Brisbane class ratios, Australian teacher education ‘decades behind’

Australian teacher education is a decade behind that of other countries, says a new report, which also sheds a light on Brisbane schools’ student-teacher ratios.

Australian teacher education is a decade behind that of other countries, pumping out graduates unprepared for teaching and who cannot control students, a new report says.

The report from the Centre For Independent Studies also reveals Greater Brisbane has some of the worst student-teacher ratios in the country, and two Queensland universities some of the worst dropout rates for education degrees.

­The report argued Australian teachers were less prepared for the classroom than the OECD average, and less ready to teach than graduates in similar countries such as Britain and the US, the greatest gaps being on student behaviour and classroom management.

“Australian teachers today report being less prepared than in recent years, with significant declines observed in international survey data between 2013 and 2018,” authors Glenn Fahey and Rob Joseph argue.

This is despite the fact that Australian teaching degrees are longer, better funded and contain more content than those in other countries.

“It’s clear we have a quality problem in teacher training, and that starts with our teacher trainers,” Mr Fahey said.

“For too long, quality of training has been left to chance, leaving many new teachers short-changed.”

Using Census data, Mr Fahey calculated ratios of teachers per school-aged child living in each region within Greater Brisbane.

The number-crunching revealed relatively few teachers were living where they were needed the most – where population growth was greatest.

Inner city Brisbane’s student-teacher ratio was 9.4. In comparison, eastern Brisbane was 7.44 and western Brisbane 8.33.

Meanwhile, the Sunshine Coast was 7.81, southern Moreton Bay 6.29, northern Moreton Bay 4.9, Ipswich 4.78 and Logan/Beaudesert 4.3.

“The National Teacher Workforce Action Plan focuses on increasing overall teacher numbers, but not targeting where teachers are needed geographically,” Mr Fahey said.

“The challenge in outer Brisbane – and outer Sydney and outer Melbourne – is that there is a relatively large growth in student population, but the teacher population is not growing.

“There has been an approach in many parts of the US and UK to use geographically-based bonuses to bring teachers to where they are needed most.”

But the authors believe the nation’s policymakers had started to make positive changes to narrow the gap with the likes of the UK and US.

Mr Fahey said enticing qualified teachers back to the profession should be a priority, with only 42 per cent of teaching degree holders in inner city Brisbane working as teachers – and this number was significantly worse in areas such as outer Brisbane and Moreton Bay.

“Those who do leave the profession show they are unlikely to return unless there are better workloads and more flexibility in pay,” he said.

“These people, with their previous experience or other qualifications, could really add value if we get them back.”

Meanwhile, Southern Queensland University and Central Queensland University are among the institutions with the worst undergraduate attrition rates for education degrees in 2022.

SQU was equal third with 40 per cent, while CQU was equal fourth with 38 per cent. These are around double the attrition rates of UQ and QUT.

“There are many factors with this – teaching degrees are increasingly being done part-time or not in person,” Mr Fahey said.

“Teachers also need to have practical experience, but they are not paid.

“So education students have to reduce their work hours to be able to get this classroom experience.

“We need to be paying student teachers for their time in the classroom, we need to look at financial incentives for schools who are taking on student teachers.”