'Your country needs you!' It's high time for a drive to recruit better teachers |OPINION
Australia needs a national teacher recruitment strategy. It is just plain strange that we don’t already have one; most countries do. Lord Kitchener’s famous poster-line – "Your country needs you!" – springs to mind because this drive has to have the same sense of urgency as any wartime campaign.
Transparency on academic standards is poor. Of those entering undergraduate programs via secondary education, almost 60 per cent come from below the 50th percentile or without their ATAR being recorded.And within the limited data available it is clear that the proportion of high-performing students has dropped dramatically. There are increasing numbers from the low-ATAR brackets. In 2006, there were 57 who had entered teaching with an ATAR less than 50.
All that we know about human learning and development acknowledges the importance of student-teacher interactions; and if these are diminished we will pay the price in terms of learning outcomes, socio-emotional development and wellbeing.
Importantly, such a strategy should also include public education and media campaigning. Recent research suggests we need better top-end pay to attract high achievers into teaching. We should go further and offer HECS-free scholarships for teaching degrees. After all, that worked for many decades in the past.One thing is for certain, admission to teaching degrees requires careful monitoring.
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