NEXT STEPS: Report of the Quality Initial Teacher Education Review
Recently the Australian government released the final report of the Quality Initial Teacher Education Review, Next Steps: Report of the Quality Initial Teacher Education Review which is more than worth the time to read it. The goal of the report is to come up with recommendations to alleviate teacher workforce shortages such that more highly suitable people will want to become teachers, teachers will be better prepared in the skills they need to make the most difference to students’ learning, and they will be more supported as they move into the classroom.
What follows are the recommendations as presented in the Executive Summary.
Everyone the Expert Panel heard from called for the status of teaching to rise. The Expert Panel agrees and recommends a national recruitment campaign. It should feature expert teachers and celebrate the positives of teaching and debunk negative myths. The Expert Panel hopes teachers will be more frequently awarded Honours in the Order of Australia for their unparalleled contribution to our children’s learning (Recommendation 1).
The best evidence should be used to select candidates into ITE who are most likely to succeed in helping their students’ learning grow. Research shows prior academic achievement is a strong indicator of success. In addition, there are some robust tested instruments that measure academic prowess and personal characteristics. Rigorous selection was recommended by the TEMAG Review and remains a first-order priority.
The Expert Panel were delighted to find through the commissioned work, that given the right incentives, more high-achieving school leavers and mid-career professionals would consider teaching than now. The Expert Panel recommends incentives be offered to these groups and to people in regional, rural and remote locations, people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse backgrounds and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to attract them to teach (Recommendation 2).
It was made crystal clear to the Expert Panel that a significant barrier to well-qualified mid-career professionals taking up teaching is the loss of earnings whilst studying teaching. The Expert Panel recommends funding to support employment-based pathways into teaching and that recognition of prior learning be reformed urgently. The Expert Panel considers that for highly qualified candidates with strong subject knowledge, the Graduate Diploma might be sufficient preparation for teaching in secondary schools (Recommendation 5).
The Expert Panel recommends a fund be established that supports innovative employment-based pathways (Recommendation 6).
Teachers should be able to focus on teaching. The profession will be more attractive to new candidates if the burden of red tape is removed from teachers’ workloads and the Expert Panel recommends an audit (Recommendation 3).
The Expert Panel were disappointed to find limited career advice resources promoting teaching as a career and recommends this gap be filled (Recommendation 4).
Families and carers are the key partners with teachers in their children’s learning and the Expert Panel recommends more resources be created for families and carers to understand what teaching best practice looks like (Recommendation 9).
The Expert Panel strongly recommends the Australian Government create a Centre for Excellence in ITE. The Centre for Excellence would be a model for evidence-based ITE and for research into which elements of selecting ITE students, preparing them and supporting them once in the classroom best contribute to students’ learning (Recommendation 14).
The Expert Panel heard loud and clear from teachers that many had felt underprepared by their ITE program for the practical aspects of teaching including phonemic awareness and phonics in teaching reading, classroom management, cultural responsiveness, supporting diverse learners and students with a disability, working with families and carers and working in regional settings.
One way to ensure ITE students are classroom ready is to strengthen the link between practice and theory. If higher education providers prioritise recent practical experience for academic staff in ITE programs, there is an assurance that these programs will be guided by the most up-to-date teaching practices.
Accordingly, the Expert Panel recommends higher education providers publicly report the proportion of academic staff who have recent teaching experience (Recommendation 13).
The Expert Panel recommends that the Accreditation of Initial Teacher Education Programs in Australia: Standards and Procedures be made more specific in a manner similar to the United Kingdom’s Initial Teacher Training (ITT): Core Content Framework, so ITE students better understand what is being asked of them (Recommendation 7).
The Expert Panel heard overwhelmingly, support for the Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA), which was a flagship reform arising from the TEMAG Review. The Expert Panel recommends strengthening the TPAs by setting up a board with authority to approve TPAs and undertake national standard-setting, moderation and comparability. Higher education providers should only be allowed three attempts at a TPA. The two most widely used TPAs should be funded to support their efforts (Recommendation 10).
The Expert Panel heard of the cost and time burden students can face if they find they are not suited for teaching late in the degree or even when they start teaching.
The Expert Panel recommends that the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE) be available before students start their degree and required in the first year. Culturally and Linguistically Diverse candidates or those who face other disadvantages should be offered foundation courses before they begin their degree. ITE students should be offered experience in schools in their first year of study and short courses should be offered so students can explore teaching without committing to a full degree (Recommendation 11).
Because the Expert Panel sees teaching as a key national priority, the Expert Panel recommends strengthening the link between the quality of ITE and its funding. The Expert Panel suggests these recommendations be phased in to provide a clear incentive for higher education providers to offer evidence‑based and practical ITE.
The Expert Panel recommends developing a measure for ITE courses that enables performance-based assessments of their programs against quality and other relevant factors. Development of these performance measures should be guided by a new national body or expert group.
Performance by higher education providers should be made transparent amongst providers and then made public. Then, funding for ITE should be based on performance. Funding could also be tendered to higher education providers that meet quality criteria (Recommendation 15).
Teacher employers should also have clear incentives to reinforce best practice. The Expert Panel recommends new funding to reward schools, groups of schools, systems, employers and higher education providers in best practice teaching particularly evidence-based approaches to the teaching of reading (Recommendation 8).
In addition, state and territory teacher employers should be required, through the next National School Reform Agreement, to demonstrate the evidence-based teaching of reading, partnerships with higher education providers, data on student achievement linked to ITE programs and reforms to Teacher Regulatory Authorities to improve transparency, and to require LANTITE to be passed in the first year of an ITE course (Recommendation 12).
Once teachers reach the classroom, the Expert Panel heard clearly that they value effective mentors. The Expert Panel recommends developing an agreed set of national standards to set the bar for mentoring early career teachers (Recommendation 16).
While most of these recommendations will help address teacher shortages, the Expert Panel found significant variability between jurisdictions and sectors in the quality of data available to understand teacher workforce supply and demand.
The Expert Panel recommends a national model of teacher supply and demand be developed to support a sustainable pipeline of high-quality teachers in the right subject areas and locations. It should use the Australian Teacher Workforce Data collection as a basis, fill data gaps and model ITE data as a component of a broader teacher workforce model. Such a national model should be easily accessible to higher education providers, systems, employers and schools (Recommendation 17).
While all countries differ, I feel that what this report presents can – in general be applied in most countries. I hope, specifically, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in the Netherlands takes a good look at this an draws some conclusions from it. It’s not too late, but it’s getting there!
Report as Word document here
Report as PDF here
One pager as Word document here
One pager as PDF here
