The unfortunately acronymed QITER has questions for teacher education faculties
Back in March Education Minister Alan Tudge announced the Quality Initial Teacher Education Review to look “at the next evolution of reforms to teacher education” (CMM March 12).
And now the minister’s expert panel has issued a discussion paper setting out issues including;
* attracting high-quality candidates to interim teacher education: “the proportion of young high-achievers (students aged 20 and under with an ATAR of 80 or more) choosing teaching has declined by nearly a third from 2006 to 2019”
* six-year completion rates for ITE courses were down 12 per cent over 2005-14, compared to 4 per cent for all fields of study. ITE completion rates vary from 34 per cent to 73 per cent across providers. The range for first-year attrition is 11 per cent to 45 per cent
* the range by institution of ITE students passing the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education is 76 per cent – 99 per cent (literacy) and 79 per cent – 98 psr cent (numeracy)
* there is no national supply and demand model for teachers by discipline and geography
* institutions providing teacher performance assessments, (“a robust assessment of graduates to ensure classroom readiness”. After six years eight ITE providers do not have an endorsed assessment
QITER will build on the work of Christopher Pyne’s Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group chaired by then Australian Catholic U VC, Greg Craven.
In 2015 Professor Craven and colleagues politely slammed unnamed teacher education providers, suggesting not all of them, “are equipping graduates with the content knowledge, evidence-based teaching strategies and skills they need to respond to different student learning needs.
Initial teacher education providers are not rigorously or consistently assessing the classroom readiness of their pre-service teachers against the Professional Standards,” (CMM February 13 2015).
TEMAG presented 38 proposals, over half focused on teacher education in universities.