Greg Craven was wearing two hats to one purpose when he defended teacher education in a Canberra speech on Tuesday.

Hat One was as VC of the Australian Catholic U, which has 7500 teacher education students. Hat Two was that of chair of the teacher education ministerial advisory group, which reported in 2015, to then minister Chris Pyne.

His purpose was to warn that arguments for escalated ATARs for teaching courses take attention away from the already in-place answer to the teacher quality question.

For a start, the ATAR is not the selection basis for 75 per cent of teacher education entrants, he said. And it has sod-all to do with what initial teacher education graduates can do when they complete their degrees.

But the TEMAG reforms do. TEMAG did not let education faculties off lightly, in fact it demanded change on 20 or so issues ( CMM February 13 2015), notably teaching graduates having to pass performance tests before they can be registered for classrooms. And three years on TEMAG’s work is rolling out.

“The ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ of teaching quality has already been found. It is being implemented. Our job now is to keep pushing, to ensure that everyone involved meets their commitments, in full and on time,” Professor Craven said.