Labor to pay high-achievers up to $12,000 a year to study as school teachers at university

An Albanese government would pay high-achieving students up to $12,000 a year to study an education degree as part of a plan to improve teacher quality.

Anthony Albanese says children will get the best possible education only if they had access to the ‘best quality teaching’. Picture: AAP

High-achieving students would be paid up to $12,000 a year to study an education degree as part of a plan to improve the quality of school teachers to be unveiled by Anthony Albanese.

The Opposition Leader will on Monday pledge to pay 5000 students every year to go into teaching if they receive an ATAR of 80 or more.

The policy, worth $146.5m over four years, aims to double the number of high achievers studying teaching over the next decade, from 1800 a year to 3600.

Another part of Labor’s education policy is to add an extra 1500 places to programs that encourage professionals in fields such as science and maths to retrain as teachers.

But the third plank of the plan to improve teacher quality is an uncosted goal to increase the pay of educators if Labor wins power, through negotiations of the next school funding agreement with state and territory ­governments.

Mr Albanese said children would get the best possible education only if they had access to the “best quality teaching”.

“Labor’s plan will incentivise the best graduates to join the teaching profession, leading to a brighter future for our students and for the nation,” he said.

Opposition education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said lifting teaching standards was critical to stopping the inter­national slide in Australia’s school results.

“I want students competing to get into teaching like they do to get into medicine or law,” Ms Plibersek said. “If we want a better future in Australia, we need a smart, skilled workforce so we can compete for jobs and growth with our neighbours.”

Under Labor’s plan, high-achieving high-school students will receive $10,000 a year to study education at university, with that being increased to $12,000 for students who commit to teaching in a regional area.

Labor argues new policies are needed given that just 3.3 per cent of the top 20 per cent of school leavers go into teaching.

Thirty years ago, 30 per cent of the top 20 per cent of high school students went into teaching.

The teacher announcement comes after Ms Plibersek was grilled over Labor’s decision to abandon large chunks of the party’s ambitious education policy it took to the last election.

Under Bill Shorten’s leadership, Labor vowed to increase spending on education by $14bn over a decade. This has been dropped under Mr Albanese’s leadership as the party reduced its policy offerings to blunt Coalition fear campaigns about Labor’s “tax and spend” approach.

On Sunday, Ms Plibersek said a Labor government would attempt to secure more funding for public schools while negotiating the next funding agreement with state and territory governments.

The school funding agreement is due to conclude next year but Labor has no costings to accompany its plan to increase spending on education at that time.

“We would, if elected, be negotiating with the states and territories about the next funding agreement,” Ms Plibersek told the ABC’s Insiders program. “We need the states and territories to increase their effort, as we would increase our effort, to get every school up to 100 per cent of its fair funding level.

“The agreement that the commonwealth has signed with the states at the moment bakes in ­inequality to our system, where Catholic and independent schools will get to 100 per cent of their fair funding level … but public schools never will.

“The majority of public schools will never get to their fair funding level under Scott Morrison.

“We have a different policy: we say every child in every classroom, in every school, in every school system, in every part of Australia should get the funding they need to get a world-class education.”

Ms Plibersek also conceded that Labor would not go to the election with a policy to return to a demand-driven model for university funding.

“We’ve got a policy at this election to fund almost 20,000 additional university degrees,” Ms Plibersek said.

“We cannot afford to fix a decade of neglect of this government all at once.”