Good teachers, excellent teachers

Lawrence Ingvarson, ACER

Abstract

There is widespread agreement that Australia needs to place greater value on teachers’ work. Simply paying teachers more will not achieve this. There is a considerable level of public support currently for significantly improved salaries and working conditions for teachers, but that support will be conditional on guarantees of quality teaching and learning. A rigorous profession-wide certification system is the best way of assuring the public that improved salaries for accomplished teachers will be linked to high standards of performance. Most professions have a standards-based assessment system for providing certification to members who want to show they have met higher standards of performance. This is a valuable service to employers as well. Teaching is almost alone among the professions in not having such a system.