A single parent working full-time, Anthea Pownall is close to becoming a fully qualified primary school teacher.
She said she is nervous but excited about getting closer to managing her own classroom of students.
“[At university] you learn about the theory behind literacy, numeracy, and stuff like that. But you don’t really learn about classroom management, so it is a bit daunting,” Pownall told Media .
Currently an education support officer at a special needs school in Melbourne, she works with students one-on-one to help them reach their educational goals.
She is counting on that experience to help her as a new teacher.
“Handling the class of students is a little bit different for me because I have that life experience, but it is still a daunting thought coming in and knowing that you have anywhere between 20 or 30 students under your purview that you have got to manage,” she said.
Her full-time job has allowed her to save enough money to undertake her final mandatory six-week teaching placement to graduate, but it has also offered a unique vantage point to see the pressure placed on teachers.
“The few hours a week that you get to do your planning for the following week, isn’t necessarily enough. It is confronting knowing regardless of what you do, you’re still coming home to do more,” she said.
She said unpaid placement arrangements made it challenging for those wanting to complete a teaching degree.
“It’s a huge flaw. It should be a paid placement. There should be some funding somewhere within the government to fund placements so that we get the teachers,” she said.
Universities given two years to reform teaching degrees
Some of those concerns have been picked up in a year-long review of teaching degrees at universities.
Sydney University vice-chancellor Mark Scott led the review, released on Thursday, that considered 115 submissions.
Paid and employment-based pathways are contemplated as part of incentives to boost student recruitment in postgraduate teacher education.
New regulatory oversight and rules have also been outlined. Universities will have two years to embed four “core content” areas in the teaching degrees or risk losing their accreditation.
Scott said the 14 recommendations in the final report aims to boost the number of teacher graduates and also help them be “better prepared for the classroom”.
“The panel’s recommendations will support beginning teachers to successfully transition into the profession and will make them more likely to stay in teaching,” he said.
“The recommendations will make a crucial contribution to addressing workforce shortages.”
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said all the recommendations have been in principle agreed to by his state and territory counterparts.
“Teaching is a tough and complex job and this is all about making sure they are better prepared from day one,” he said.
Australian Education Union federal president Correna Haythorpe said the union supported efforts to address the teacher shortage around the country, but said the report failed to identify key issues.
She urged the government to address a $6 million a year funding shortfall for public schools.
“This funding will change lives. It will enable schools to provide more one-on-one support for students, provide small group tutoring to those at risk of falling behind, give teachers more support in the classroom and more time to prepare high-quality lessons,” she said.
“Unsustainable workloads are leading to a growing exodus of teachers from schools and making it harder for teachers to meet the growing and diverse needs of their students.”
She also said the retention of teachers needs to be addressed through better pay and working conditions.
