Anonymous #353

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #353

Where are you located?

Queensland

What type of area do you live in?

Metropolitan

Are you an education professional?
(e.g. teacher, school leader, learning support assistant, teacher’s aide)

Yes

Which sector do you work in?

teacher education and professional development

What is your occupation?

Teacher

Elevating the profession

The actions proposed recognise the value teachers bring to students, communities and the economy.

Somewhat agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

I agree with all of the actions proposed.

However, it is difficult for teachers to see themselves as valued while their salaries remain the same for most of their teaching careers. In the past, the only way to gain a salaries increase was to move into administration, and in spite of the monies spent on leadership and administration programs, there has been no improvement in student learning, as measured by Naplan and PISA.

Secondly, I believe that there has been too little of an emphasis on improving the teaching of curriculum content, and the heavy focus in this report on IT leaves me concerned. If that IT emphasis were to be founded upon the content knowledge of the key learning areas, and about the teaching of content and the ways in which knowledge is conveyed in spoken and written language and in the symbol systems of mathematics, music and art, I would be more comfortable.

Thirdly, university lecturers are not promoted on the basis of their value as teachers. Promotion is offered primarily for research, and with all of the research that is now available, there is no evidence of any improvement in student learning as measured by Naplan and PISA.

Fourthly, university courses in preservice education are seriously deficient in content to be taught in schools, and contact between university students and actual classrooms is limited. There is no system that places uni students o practicum with the best classroom teachers, as once happened under the demonstration schools model.

To summarise those last two paragraphs, teaching itself is not valued by the administration systems in universities.
There are wonderful and highly qualified and experienced teachers in schools who could make a difference in preservice teacher education, but they are employed in unis at lower salaries and only on contracts. The message on this dimension and many others is that university training of teachers does not value teaching. And nobody has researched the question of how teachers are valued and how teaching is valued within its own institutions.

Improving teacher supply

The actions proposed will be effective in increasing the number of students entering ITE, number of students completing ITE and the number of teachers staying in and/or returning to the profession.

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

The universities are not in a position to provide the number and quality of lecturers to meet the demands set. For more than 40 years, the lecturer-student ratio has blown out. In my own experience, between 1980 and 2002 from one actually-teaching staff member to 15-20 students to more than 40 students. That ratio is still as bad in 2022.

Prior to 1991, the teaching hours totalled about 1800 hours in a three-year course. After 1995, the teaching hours totalled 1140 at most in a four-year course. The practicum had been cut from 120 days in three years to 90 in four years.

In too many preservice or ITE curses, students do not attend practicum until their third year. This suits university funding where government funds for non-finishing students is maintained after two years. The emphasis in ITE is not upon whether students actually want to teach and are suitable for teaching, something that would be understood if practicum started in the first semester of an ITE program.

Finally, there is a serious staffing problem in universities. And research into the current effectiveness of ITE is missing. Perhaps such research is not necessary because schools now have teaching mentors and assistance programs for graduates because the quality of ITE is already judged to be deficient in some universities, and within programs within most universities.

The Quality ITE review and the WAPW group is something that will be useless unless it addresses the quality of the teaching staff in ITE programs. Universities have consistently reduced staffing levels and have not valued teaching itself. These dimensions of ITE need to be addressed.

Strengthening Initial Teacher Education (ITE)

The actions proposed will ensure initial teacher education supports teacher supply and quality.

Neither agree nor disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

I need to see what is proposed.
So far there are wishes, and these are insufficiently specific.
Governments are going to have to provide the funds for increasing staffing levels, and those teachers have to be great teachers.
But my own experience of universities is that teaching is not valued, and that assessment still applies.
To continue with ITE without addressing staffing, quality of teaching by individual staff members, and promotion of teaching, that is the actual valuing of teaching itself, then all of the proposals are not of value.

And the 1998 statement by Barry McGraw that literacy and numeracy be tested before teachers can graduate was never addressed seriously by universities. Foundation courses were offered, but initial testing of individual student needs in each area was not undertaken. I had to provide unpaid and unacknowledged tutoring assistance to help students, and in some instances, not my own students.

The fact that you are still addressing this matter in 2022, nearly a quarter of a century later, is testament to the failure of ITE in Australian universities.

Maximising the time to teach

The actions proposed will improve retention and free up teachers to focus on teaching and collaboration.

Somewhat agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

All good ideas.
I wait to see what the actual outcome will be.

And what are the specific steps and programs to raise the quality and availability of experienced and great teachers in remote areas?

And the up-to-date quality-assured curriculum and assessment materials in C2C have not produced improvements i student learning outcomes. The research of C2C should address the methods used for assessing the quality assurance.

I evaluated the Year 12 English syllabus for the then QSA in 2010. The measure of effectiveness used by the English panel of QSA was deficient then.

And C2C was never evaluated by an oversight panel or group from start to finish. The process of its development was expensively haphazard. By the way, the source of the information about oversight was the then Minister foe Education and the the DG when I asked the question.

Better understanding future teacher workforce needs

How effective are the proposed actions in better understanding future teacher workforce needs, including the number of teachers required?

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

I support any measure that values teaching and teachers.

I am one of the most highly qualified and widely and highly experienced teachers in this country.
My quality as a teacher has been recognised, but never with salary increase or promotion.

It is no statement of value to be told that one is a gifted teacher and would be wasted in administration, and to have the following question about salary increases ignored.

Better career pathways to support and retain teachers in the profession

The proposed actions will improve career pathways, including through streamlining the process for Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher (HALT) accreditation, and providing better professional support for teachers to retain them in the profession.

Somewhat agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Again, I live in hope that future teachers will be valued in terms of material substance and professional realism, because that is not my experience.

But I have grave reservations that the current ITE operations in universities will provide a good start. Teaching is first, must be substantially recognised and valued in real terms and means, and good and great teachers supported.

In case you lose my contact.

[REDACTED]
[REDACTED] Senior writer of more than 20 textbooks published by commercial publishers

And currently, four publishers want me to write texts on the teaching of writing, grammar and English literacy.