Page 2215 - Week 06 - Thursday, 6 June 2019
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strengthening preservice teacher education to ensure graduates are ready to teach. In the same way as practicum is a core part of medical professionals advancing towards attainment of a status as a member of the profession, practicum is becoming increasingly important in the teaching profession.
An integral part of preservice teacher education is professional experience, and it is therefore already a compulsory part of the education program that a preservice teacher must complete. The institute has administratively contributed to raising the quality of this part in the act through the introduction in 2017 of a professional experiences framework which provides guidance on how schools and teachers can provide high quality practicum to preservice teachers.
Through the bill, preservice teachers will now need to be approved by TQI to undertake professional experience at a school in the ACT and will be captured on a preservice teacher register. Establishing a preservice teacher register, as occurs through the bill, will assist universities and schools to provide high quality, practical in-school teaching experience so that school teachers are better equipped with the classroom skills they need when they graduate. The government is conscious that any administrative burden and cost of a framework like this should be minimised; so there will be no fee or charge required for preservice teacher approval and registration.
Quality teaching is founded in high quality preservice teacher education which ensures that graduate teachers start with the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to have a positive impact on teacher learning. Again the ACT is showing that it takes this issue seriously through the unique approach introduced today. Second, the bill provides lawful authority for the sharing of information held by the institute for research and workforce planning purposes, provides privacy protections when this occurs and clarifies the functions of the institute in this regard.
A sustainable supply of teachers and school leaders is essential to the quality of the education system and the ability of schools to facilitate student learning. The effective management of this supply is far more complex than simply matching the number of available teachers and school leaders to the number of students in schools. It involves detailed understanding of the many factors affecting teacher supply and demand. For example, the skill needs of the labour market and economic development policy have upstream implications for the skill and capability needs of school leaders. Meeting these needs requires appropriately skilled teachers, including specialist teachers. Equally, our community expects that school students are supported with learning and development in important social and cultural knowledge and skills like languages and music. Again, appropriately skilled teachers, including specialist teachers, are required.
The bill provides authority to collect, share and analyse preservice teacher data and teacher workforce data for research and workforce planning purposes. In doing so, the government, through the institute, will be able to participate in the development of the Australian initial teacher education and teacher workforce data strategy, a national strategy for the collection and analysis of preservice teacher education program data and teacher workforce data.
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