An education expert has suggested that universities that do not have high-quality teaching degrees should face sanctions.
Adam Voight, founder and CEO of Real Schools, an innovative mentoring and coaching program designed for school leaders, said there needs to be a fundamental shift at the university level on how students learn and how they are taught rather than the curriculum.
Speaking to Melbourne’s Radio 3AW on Thursday, he said it is common to hear graduate teachers complaining about how much they do not learn from their teaching degrees.
“It’s something that’s been happening for a long time now; graduate teachers arrive in schools and tell us they learned a lot more about teaching in their first term of teaching than they did in their three or four years of university,” he said.
Mr. Voight suggested that teaching courses can have subjects that are focused on great pedagogy or about handling classroom disruptions.
“Classrooms these days are far more divergent, a lot of neurodiversity, a lot of trauma and anxiety,” he added.
More Teachers Needed
Mr. Voight noted that to deal with supply issues in the teacher workforce, the sector needs to have more young people coming in.“So what we need to do is to make teaching a really attractive option for young people,” he said.
“We need to support them as they do their degree to make sure that it’s relevant, and we need to support them enough, particularly in those first five years of teaching, to make sure that they get up they get a lot of help. So they stay in the profession.”
He also noted that for too long, teaching undergraduates had been taught by people who’ve not been “really successful classroom practitioners or people who, for instance, might be experts in science.”
“That’s something completely different. So we need a new level of expertise at universities. It’s about how you actually do teaching and not just the curriculum,” Mr. Voight said.
In March, a panel of experts recommended Australia revamp its approach to developing its future supply of teachers by including higher entry requirements, a return to explicit teaching instruction, and more support for mid-career transition to teaching.
“Teaching is a tough job, and it is increasingly demanding—but it can also be incredibly valuable and rewarding,” Mr. Scott said.
“We have to work together across the country to improve conditions for teachers and raise standards for students.
“Initial teacher education can play a significant role in making sure our future teachers are properly prepared for the classroom and that they are spending time on the things that matter most.”
An analysis of graduate outcomes from the Department of Education shows that higher ATAR students are more likely to go on to become employed as teachers.
Currently, ATAR requirements for an undergraduate degree in education can go as low as 40.
