'Make it harder for student teachers'

SCHOOLS and teachers have called on universities to impose tougher standards on prospective teachers, including higher entry scores.

SCHOOLS and teachers have called on universities to impose tougher standards on prospective teachers, including higher entry scores, interviews to pick suitable candidates, and a limit on the number of degree places and practical training offered each year.

Responses to a NSW government discussion paper on improving the quality of teaching call for a tougher approach from universities to help boost standards, with independent school principals arguing universities should be more prepared to fail student teachers.

The discussion paper comes as the federal government prepares to introduce legislation for a national school improvement framework, linking the quality of teaching and school reforms to extra funding.

In its submission to the NSW inquiry, the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia says a minimum ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) should be required to enter teaching courses and universities should more closely supervise students undertaking their practical training in schools.

"The school, as well as the supervising teacher, should receive some financial compensation for accommodating a student teacher during a practicum placement," it says.

"University supervisors should be more willing to fail unsuitable tertiary education students."

But the AHISA submission says other entry requirements should be reconsidered, such as restricting students with a degree in physics from teaching biology or chemistry if they had not studied the particular subject in the second year. A minimum ATAR for studying teaching is also supported by Bankstown Girls High School in western Sydney, which says pushing up the entry score will attract more able candidates; and prospective teachers should also have a high standard of written and spoken English.

Bankstown Girls also calls for universities to end their practice of giving "bonus points" to students, which effectively lowers the entry score and has become a common way to attract certain types of students, and for aptitude tests to be part of the screening process.

An interview process was also endorsed by St Patrick's College at Campbelltown in Sydney's southwest, with its submission saying a combination of higher ATAR and an interview process based on the medical school model pioneered by Newcastle University would improve quality.

"Students who go straight into university and then go straight into the teaching profession often have little world knowledge and need experience of life," it says.

A head teacher in English at Robert Townson High School in Campbelltown, Carolyn Wright says only half the diploma of education she completed in 1976 was relevant "and some of it was so poor as to be insulting".

"Loads of unnecessary work, though. Most of it was impractical. Some of it wasn't much of an ad for the teaching qualities they wanted us to develop," she said.

Rather than a minimum ATAR, Ms Wright advocates minimum results in subjects the student wishes to teach. While an interview would be helpful, Ms Wright said a better plan would be to reintroduce scholarships, targeting specific and academically successful students who would then agree to teach in particular areas.

Head teacher of science at Blayney High School near Bathurst, west of Sydney, Greg Michell said the wage teachers were paid reflected how their job was valued, and teachers' pay must rise to even maintain the current standard of the profession.