NSW to recruit smarter teachers

TEACHERS in NSW will be drawn from school leavers in the top 10 per cent in key subjects.

TEACHERS in NSW will be drawn from school leavers in the top 10 per cent in key subjects under a plan that will set the toughest tertiary entry standards in the nation.

One of the recommendations being considered by the NSW government as part of its review of teaching and learning is to set a minimum entry score for primary teaching degrees of 90 per cent in Higher School Certificate English and maths.

High school teachers will need at least 90 per cent in the subject they intend to teach.

The proposal will apply to the HSC scores in 2 unit subjects, or university preparation subjects, with students sitting more advanced subjects requiring a band 5, equivalent to 80-89 per cent.

The entry scores would be part of the accreditation criteria for education degrees that are set by the NSW Institute of Teachers.

The proposal is one of the recommendations to be presented to the government in March by the institute, the Education Department and the Board of Studies, which have been charged with examining ways to lift the standard of teaching.

All states and territories have agreed to draw new teachers from the top 30 per cent of school leavers in literacy and numeracy but the measure has been criticised as too blunt.

NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli told The Australian that targeting the top 30 per cent of students was too vague and more specific standards were required to raise the quality of teaching. "Any limitations on who can start an undergraduate degree is always going to be a little blunt and this is as specific as we could get," Mr Piccoli said.

A number of education commentators have called for an overhaul of teaching training in the past few months, provoked in part by Australia's poor results in international reading tests two weeks ago, which showed one in four primary students failed to reach the standard for their age.

The Weekend Australian revealed that a group of eminent literacy researchers, who sparked an inquiry into the teaching of reading about eight years ago, wrote to ministers last week calling for "a vast shake-up" of teacher education in university.

Prominent education researchers on Monday urged universities, which rely on training teachers for income, to put the nation first and cut enrolments of poor-quality students and close courses.

Mr Piccoli said scoring lower marks in the HSC would not disqualify students from teaching, but they might have to take an arts or other specialist degree first to earn the marks to transfer into teaching.

"We need to have a discussion about where we set the bar for teaching," he said.

"Anecdotally, I keep hearing that teachers come out of university, go into their first year and the feedback is the teacher should not have been passed, shouldn't have been registered.

"Where universities are trying to push people through even when they shouldn't be, it causes serious problems."

Mr Piccoli has shown himself willing to take on the education group-think, and the entry standards proposal is the latest in a series of reforms introduced by the state government in the past year that challenge the orthodoxy.

"The hard part of education policy is teaching practices, challenging universities, challenging teachers, because it's politically difficult," Mr Piccoli said.

The NSW government has introduced a new funding system giving schools greater power over their budgets and giving principals greater autonomy including over the teachers and mix of staff they hire in defiance of longstanding opposition by the teachers' union.

At the same time, the government negotiated a new salary agreement for teachers with the union, while avoiding industrial action.

Mr Piccoli has also introduced new arrangements for running schools for indigenous students in troubled communities that place schools as community hubs offering integrated education, health and social services overseen by highly paid executive principals.

The biggest attacks Mr Piccoli has suffered this year was after cutting the education budget by about $1.7 billion but the biggest impact is being carried by the department, which is shedding back-office services.

Mr Piccoli takes over as chair of the ministerial council of federal, state and territory education ministers next year and has already had preliminary talks with some of his state counterparts about driving more of the agenda rather than the commonwealth government, particularly with a federal election looming.

"In the two years I've been there, it's been the commonwealth's reform agenda," he said. "I don't want national reforms to be built around a federal election; I want to take it away from the politics and focus more acutely on the policy."