GRAD TEACHERS PUT TO THE TEST
GRADUATE teachers are leaving university without basic literacy skills including spelling and grammar, with some unable to name how many weeks are in a year.
Tutoring agencies are seeing a rise in the number of graduates seeking help to pass the federal government’s Literacy and Numeracy Tests for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE) test, required to become a teacher.
Experts say the test should be done as an entrance exam to weed out unsuccessful candidates.
GRADUATE teachers are leaving university without basic literacy skills including spelling and grammar and are increasingly needing tutoring to pass the literacy portion of their qualifying exam.
Tutoring agencies are seeing a rise in the number of graduates seeking help to pass the federal government’s Literacy and Numeracy Tests for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE) test, required to become a teacher, and experts are saying the test should be done as an entrance exam to weed out unsuccessful candidates. Some agencies say students are struggling with basic skills like fractions, grammar and even knowing the number of weeks in a year.
“We have been surprised by the number of university students studying to be teachers who are seeking assistance with their literacy skills to pass their LANTITE, and who may have already failed this test a number of times,” said Cluey Learning chief learning officer Dr Selina Samuels, who said there had been more than 750 inquiries for LANTITE support in just four months.
Teacher Melinda Wood from The Tutoring Academy said many of her students are missing basic foundation skills.
“With literacy they don’t know the simple rules for grammar, punctuation and how to spell or do fractions,” she said. “I had one student who didn’t attend primary school in her own country and came to Year 8 in Australia and has difficulty reading. She is doing a Masters of Education and she is struggling a lot.”
Ms Wood gave one example of a question that asks students to estimate an annual income from weekly pays but that students were failing it in practice tests as they “don’t know how many weeks are in a year”.
The recent PISA scores shows Australian students are falling behind and Centre for Independent Studies’ Blaise Joseph said a teacher’s core skills needed to be high, regardless of what grade they were teaching
“Evidence shows it is really important teachers be high achievers and they do get better outcomes for students. Over the years we have lowered the bar for entry standard for teacher education degrees.
“We have about one in five Australian students below the minimum standard for literacy and that is going to be reflected in new teacher intake,” he said.
“So across the country we have a bit of a negative cycle where you do have a lot of teachers who don’t have the necessary skills to pass on basic literacy and that passes on to the next generation of teachers and the next generation of students. It defies common sense you have uni students who don’t have basic literacy and numeracy skills who are then going to be responsible for teaching literacy and numeracy to children.”
Chief executive of the Australian Tutoring Association, Mohan Dhall said the test should be an entrance exam and said there had been a steady rise in the number of student teachers seeking tutoring to pass the test, since its introduction in 2016.
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