Shadow Education Minister Tanya Plibersek has told Sky News there must be a higher university cut off to enter teaching courses and potential teachers need to be tested before degrees rather than afterwards.
The Coalition government introduced in 2016 a mandatory literacy and numeracy test for all graduating teaching students, with over 90 per cent of graduates meeting the standard for both requirements.
“We need to make sure people can read and write and do maths before they get into a teaching degree,” Ms Plibersek said.
“We’re testing people at the end of a three-year degree and finding that ten per cent of them don’t pass after they’ve spent all this time and all this money getting a qualification”.
However, Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker said the current teaching standards are the “hangovers of poor teaching” over the last two decades, and the coalition government’s new testing standards will see an improvement.
Ms Plibersek has previously called for an overhaul of the entry requirements to teaching courses, suggesting the ATAR requirement should be at minimum a 70.
“It does trouble me that the mark to get into teaching keeps falling and falling,” she told Sky News host Alan Jones.
Image: News Corp Australia
