Reflections on teacher education

In February 2014, the Federal Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, appointed a Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) to make recommendations on how initial teacher education in Australia could be improved. Their report, Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers, was released in February 2015, together with a response from the Australian Government. Policies to improve teacher education outcomes need to assure quality at three stages: 1. Recruitment: The quality of students attracted to teaching and the match between supply and demand 2. Accreditation: The quality of teacher education programs and their graduates 3. Induction and registration: The quality of training and support during the induction period and the rigour of the registration assessment. TEMAG’s brief focused only on the second stage, consistent with the fact that, while the Commonwealth is responsible for higher education, state and territory governments and other employing authorities are responsible for matters such as salaries, conditions of work, induction and registration. However, these three stages are highly inter-dependent and reform efforts need to focus on integrating all three. High achieving countries with high quality teacher education graduates have strong quality assurance policies at all three stages.