Page 6076 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 2010
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year. We are giving principals more say over how they run their school—more say and clearer accountability. The teacher quality institute is a key part of this investment in education.
The next major reform in Australian education is in improvement of teacher quality. It is about productivity—productivity and the effectiveness of our teaching workforce. The last research from the Grattan Institute found that an increase in teacher effectiveness of 10 per cent would lift Australia’s education systems into the highest performing group of countries in the world, including countries like Finland, Singapore and South Korea. This productivity gain would translate into an additional $90 billion in the Australian economy by 2050, making all Australians 12 per cent richer.
It is for these reasons that we make no apologies for wanting to attract and retain the best and brightest into our classrooms. The ACT teacher quality institute will raise the status of the teaching profession.
We are committed to ensuring that graduates with very high ATARs who would look at perhaps law and medicine are also considering a career in teaching. They would choose teaching because they are passionate about making a difference. They would also choose teaching because it offers a series of diverse careers—careers in early childhood, in special education, in teaching students who have English as a second language, in behaviour management and the list goes on. They would choose a teaching career where hard work and contribution to school communities and student outcomes are recognised and rewarded not just with a thankyou from parents or from the school leader but with an enhanced career structure—a structure that will keep the best and brightest in our classrooms, one that will attract leaders in many fields to bring their life experiences into the teaching profession.
The teacher quality institute is vital to this vision of 21st century teaching. The ACT’s teacher quality institute will have three key responsibilities: registration of teachers, starting in 2011; accreditation of pre-service teacher education programs; and certification of teachers against the new, nationally recognised performance standards.
The bill establishes the functions of the institute and creates a new board. This board will be representative, with board members from the Association of Independent Schools, the Catholic Education Office, the Australian Education Union, the Independent Education Union, the University of Canberra and the Australian Catholic University as well as the broader community.
The institute shows once again how the old public versus private debate in education is over. All ACT teachers—from public schools, independent schools and Catholic schools—will be brought together under the teacher quality institute umbrella. There is significant momentum amongst stakeholders from the Catholic Education Office, the Association of Independent Schools, the AEU, universities and pre-service teacher education providers for the creation of this institute. The bill establishes a registration process for teachers, giving parents peace of mind that the teacher standing in front of their son or daughter meets professional standards.
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