THE nation’s elite universities warn that Australia is at risk of training a generation of ”toxic teachers” who will pass their own deficiencies at school on to their students.
The executive director of the Group of Eight research-focused universities, Michael Gallagher, said Australia was ”at risk of producing a cohort of ”toxic teachers”.
”The next generation of teachers is being drawn from this pool” of people ”who have themselves not been very successful at school,” he said.
Much of the growth in teaching enrolments since 2007 has come from school leavers with scores in the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) range of 50 to 70, prompting the NSW Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, to start a debate about minimum education standards for teachers. At present, some 20 per cent of teaching enrolments have an ATAR of less than 60.
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The Australian Catholic University vice chancellor, Greg Craven, however, has warned any attempt to set minimum standards for entry into teaching courses, such as an ATAR of 70, would be an attack on universities’ independence and encounter stiff resistance. He accused the NSW government of dishonesty, hypocrisy, cowardice and blame shifting in its effort to start a debate about teaching standards.
In a speech to be delivered at the National Press Club today, Professor Craven will criticise Mr Piccoli’s July discussion paper, Great Teaching, Inspired Learning, for fudging the figures around the demand for permanent teachers, lamenting teacher quality while paying them so little, failing to confront teacher unions over work practices that protect low performance, and attempting to shift blame to universities.
Professor Craven takes particular issue with the assertion that NSW has ”a gross oversupply” of teachers.
The NSW discussion paper says although about 5500 teachers graduate each year, only 300 to 500 of them are employed in permanent positions by the NSW Education Department.
This not only omits teachers employed in the large Catholic and independent school systems but hides the reality that ”the department itself deliberately has casualised its workforce, so new teachers overwhelmingly go into ‘casual positions’ that actually may be full time”, Professor Craven said.
About 30,000 casual teachers deliver about 2 million days of teaching in NSW a year.
He said ATAR scores were skewed against people from low socio-economic backgrounds and failed to predict success at university.
”What really matters is the quality of a student once they have completed their university degree, not when they enter it … Trying to determine who should be a teacher on the basis of adolescent school marks rather than practical and theoretical training received during their course is like selecting the Australian cricket team on school batting averages while ignoring Sheffield Shield innings”, Professor Craven said.
The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maurie Mulheron, said: ”You can’t talk about high teaching standards and professional respect at the same time you are pulling $1.7 billion out of public education”.
via ‘Toxic teacher’ warning as debate rages on lifting uni entry marks.
I don’t think we should base teachers on their school marks, universities change people and you learn a lot more with hands on experience. On the other hand, I hear stories of terrible teachers and I wonder how they slip through the system before someone notices.
Society and media have for a significant numbers been neagtive towards the teaching profession. Look at the ridicule made of teachers by social media. Governments do want to pay anappropriate renumeration for what has been a very committed profession over the generations. You get what you pay for in this day and age. Experienced older teachers simply smile at the foolishness of some of the evidence being presented to base education delivery upon.
I believe the TER score for potential student teachers should be a minimum of 70, making it more competitive as with other professional courses, and eliminating incompetent students. Every state has such a surplus of teaching graduates that many give up contract work after 5 years or so in despair of gaining livable employment. I would like to see all state Education Depts. challenged on the ratio of available teachers to positions required, and how many stop applying for contract work. I would also like to see all Unis challenged about lowering TER scores so that their teaching staff do not lose their jobs, yet know full well many of their graduates will never gain employment. I gave up contract teaching after 12 years, as have so many others. Val
Renumeration and job security are go very big issues everywhere at present in Education. Governments want more yet are determined to pay less for teachers. What don’t the politicians get about the current under paid and over worked generation of teachers. A significant number of politicians from all sides of parliament are ex-teachers, so why do they continue to bully and talk down the profession?