Good teachers, excellent teachers

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.