Doorstop

SUBJECTS:  Teacher training

E&OE................................

Journalist: This announcement in Sydney today sounds suspiciously like something you were talking about just last year so I suppose you be welcoming this?

Christopher Pyne MP: We welcome the Government’s reversal of their previous opposition to a teacher quality policy. Essentially Mr Garrett has adopted the features of the Coalition’s policy that I enunciated last year at the Sydney institute in the mid-year, where I talked about the need for teacher quality as our relentless focus, and the elements that he has announced today, more testing of undergraduate students in teachers’ college, mentoring of new teachers, entry requirements that are broader than simply ATAR scores are all things that the Coalition has been calling for over a year, which the Minister previously said were unacceptable. So we welcome the reversal of the Government’s position.

Journalist:  ATAR scores in a sense are a product of demand, how many people want to get into the courses.  Is there a problem if you set the bar too high you may not have enough teachers coming into the system?

Pyne: Well the good thing about the Government’s announcement is that it doesn’t affect ATAR scores, and as you point out they are simply a measure of the demand for a course.  If the courses at universities are attractive to young people and they are high quality and the people who are entering teachers’ college are rigorously tested and then tested throughout their training, and then mentored in the actual jobs they have in the first year teachers, and they have more practical training, which we call practicum in the education space, then I think the courses themselves will become more attractive to young people.  And so therefore we welcome the Government’s announcement which is essentially an endorsement of the Coalition’s policy.

Journalist: It has to go a lot wider than just saying we are raising the bar?

Pyne: Well raising ATAR scores of itself is not a measure, is not one that will improve quality. What will improve quality is a relentless focus on undergraduate courses so the fact that TEQSA will now be reviewing all the teacher colleges to see if they are doing well with teacher training is something that is very welcome to us, the fact that teachers will get more practical experience both at university and before they become fully fledged teachers in the classroom is very welcome. The testing of new teachers before they start a course and before they actually get out into the classroom is all very important both for teachers and principals, but most importantly students should be at the centre of the kind of teachers we are trying to create in Australia. And if we want a world-class education system it starts and finishes with excellent teachers. So I welcome a focus on teacher quality, which the Coalition has been talking about for some years.

Journalist: Do you expect to get any push back here from the teachers or States?

Pyne: Look that is up to the States and that is up to the teachers’ union, the teachers union often unfortunately puts the industrial conditions of teachers at the forefront rather than the outcomes of the students. If there is a Coalition Government elected in September, we will keep much of what the Government has announced today because it is essentially our policy and

we will build on it. We don’t like every aspect of what the Government has announced today, for example EQ tests, something of a fad in many circumstances.  But what actually gets through to the end of this process will be interesting to see what makes it into the final cut.  But the structure and the direction that the Government have adopted today is the Coalition’s policy.  So we will always support that.

Journalist: Because teachers historically have as you say, long resisted any attempt to benchmark them, to rate teachers depending on how good they are they want to put their jobs ahead of pretty much what they’re delivering…

Pyne: What I have found is that the teachers’ union itself is often focussed on the labour market and the industrial relations climate, but teachers themselves are very embracing of better professional development, better training at the university level, more practical training and putting the student at the focus, at the centre of our education policy rather than sometimes at the periphery.

ENDS.