Presentation
Lifting the Status of Teaching
Australian Council for Educational Research
(2018)
Abstract
This is a submission to the 2019 Parliamentary Inquiry into the Status of Teaching in Australia
A major threat to the status of teaching and the future quality of Australia’s education system is the recent and current failure to address the recruitment problem. Compared with high- achieving countries, Australia’s arrangements for assuring the attractiveness of teaching as a career and the quality of future teachers are weak. Concerted and broad-based policies designed to lift the status of teaching and ensure that sufficient numbers of academically successful students are recruited to meet the growing demand should be a national priority.
Australia’s governments must meet their responsibility to ensure that teaching is an attractive profession that can compete with other professions for the best graduates and ensure that all entrants to teacher education are ready to cope successfully with a demanding professional preparation program. This means that salaries and career opportunities for teachers who attain high standards will have to rise substantially. This, however, will only gain the necessary long term government and public support if the profession meets its responsibility to provide a rigorous national system for identifying and certifying teachers who attain high standards of practice.
Keywords
- Status of teaching,
- teacher recruitment,
- teacher selection,
- Teaching profession,
- Parliamentary inquiry,
- education policy
Disciplines
Publication Date
2018
Location
Camberwell, Melbourne, Australia
Comments
This is a submission to the 2019 Parliamentary Inquiry into the Status of Teaching in Australia
Terms of Reference
The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training will inquire into and report on the status of the teaching profession, considering opportunities to improve outcomes in a range of areas including:
1. Increasing the attractiveness of the profession for teachers and principals, including workplace conditions, and career and leadership structures.
2. Provision of appropriate support platforms for teachers, including human and IT resources.
3. Identifying ways in which the burden of out-of-hours, at-home work can be reduced.
4. Investigating ways to increase retention rates for the teaching profession, and avoid ‘burn out’ among early-career teachers.
Citation Information
Ingvarson, L.C. (2018). Lifting the Status of Teaching: A submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Status of Teaching in Australia. Camberwell, Vic.: Australian Council for Educational Research.