The Australian Government should commit the same level of resources to all teacher trainees and support to schools to assist in mentoring and early career development as it does per capita through the Teach for Australia program.
Independent Education Union of Australia Federal Secretary Chris Watt said high quality initial teacher preparation is critical to fostering and sustaining an appreciation of the teaching profession as being of profound importance and value to society and one which is challenging and carries great responsibility.
The current arrangements do not support this proposition.
“Schools and systems know the importance of a well-resourced practicum and well-resourced, well- structured induction for new teachers to be able to develop confidence and a repertoire of skills and strategies to be effective classroom practitioners.
“Teaching is a profession deserving of the resources necessary for quality pre service preparation . Yet the teaching profession does not receive even a fraction of the pre service training money that the medical profession receives,” Mr Watt said.
“It is time for the Australian Governments to stop applying knee jerk approaches to education policy and provide a substantial and well-resourced support for teacher preparation for all.
The IEUA stands with Education International and global education unions in their campaign for quality education and in particular quality teacher preparation in its UNITE campaign..
There are no short cuts to quality teacher education.