introduced a minimum score for teaching courses of 65 in 2018, with plans to boost the benchmark to 70 in 2019.

The Victorian education minister, James Merlino, has ordered an urgent investigation of all university entry data to ensure the standards are adhered to.

The university sector has stressed that only 2% of teaching students had an entry score below 50.

The Universities Australia chief executive, Catriona Jackson, said the lowest scores were “extreme outliers”. She said the personal circumstances of those students were unknown and they may have suffered a tragedy in their final year of school.

“A young person who has lost a parent while trying to complete their final year of school, for example, shouldn’t be turned away from university,” she said.






Source https://www.theguardian.com/austral...th-atars-as-low-as-179-accepted-into-teaching
 

cosmo 2

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Re: Coalition ‘alarmed’ after students with Atars as low as 17.9 accepted into teachi

why sound the alarm just now

the universities have knowingly been creating a glut of unqualified or unemployable (in their fields of study) graduates for years now

universities should never have been anything other than pure research/academic institutions anyway, handing them the task of providing vocational training to students in the 80s was a retarded decision
 

astroman

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Re: Coalition ‘alarmed’ after students with Atars as low as 17.9 accepted into teachi

This news is nothing new, universities are no longer about providing a great education for students, instead they are money hungry and will do anything to get students in the door. I know a few people that got terrible ATARS <70 and are doing courses that had cut offs of 90+. It's all a BS scheme, unless a course is literally full to capacity, universities will find a way to get you in the door. I'm not sure if this applies for the top uni's, UNSW, USYD, etc. but for UTS, WSU, Macq it does happen. I'm honestly always wondering where the hell all these graduates are going to get jobs from. IIRC, the average graduate job now has about 50 people shortlisted, that is ridiculous. University was meant to be a differentiating factor that got you recognised as being a better candidate then others when job hunting, now it seems everyone and their dog has a degree.

Honestly, depending on your career aspirations, I'd say university isn't worth it. Nearly all jobs that you search for mention they require relevant experience OR a relevant tertiary qualification. Nowadays, employers don't care what you study, your degree is just a $50k piece of paper that gives you a ticket past HR. Heck I'd go as far as to say that TAFE diplomas/advanced diplomas are on par with modern degrees, if not better since they actually teach content.
 

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Re: Coalition ‘alarmed’ after students with Atars as low as 17.9 accepted into teachi

Teaching in a nutshell:

- Low paying
- Increasingly driven by casual/contract work
- Increasing demand being placed on teachers by an overcrowded curriculum increasingly driven by warring ideologies (left and right alike)

It's such a shock that it isnt attracting talented people. Teaching has always been a relatively low paying job, but in the past it attracted a lot of people who just wanted something chill and fairly secure. Nowadays it's none of those things, hence why people are deserting the profession. The government has to learn that in order to attract staff, you have to offer something attractive. Bowing to a stupid public on things such as pay AND conditions is a recipe for disaster.
 

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Re: Coalition ‘alarmed’ after students with Atars as low as 17.9 accepted into teachi

despite all that, teaching is still one of the better things to study compared to a lot of majors. it gets shit on but the outcomes for teaching students are not that bad. a lot still manage to find work in their relevant field. because australia's economy is essentially a growth ponzi scheme, "population" catering majors like nursing and teaching remain consistently in demand relative to the massive number of graduates being produced in these fields.

uni majors can be ranked into roughly three tiers; the high tier majors are those that typically provide a workplace certification, an actual qualification to work within a professional field. engineering , nursing, teaching, accounting and medicine all fit into this category. essentially these are passport degrees that give you access to practice work. they also provide specific vocational skills which can be applied immediately to one's job. they have the best outcomes of all majors. the second tier provide no or few vocational skills and no workplace certification but have some perception of usefulness amongst employers (however unwarranted), so you can often get a professionally relevant job with them if you've managed to acquire some sort of work experience or have good grades. business majors probably are the main category within this tier.

the final are the DOG SHIT tier, do not study these whatsover unless you have a specific reason for it: arts, science (esp "life sciences" like biology), physics, mathematics, psychology etc. except in specific circumstances (such as if you go on to study at higher levels) these fail both the criteria for a good major: they provide no professional certification or applicable skills, and are perceived as totally useless by employers. teaching is a mile high safer pick than any of this shit unless u really want to be one of those "cool" losers working as baristas at 35 with a degree in archaeology.

Honestly, depending on your career aspirations, I'd say university isn't worth it. Nearly all jobs that you search for mention they require relevant experience OR a relevant tertiary qualification. Nowadays, employers don't care what you study, your degree is just a $50k piece of paper that gives you a ticket past HR.
no way dude, major is really important in australia. its the single biggest variable for determining graduate success besides maybe work experience. a bachelor of business admin or whatever might be as dog shit in reality as an arts degree but they are perceived differently by workplaces, the former (might) be employable while the latter is significantly less so, all else equal. those are closer degrees of comparison however than say a nursing major's prospective outcomes relative to a biology majors -- the nursing major is more likely to be employed in their relevant field of work nearly 9 times out of 10 in that match-up. its not even close.
 
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Kolmias

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Re: Coalition ‘alarmed’ after students with Atars as low as 17.9 accepted into teachi

This news is nothing new, universities are no longer about providing a great education for students, instead they are money hungry and will do anything to get students in the door. I know a few people that got terrible ATARS <70 and are doing courses that had cut offs of 90+. It's all a BS scheme, unless a course is literally full to capacity, universities will find a way to get you in the door. I'm not sure if this applies for the top uni's, UNSW, USYD, etc. but for UTS, WSU, Macq it does happen. I'm honestly always wondering where the hell all these graduates are going to get jobs from. IIRC, the average graduate job now has about 50 people shortlisted, that is ridiculous. University was meant to be a differentiating factor that got you recognised as being a better candidate then others when job hunting, now it seems everyone and their dog has a degree.

Honestly, depending on your career aspirations, I'd say university isn't worth it. Nearly all jobs that you search for mention they require relevant experience OR a relevant tertiary qualification. Nowadays, employers don't care what you study, your degree is just a $50k piece of paper that gives you a ticket past HR. Heck I'd go as far as to say that TAFE diplomas/advanced diplomas are on par with modern degrees, if not better since they actually teach content.
This reeks of classism. The Labor Government wanted to give equality of opportunity to everyone regardless of their background. By opening university access, we have been able to get students of a low socioeconomic background tertiary educated and into the professions, allowing them to increase their socioeconomic status.

This Coalition Government is now so concerned about the quality of universities when since it's been in office even when it's been continually trying to gut the system and introduce unaffordable degrees. Under Gillard, deregulating university places forced graduates to actually have to work hard to get jobs. And this is the way it should be. We give poorer students the opportunity to succeed by creating a level playing field and businesses get higgher quality graduates as a result.

And if you think USyd and UNSW are such prestigious institutions you are absolutely and completely wrong. UNSW is a former technical college and was founded in the 50s. By a NSW Labor Government. I think they would be rolling over in their graves if they saw how elitist UNSW has become.

And USyd is a joke of a uni pretending to be the Oxford of Australia. It never is and the recent sex scandals show it's pigheaded arrogance swanning itself as it pretends to be something better then it actually is.

Anyone who thinks the Go8 are worthwhile for the 99% of g08 students who won't get anywhere near investment banking or MBB is full of shit. Other unis of a similar prestige provide similar opportunities. UTS, USyd, UNSW and Macquarie literally all have the same opportunities apart from IB and MBB.
 

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Re: Coalition ‘alarmed’ after students with Atars as low as 17.9 accepted into teachi

Well that explains a lot lmao

The two worst teachers I've ever had got an ATAR of 75 and another an ATAR of 84. (Bad teachers, but they're also really up themselves and annoying in personality)

The two best teachers I've ever had got an ATAR of 94 and another an ATAR of 92. (Good teachers, but also really nice, helpful people)
 
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brbstudying

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Re: Coalition ‘alarmed’ after students with Atars as low as 17.9 accepted into teachi

I think the ATAR requirement for teaching should be at least over 90, and they should also be paid a lot more (although this doesn't really apply to my school, cos it's a private school and the teachers get paid heaps so idk) But like the amount of times teachers at my school have contradicted themselves when teaching the content, or have gone against what state rankers have taught in those HSC lectures, or when they themselves have no clue what's going on that they have to consult the teacher next door, or when they teach the class the wrong definitions of words, really makes me wonder whether or not I'm in safe hands.

MIND you, the teacher who got a 75 ATAR is the Head of English. :/
 

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Re: Coalition ‘alarmed’ after students with Atars as low as 17.9 accepted into teachi

I'm not entirely sure if this is true or not, but a teacher once told me that there are thousands of people with qualifications in teaching on waiting lists for a full time job and apparently many don't get full time work until they're in their 30s or 40s. If this is the case, then most definitely the cutoff should be higher than it already is. ATAR scores should reflect job demand in my opinion, and if there are supposedly a lot more graduates with teaching degrees than there are jobs available, then they should restrict teaching to those who achieve the best. Of course, they should also consider those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds but come on, letting people with ATARs under 50 (or even 70 in my opinion) do teaching is kind of ridiculous unless they have had extraordinarily disadvantaged backgrounds and can prove they are capable of doing well.
 

cosmo 2

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Re: Coalition ‘alarmed’ after students with Atars as low as 17.9 accepted into teachi

Well that explains a lot lmao

The two worst teachers I've ever had got an ATAR of 75 and another an ATAR of 84. (Bad teachers, but they're also really up themselves and annoying in personality)

The two best teachers I've ever had got an ATAR of 94 and another an ATAR of 92. (Good teachers, but also really nice, helpful people)
how would U know your teachers atars lmao
 

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