Calls for teacher plan to go national

EDUCATION experts have called on the Gillard government to consider rolling out a national scheme to boost teacher standards after NSW unveiled plans to overhaul the sector.

EDUCATION experts have called on the Gillard government to consider rolling out a national scheme to boost teacher standards after NSW unveiled plans to overhaul the sector.

Angelo Gavrielatos, president of the Australian Education Union, said Labor currently had a “conflicting policy approach” to teacher standards and more needed to be done to attract the best people for the job right across the nation.

"We support measures aimed at attracting the best and brightest in teaching,” Mr Gavrielatos told The Australian.

"But the problem is the national government currently has two key policies in this area that are working at odds with each other.

"On the one hand they say aspiring teachers need to be in the top 30 per cent of the country for literacy and numeracy but on the other their policies have deregulated university entry. This policy contradiction needs to be resolved in the interest in ensuring we get the best teachers.”

The Australian reported today that a discussion paper commissioned by NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli proposed the state require aspiring teachers to study maths and science in school and meet minimum entry scores in order to qualify for a degree in teaching.

Norm Hart, president of the Australian Primary Principals Association, agreed more needed to be done to boost teacher standards and said a national approach was needed.

However he said enforcing maths and science studies would not necessarily produce good teachers.

“We would like to see national consistency and high standards of entry so that a bachelor of education was not a degree that one took simply as a good means of going to university and getting a degree,” Mr Hart told The Australian.

“The idea that we should privilege maths and science is understandable in terms of supply and demand but we want teachers in our schools, particularly in our primary schools, to have a rounded education.

“I’m not sure that I completely subscribe to the NSW proposal, it seems to me to be risky.”

Schools Minister Peter Garrett said the NSW proposal simply built on the reforms the national government had already started.

"It's important to recognise that education ministers have already said that we want to lift the standards of entry for kids coming in to study teaching," Mr Garrett told Sky News.

"What NSW have announced today will work in with what we've already got underway and I think it's an important issue and it should be addressed."

But Mr Garrett said good teachers did not have to be the most academically gifted.

"A good teacher requires other qualities as well," Mr Garrett said.

"They need a great heart for the kids, and an ability to communicate. So as long as we've got in place the right measures nationally, which is that these kids when they come out can teach well in literacy and numeracy, then I think what NSW is doing is consistent with what we've already decided to do nationally."

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said the Coalition would be "looking closely" at the proposals in the NSW discussion paper and would consider adopting such measures nationally if elected.

"The federal Coalition welcomes the New South Wales government's discussion paper," Mr Pyne told The Australian.

"We've identified improving teacher quality and training as a key area of reform under a federal Coalition government. I am delighted that Minister Piccoli has flagged it as a priority for the O'Farrell government and we will be looking closely at the ideas in this discussion paper."