The recent NSW Government report aimed at improving the performance of NSW schools deserves broad support, but there is a sting in the tail for rural and regional communities said Charles Sturt University (CSU) Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Vann.
“Charles Sturt University broadly supports the aims of the ‘Great Teaching, Inspired Learning: A Blueprint’ report presented in March to the NSW public, in particular the proposals to support teachers with professional development in schools. However, rural communities should be very concerned at what the detailed proposals could mean for them,” Professor Vann said.
The report proposes that from 2015, entrants to teacher education programs in NSW universities will be required to achieve a minimum of three Band 5 results in their Higher School Certificate (HSC) results, including English.
“We are very concerned at what this means for our rural communities and students. The abilities of rural and regional kids are not always reflected in their HSC mark. This has nothing to do with their intelligence or capacity, but the historic under-resourcing of rural and regional schools relative to their needs by the NSW Government compared to schools in major cities,” Professor Vann said.
“Charles Sturt University has already developed selection processes to account for these differences by allowing experienced school principals in rural and regional areas to recommend students for entry to university.
“This plan would also leave us in the absurd situation where a student who achieves a Band 6 result for HSC Maths and Physics, but gets a Band 4 for English, would be banned from enrolling in a NSW university teacher education program.
“It may also discriminate against male school leavers who tend to perform less well in the HSC compared to female students, at the very time when we want more males to think about teaching as a career.
“I think most members of the community would agree that it is only reasonable that rural and regional school leavers have a fair chance to enrol in university and get the opportunity to build up their capacity in English, Maths and other areas, rather than lock them out of university teacher education programs.
“All the evidence shows that these students perform equally well as students enrolled in university by other means, and that the government doesn’t need to stop rural school leavers from studying teaching to achieve the outcomes it wants.
“This is even more important because of recent research that shows that three out of four teachers in western NSW schools are originally from a rural and regional area. If rural and regional school leavers are locked out of enrolling in teacher education programs, where will rural and regional schools get their teachers in the future?
“This proposal would likely lead to increased class sizes, rural teacher shortages and the closure of rural schools. Surely this is not what the government is trying to achieve?”
The Vice-Chancellor also expressed concern about the impact of declining enrolments in teacher education programs on the long-term viability of teacher education on some of CSU campuses.
“As one of the largest and oldest providers of teacher education programs from rural and regional NSW, this proposal is likely to seriously affect enrolments in our campus towns,” Professor Vann said.
“Charles Sturt University is currently looking at this, but early indications suggest we will not be able to sustain teacher education programs in all our campus towns in the future, and the flow-on effect may also impact on some of our programs in smaller rural centres.
“It is concerning that rural school leavers are now being told that they are going to be punished by the government because it failed in the past to deliver adequate support for rural and regional schools to help them succeed.”
Professor Vann also noted other problem areas:
- there is no evidence to show that an arbitrary selection of HSC results would actually increase teacher quality – students that achieve very high marks in the HSC are not necessarily the best teachers, and may be better disposed to other equally important careers like medicine, research science, actuarial studies or engineering;
- the proposal fails to provide a roadmap to show how the NSW Government intends to make teaching a competitive profession – the government has not committed any resources to support professional development nor to increasing teacher pay to make the profession competitive against law, medicine and engineering with some expressing concerns that schools may be forced to fund better pay by dramatically increasing class sizes or closing smaller rural schools;
- the proposal is not supported by the NSW Vice-Chancellors or the Australian Council of Deans of Education. In their submission to the review, the NSW Deans of Education said, “It should be noted that the arguably most rigorous of all reviews ever done on teacher education in Australia, and likely in the world, the Australian Government’s Top of the Class (House of Representatives, 2007), spent much time examining the issue of entry scores and ended up providing strong advice that it was largely a fruitless exercise and that the time and effort should be put into ensuring that, whatever the entry score, the required output was achieved through the suitability of the program itself”;
- The NSW approach runs contrary to considerable research and planning in recent years to develop a national approach to quality school education, which aims to ensure all students across Australia have access to the same high quality education, regardless of where they live.
“Charles Sturt University has been one of the leading providers of teacher education in NSW for the past 50 years. We have also been a leader in adapting our admissions and curriculum to ensure we continue to produce high quality graduates, as well as postgraduate courses for people to change their career direction towards teaching,” Professor Vann said.
Social
Explore the world of social