Entry standards for teaching hit skids

TEACHING attracted the highest proportion of university offers for school leavers with a tertiary rank of less than 50.

Nikki Laurendet

TEACHING attracted the highest proportion of university offers for school leavers with an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank of less than 50, in direct violation of a government commitment to increase the proportion of entrants with an ATAR of more than 70.

There are also concerns that falling entry standards for teacher education, based on the ATAR, will compromise the future teaching workforce.

The Gillard government has repeatedly said it wants to attract high-quality teachers and last year said it would work towards increasing cut-off scores for teaching.

But new federal Education Department data to be released today reveals the opposite is happening, with ATARs plummeting as universities increased the number of offers this year by 5.5 per cent.

Education, along with information technology with 5.9 per cent of offers for those with ATARs below 50, were the least popular subject areas for high-achieving students. Only 5 per cent of offers for students with 90 or above were for teaching and 7.3 per cent for IT.

"There is certainly a contradiction here," said Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos.

"On the one hand you have government and ministers calling on entry levels for teaching to increase. On the other hand you have an ever-expanding sector that undermines that very goal."

Today's data shows that the percentage of offers to people with ATARs below 50 grew from 2.1 per cent last year to 3.2 per cent this year.

At the same time, the percentage of offers to those with 90 or above fell from 28.5 to 27.8 per cent. One in four students with an ATAR below 50 who applied to university were made an offer this year, up from less than one in four just a year ago.

The phenomenon of low-achieving students being offered a place at university is being driven by the Gillard government's policy to increase to 40 per cent the proportion of young people with a degree by 2025.

To achieve that, it has removed quotas on how many students universities can enrol. As reported in The Australian last week, concerns have been raised about universities' ability to absorb such rapid growth while maintaining standards and quality. Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans pointed to projected increases in qualified staff in certain professions between 2016 and 2020.

It shows an estimated 42,000 additional teachers will need to be in the workforce to counter the wave of retiring baby boomers and demographic growth.

Teaching was second only to construction, which would need an extra 85,760 workers.

Senator Evans said a third of all jobs would require a bachelor's degree by 2025 and if the government's targets were not met "we will consign ourselves to low economic growth".

"This report shows we are well on our way to successfully fulfilling these goals," he said.

In 2016, when Nikki Laurendet, 17, moves into the workforce, she will be one of only small number of new teachers who did exceptionally well at school.

With an ATAR of 94.85, Ms Laurendet started her bachelor of primary education at Notre Dame University in Sydney at the beginning of the year.

Ms Laurendet says she never wanted to be anything but a teacher, but was regularly counselled by her Randwick Girls High School teachers not to "waste" her ATAR and consider switching to law.

"They were like, why are you working so hard when all you want to be is a primary school teacher?" Ms Laurendet said yesterday.

The Business Council of Australia has also backed calls to increase the ATAR of students entering teaching.

"The increasing number of students entering teacher education courses with ATARs below 60 is a potential concern, particularly if their level of schooling in areas they are expected to teach, such as maths and science, is inadequate," a spokeswoman said.

"One possible solution would be to move teacher education to a postgraduate level."

Today's data also shows that applicants to study science have a 100 per cent chance of being made an offer, with an 11 per cent increase in applications allaying concerns about falling interest in the subject and maths.

Nearly 28 per cent of all offers went to students with an ATAR over 90 and another 28 per cent to those with ATARs under 70.