Alarm at dismal teacher results

STUDENTS with dismally poor high school results are being accepted into university teaching courses, setting off alarm bells about the quality of some Australian educators.

The university sector, however, says low scores don’t tell a student’s full story and only represent a tiny number of teaching admissions.

Figures released to a Senate inquiry show one student was accepted to a teaching course at a Victorian uni in 2018 with a score of 17.9 out of a possible 99.95, while the lowest score accepted at another institution was 22.1.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham says Australians rightly expect that school students are taught by the best and while scores are not everything, the data is alarming.

“Our kids deserve no less than high-quality teachers, with high-quality skills,” he told reporters yesterday.

Senator Birmingham said the Commonwealth, unlike state and territory governments, does not have the power to set minimum entry scores. But it has introduced a literacy and numeracy test that teaching graduates must sit to confirm they have skills in the top 30 per cent.

He urged universities to only admit students likely to pass the test, and asked states and territories to ensure the testing is implemented.

Australian Education Union president Correna Haythorpe said a test at the end of a degree is “the wrong way around”.

“You actually need to know before a person goes into a course whether they have those issues,” she said.

Ms Haythorpe said educators want the federal government to take the lead on introducing minimum teaching entry scores.

“There needs to be accountability mechanisms built in as well, so that universities don’t use backdoor approaches,” Ms Haythorpe said.

Victorian institutions accepted the two lowest entry scores.

The university sector has stressed that only 2 per cent of teaching students have an entry score below 50.

Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson said the lowest scores are “extreme outliers”.

She said the personal circumstances of those students are unknown and they may have suffered a tragedy in their final year of school.

“A young person who has lost a parent while trying to complete their final year of school, for example, shouldn’t be turned away from university,” she said.

OUR KIDS DESERVE NO LESS THAN HIGHQUALITY TEACHERS, WITH HIGH-QUALITY SKILLS

SENATOR SIMON BIRMINGHAM