See below.
So now the government has made it official - education courses aren't attracting 'clever young people' anymore, and entry scores are going to be raised to filter out the 'not-so-clever' people.
I understand that entry scores reflect demand, but with the alleged low quality of teachers coming through the system, it seems as if the low entry scores have also been attracting large numbers of students who aren't doing so well in high school, at uni, and subsequently in the workforce.
I don't get how raising the entry scores and thereby reducing the intake of students will solve the teacher shortage in Australia though, even if they believe it will filter out the less desirable students.
--
New benchmarks for teacher courses
* Farrah Tomazin
* June 12, 2008
UNIVERSITY teaching courses will be required to meet tough new national standards under a landmark agreement by state and federal governments to boost the quality of teachers in schools.
Education ministers discussed the idea during a telephone conference yesterday, amid growing public concerns that too many teachers are graduating ill equipped to deal with life in the classroom.
Under the changes, all Australian university teacher training courses will, for the first time, be forced to meet a set of national benchmarks in order to be accredited. The benchmarks will be established by a national body, rather than the current system, in which courses are regulated by state authorities.
Victorian Education Minister Bronwyn Pike, who pushed for change at yesterday's meeting, said the shift would alleviate an existing problem, whereby teachers who train in one particular state aren't always qualified to work in another because of the lack of consistency in the accreditation of courses and the registration of teachers.
The push to improve the quality of teacher training comes after years of concern from politicians and educators about the low entry levels for education degrees and the quality of such courses. In a damning assessment of the state of the teaching profession, a Senate committee report last year said teaching no longer attracted the same proportion of "clever young people" as it did 40 years ago and recommended all high school teachers should obtain an arts or science degree before studying education.
A union survey of 2000 teachers released this year also called for government intervention, after finding most new public school teachers felt they were inadequately trained to deal with classroom demands, abusive parents or difficult colleagues.
"This will provide an opportunity … for us to establish a national framework that will pick the eyes out of what works best in the system," Ms Pike told The Age last night.
Sue Willis, president of the Australian Council of Deans of Education, said the proposal was a long-awaited reform that would help tackle teacher shortages. "It would mean that if a person studied at an accredited course in the Northern Territory, they would be eligible to apply for a job in Victoria," Professor Willis said.
Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said part of the problem was that universities were so cash-strapped due to years of underfunding, the practical experience offered to student teachers had suffered.
Australian Secondary Principals Association president Andrew Blair said that, at present, teacher quality varied between states.
"The job of teachers is becoming more and more complex. Unless you get the right kind of training programs, the graduates are going to find it fairly hard to cope once they enter the classroom," he said.
Yesterday's ministerial conference was the first time an agreement had been reached to develop a new teacher-training model. The changes will be gradually brought in from next year.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/new-benchmarks-for-teacher-courses-20080611-2p4v.html
