Minister Birmingham said the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) will work with universities and other educational experts to create the assessment protocols, which all new teachers must meet from 2018.
“These new assessments will ensure teachers are ‘classroom ready’,” Minister Birmingham said.
“To get the best outcomes for students, we need the best quality teachers in classrooms. While much public discussion has been solely focused on funding, we’ve been getting on with the job of delivering a quality reform agenda in teaching education.
“Graduate teachers deserve to know that they have the skills to succeed in the classroom just as students, parents and principals deserve to know that new teachers have been given the best possible skills.”
Professor Claire Wyatt-Smith, director of the Australian Catholic University’s Learning Sciences Institute Australia, said the assessment could be “the biggest game-changer in teacher education in this country”.
“We’ve had common standards. We haven’t had common evidence requirements — that’s why it’s the game-changer,” Professor Wyatt-Smith told The Australian.
“It’s actually bringing the theory and the practice together into a critical assessment. This is about evidence-informed teaching practice for the 21st century. This is a new step up for the profession.”
AITSL chief executive officer, Lisa Rodgers, said the new assessment, along with a range of other measures, including literacy and numeracy benchmarks as well as subject specialisation for primary teachers, can help prepare teachers for their career.
“At a time when record funding is going into education, it is important to make sure it is spent where it matters — to put an effective teacher in every classroom, every day,” Dr Rodgers wrote in The Australian.
To read more in The Australia, click here.