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State governments look for answers on how to improve and retain good teachers

By Peter Gazy

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell’s controversial plan to raise the ATAR requirement for teacher training courses has been hotly debated in the media.

Under the NSW government’s model, prospective teachers would have to score 80 or more in at least three HSC subjects, one of them being English. Despite ACT not employing the HSC system, the logic behind the proposal could easily be applied to any state in the county; that is of course, assuming we want to introduce such measures.

This has been a very controversial move. Vice Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University Greg Craven protested against the proposal to boost ATAR requirements for teacher courses. He argued it would take away the independence of universities.

Part of a state government initiative aimed at improving teacher quality, Premier O’Farrell believes imposing tougher benchmarks for entry will raise the status of the profession, which would help to lure more people in.

In an article published in The Sydney Morning Herald on the 6th of March, O’Farrell said: “I think the fact that we’re seeking to raise standards, to raise the status of teaching, will encourage more people to enter the profession.”

The idea is based on the assumption that those who performed better in school will also make better teachers.

Principal of Hawker College Canberra Peter Sollis said the ATAR score is only a “point-in-time measurement”, and therefore does not give a particularly good representation of who will make a good teacher.

“By raising ATARs, you are obviously going to attract a higher achieving cohort,” said Mr Sollis.

“A high ATAR doesn’t necessarily mean you are a person that has the skills and propensity to be a really good teacher. You could have a person with a lower ATAR who could be an outstanding teacher.

“There should be other factors that need to be put in place on deciding who would come into teaching, as they do in medicine, so it’s not just the ATAR score they look at,” he said.

The bigger issue is how to lure more people into a profession that, according to Mr Sollis and the NSW premier, has lost some of its status.

Mr Sollis believes raising the remuneration of teachers would be a step in the right direction. The Victorian government wanted to introduce performance pay, but Premier Denis Napthine was recently forced to abandon it.

Mr Sollis argued that introducing performance-based pay into education is problematic, because it is difficult to define performance.

At present, teachers are remunerated on the basis of how long they have been teaching, not on their performance. This means that new and young teachers will naturally start at the lowest salary increment.

“In the first five years of teaching,” Mr Sollis said, “there is a lot of energy, a lot of time, you are highly committed, and you  do put extra time in, and remuneration can be valued – it can bring a sense of accomplishment.”

Under the current incremental salary model, young teachers who might be working very hard would not be recognised for their efforts – at least, not in the form of salary increases.

Michael Lee, Principal of St Mary MacKillop College Canberra, argues that paying teachers based on performance would help to raise the status and improve the reputation of the profession.

“Increased salaries would be helpful also, and obliging people to earn those salaries based on certain kinds of performance indicators…We have to reward the teacher who is giving more.”

“There is a greater potential of retaining good teachers under a model that has a broad definition of performance, and that backs it up with salary,” he said.

Mr Lee argued that the Melbourne model of performance, whereby teachers would have been graded on performance based on student results, was a narrow-minded definition of performance.

“Let’s talk about what kind of contribution to the profession the teacher is making,” Mr Lee said. “…You could require certain levels of professional learning, they [teachers] have to undertake certain courses, and demonstrate achievement in those courses.”

Higher student results and better quality teachers is what everybody wants, but debate continues as to how this can best be achieved.

 

 

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