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In terms of the master of teaching, the whole structure of the program is one of developmental learning. They go into schools at the start. They’ re working in partnership with the school and the university all the way through their program. They come out with not only a robust body of knowledge that underpins their practice, but also with sufficient competence in their practice. I’ d say they are safe to be let loose in the community.
When they have been surveyed six months into their teaching career, 90 per cent of them say,“ I was well prepared for the profession.” And that’ s way above what is typically found in teacher education programs in Australia, Europe, the US or, in particular, in the UK.
I have been to other deans in the University of Melbourne – in medicine and engineering – and asked them,‘ If 90 per cent of your graduates felt well prepared six months into their profession, what would you say?’ They say,‘ I’ d take that.’
We have done a lot. Over the last 10 years, in particular, we’ ve become much more focused in our research and our research has become much larger in scale. We have multiple chief investigators, including mid-career and early-career researchers and PhD students aligned with this work.
To be in the same breath as the Institute of Education in London, Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, and to have the highest ranking of all the disciplines in Australia – we are pleased with that.
You can imagine the boost it gives our teachers and researchers.
There has been a lot of scrutiny of the quality of the education sector. What do you believe needs to be done to lift standards of teacher training in general within Australia? I was on [ the education minister, Christopher Pyne’ s ] Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group last year, and there have been tens and tens, if not more than 100, reviews of teacher education programs. The question was how do we come up with a set of recommendations that might change the way other teacher education programs think about the way they do things?
I [ believe ] the most important thing is that providers [ be able ] to demonstrate that their graduates have a positive impact on students – a positive impact on learning.
That does mean moving away from an old model where the university gives a series of lectures on psychology, sociology and a whole lot of other things, and then students are typically parachuted for periods of three weeks [ at a time ].
[ With that type of model ], there wasn’ t any coherence between what universities were doing and what was happening in the schools. I’ m not even sure there was mutual respect. It needs to be synchronised.
I think, for decades, teaching has remained a craft. It’ s been about how to teach, how to deliver a lesson. Whereas, we’ re interested here in how you develop the learning of every individual child in a class, given that they come in with different learning experiences and abilities.
We’ re trying to come up with a model that we hope all schools of education will benefit from eventually. We are keen to lift the public perception of the quality of teacher education and teaching.
I think it’ s working, because the quality of graduates coming into our program goes up every year. When you’ ve got a cohort of students who have an average age of 27, not only have they got their first or second or third degree, the chances are they’ ve got professional experience as well.
They come into [ teaching ] because they know that’ s now what they want to do. They’ re coming out of a range of professions, such as engineering, law, psychology, speech therapy and physiotherapy. It’ s wonderful and you can imagine how these people can relate the subject matter they’ re confronting in schools to real-life professions.
I will always say teaching is the most challenging and complex profession, so we have to prepare teachers in a complex and challenging way to meet those needs.
Finally, I wanted to ask you about supply and demand. A report released in early March by the Centre for Education Policy and Practice at the Australian Council for Education Research found that a growing population is increasing demand for teachers. How are you looking to address this within your university and how do you believe providers can maintain quality given the number of graduates that will be needed to fill these numbers? Our focus is on quality. We have a scalable model. Because of the Higher Education Policy Framework, I think a number of universities are increasing the number of students they’ re bringing into their four-year undergraduate programs; and the more offers you make, the lower the minimum ATAR score becomes.
Our graduates do well when it comes to employment but they don’ t all get jobs straight away. It’ s not obvious to me that a supply / demand challenge is here right now, because there are a lot of people in all sorts of professions who are staying in the workforce longer. We have federal government policies encouraging people to stay in longer.
So, it’ s complex. It don’ t think it’ s a simple matter of us saying,‘ This is how many teachers we need in two years’ time. This is how many we’ ll take into universities across Australia at that time.’ The medical people tried that a few years ago. It was a disaster. All of a sudden there was a shortage of doctors, and they had to bring in a bunch from overseas.
This is not an exact science. I go back to the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group report. I think the government needs to move towards a universal final exam for all graduates in all teacher education programs that’ s rigorous, so that if you pass that exam, you are going to be an effective classroom teacher.
I think when we do that, it will sort out the front end, because as I said before, this is complex and challenging. I think [ to be an effective teacher ] you need to be super smart and have the right personal characteristics. Just an ATAR score doesn’ t give you [ those traits ]. Being a graduate doesn’ t necessarily do that either, but it shows you have developed some analytical thinking through your first degree and you’ ve got deep disciplinary knowledge.
We’ ve introduced a tool at the University of Melbourne called Teacher Selector, and it looks at all those other dimensions of the characteristics of a high-quality teacher. Since we’ ve introduced that, we’ ve found the quality of our cohorts is even greater. [ We’ ll usually discover teaching isn’ t really for 1 or 2 of them ]. But you can’ t tell that from their first degree.
I hope we’ re leading by example. According to the QS rankings, we’ re doing some leading anyway. Is it the right sort of leading that will change hearts and minds? I hope it is.
We’ re doing what we can to set a new standard and, as I said before, the number of graduates wanting to get into our program is increasing. I think that reflects the quality and challenges of the program. I have this theory: the higher the quality of the program, the higher the quality of the graduate who will come into it. n
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