Speech - 'Nothing drives better outcomes for our children than high quality teaching'

“Nothing drives better outcomes for our children than high quality teaching.”

Address at the Queensland Media Club

Hon Christopher Pyne MP

Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training

Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives

1 August 2013

[Salutations]

It is beyond question that an excellent teacher is the central ingredient in achieving an excellent education.

The Coalition is focussed on how to lift and improve the ability and capacity of current teachers and ensure our teaching colleges are producing highly capable graduates.

I’ve been pleased about the rigorous debate that has evolved in this area, particularly over the last two years.

Of course we must recognise that excellence in teaching is just one of the vital ingredients linked to improved student achievement.

Principal autonomy, strong parental and community engagement and a robust curriculum are the other important policy levers.

Not a single one of these ingredients will be a panacea on its own.

Just like any culinary expert will tell you if you are missing just one ingredient –or even two – in a recipe, then the result will be less than satisfactory.

The Coalition knows getting the right mix of ingredients is essential if we fundamentally want to transform Australia’s education system.

Raising the quality of teaching will be one of our highest priorities in order to achieve this objective.

Our plan is about supporting teachers to be the best they can be.

If we are fortunate enough to be elected, we will be the best friend teachers have ever had.

Australia currently has some of the best teachers in the world in both Government and non-government school systems. The issue is that we need more of the best teachers.

We want all of our teachers to be thought of as highly skilled.

We want the very best training opportunities and ongoing professional development made available, particularly for teachers in their first years of service.

A range of symptoms suggest we need urgent and immediate change.

The first obvious symptom is that our results in international tests have either stagnated or declined.

Results over the last ten years suggest a widening achievement gap[1].

This means our most gifted and talented students are not doing as well as they were ten years ago and our most disadvantaged students are failing to improve.

Second, we have seen a lowering of entry standards into pre-service teaching courses.

Third, we have an oversupply of teachers in some areas but well recognised shortages in other specialist areas, like mathematics.

Together, these symptoms suggest that we need more than just a fresh policy approach to pre- service teacher training if we are to meet the needs of students into the future. We need a complete overhaul.

Let’s pause for a moment to consider what we know about international testing results.

Probably the most well-known of the international tests is the OECD Programme for International Assessment (PISA).

The PISA surveys the reading, mathematical and scientific literacy levels of 15-year-olds every three years. They have been carried out every three years since 2000.

The reading and scientific performance of Australian students was almost unchanged from 2006 to 2009. We remain significantly above the OECD average in these areas, but a number of countries outperform us.

Of all three PISA measures, the most concerning is our performance in mathematics that declined from 2006 to 2009[2].

Both Canada and New Zealand outperform us on all three PISA measures.

Parents were shocked when the results from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) that collects educational achievement data for science and mathematics at Years 4 and 8 every four years were released late last year.

Australia placed only 27th in the world in year 4 reading, 25th in science and 18th in maths[3].

These young children have only ever experienced a Federal Labor Government.

Working families were promised an education revolution in 2007 by Kevin Rudd. Instead they have delivered declining student outcomes.

But it’s not just the students who need improvement.

A recent pilot study by the Warren Centre at the University of Sydney found that of the 17 universities in New South Wales, nearly half of all student teachers were graduating with only general level mathematics skills[4].

If teachers are graduating with only general level mathematical skills, how can we expect our students to meet minimum standards or be ranked among the brightest in the world?

One issue is certain – we will not achieve either of these two outcomes unless we raise admission standards into teaching.

Twelve months ago I called for higher admission standards into teaching in a speech to the Sydney Institute.

In Victoria, most pre-service teaching degrees now have cut-off Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) scores below 70[5]. Some are even less than 50[6].

This means it’s possible to not pass high school yet be accepted into teaching.

Some proposals to improve admission standards propose to cap ATAR scores.

Blunt approaches like capping ATAR’s are unlikely to achieve a great deal in the longer term, given almost half of admissions into teaching are thought to be through alternative schemes such as mature age entry pathways.

Capping ATAR scores is also entirely inconsistent with the current demand driven system in higher education. Caps to student places have been removed so as to increase the number of young people being able to access a tertiary education.

Professor Greg Craven, the vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University points out that simply raising the ATAR score for teaching courses is too narrow a measure. He has suggested and I quote:

“many students who are not among top performers at school, blossom at university in a more independent learning environment. And students from schools in low socio-economic areas and those in rural towns and centres would be particularly disadvantaged[7]”.

I believe he is right. We should aim to improve the admissions process into pre-service training but in such a way that it does not preclude those from disadvantaged backgrounds been given the opportunity to pursue their dreams to study at university.

Particularly given that many can, will and already do go onto become outstanding teachers.

Admission standards are extremely important but of equal importance is how prepared new teachers are for the classroom upon graduation.

Currently almost all students who enrol in pre-service training courses at university are passed and this must end.

As I have already made mention in previous speeches, some student surveys tell us that the reason school leavers are selecting teaching to study at university is because they perceive it won’t be challenging[8].

It is well known that in other courses, if students find it too challenging or not interesting enough they will drop out by natural attrition and pursue something else because they decide it’s all too hard.

It should be no different with teaching.

The ATAR as most will know is also a measure of demand for the course. For a long time the score for medicine has been in the high 90’s because quite obviously, so many people want to do it.

Medicine has long been an attractive profession due to the great variety of career structures, pathways of speciality and remuneration.

Teaching scores are low in some universities because demand for the course is low – many young people don’t see either the pay or the working conditions as attractive in comparison with other professions.

I also want to remind all of you that teacher remuneration and career structure is an area where the Federal Government has a limited capacity to intervene.

State Governments are responsible for all industrial and operational matters in schools, including teacher pay and conditions.

The Federal Education Minister does however have a real capacity to work with the universities sector to make teacher training courses rigorous and attractive.

It is logical given the Commonwealth is the major funder of universities; that this is the area where it has the greatest capacity to effect change.

While academic achievement is an important factor in admission, there are other important factors such as a person’s motivation and desire to work with children that will ultimately determine if they are suitable to work in the profession.

Teachers at the coal face tell me that they are attracted to teaching because they see it both as a calling.

Some good work between the Federal Government and universities has already commenced.

In March this year the Government announced it would commission the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership to drive a nationally consistent approach[9]. We have welcomed this plan and it has bi-partisan support.

This work is to include guidelines for assessments like interviews, an application essay and portfolios of community work to assist universities to enhance their existing admissions practices.

Importantly this work will also include a pre graduation literacy and numeracy test.

We also need to closely review every single teacher training course.

Labor has suggested that under their plan they will improve teacher training by reviewing of all teaching courses through the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.

I believe another step is required before even contemplating what TEQSA is supposed to review.

The Coalition has already foreshadowed that it will establish a Ministerial Advisory Group to provide advice to Governments on changes needed to improve teacher training courses[10].

We want to be sure that all teacher training courses are adequately preparing graduates for the realities of work in modern classrooms and equipping them with all the necessary practical skills.

Specifically the group will be asked to identify common components that are regarded as being the world’s best practice in teacher programmes with a particular emphasis on pedagogical approaches, subject content and teaching practicum.

I will talk more about these three terms of reference in detail.

When I refer to pedagogical approaches, I am talking about ways of assessing learning, related to specific areas and matched to the capabilities of students.

Principals keep telling me that they believe graduates are coming into classrooms unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with the practical realities of teaching.

I have now been told on many occasions of instances where students are graduating from teacher training courses in primary education without being able to teach children to read.

Sound too ridiculous to be true? Think again, because it’s real.

Both the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (2005)[11] and a major report by Australian Council of Education Research into teaching practises (2006)[12] suggested that pedagogical approaches to teaching have changed in both teacher training courses and in the delivery of effective literacy programmes in our primary schools.

Student-centred approaches to teaching such as ‘whole language’ learning have dominated the way we teach in primary education over the last decade or more.

At the same time literacy and numeracy standards have declined.

Research overseas has also drawn similar conclusions[13].

Collectively these reports all suggest there is a strong case that students should have the basic knowledge and skills best provided initially by direct (or explicit) instruction in their early years.

The benefits of returning to explicit or phonics-centred pedagogy approaches to teaching are not just highlighted in international reports.

Some submissions into a recent Senate Inquiry into Teaching and Learning highlighted some of the great work that is being done right

now in Australia, including explicit based teaching programmes like ‘Direct Instruction’ in Cape York and the MacQuarie University’s ‘MULTI-LIT programme’ around Australia[14].

The Committee heard positive evidence about the ‘Explicit Instruction’ teaching method developed by education expert John Fleming. It is being adopted in remote indigenous schools around Australia including in Queensland and yielding real results in some of our most disadvantaged communities[15].

While these programmes differ from one another in a variety of ways – they all share the early, systematic and explicit teaching of phonics as part of their approach to reading.

I do appreciate that teaching methods and pedagogical approaches have long generated debate and ideological controversy, especially as to what constitutes ‘best practice’.

I would never advocate that simply one approach to teaching will meet the needs of all students.

But we must as a matter of urgency examine how student teachers are being taught in pre-service education to teach children to read.

In 2005 it was found that less than 10 per cent of instructional time in compulsory subjects of pre-service training was devoted to teaching undergraduate students how to instruct their future charges to read[16].

Given some States are reporting an oversupply of primary school teachers[17], now is the perfect time for universities to raise the bar even higher and stop graduating student teachers who do not meet the standards to which they should aspire.

The second term of reference is subject content.

This is knowledge and understanding of school subjects in the primary and secondary curriculum, particularly in relation to foreign languages, mathematics and the sciences.

This is important because Governments of all political persuasions have now known for well over a decade that we have a chronic under supply of secondary science, maths and language teachers.

However this situation is not helped by the fact that in some States teachers with these sought after skills are not paid any more salary than those that have not acquired them.

Only a few months ago I had morning tea with a Principal in the electorate of Patterson and I asked him what the single biggest need at the school was.

It wasn’t a new school hall, it wasn’t a laptop – he said he had been unable to recruit a specialist mathematics teacher.

Government needs to work to fill the practical needs that Principals, teachers and parents know are the real priorities in education.

I believe little will change in the long-term if the States don’t work towards increasing flexibility within the workplace to actually meet student need. I feel great steps are being taken towards this outcome by the Queensland Government.

Around 18 months ago Labor tried to cut funding to a science programme called “Primary Connections”.

The programme is operated by the Australian Academy of Science.

It was commissioned by the former Coalition Government and provides teacher training tools and support in this critical area.

Members of the science community were particularly outraged over the decision to cut this modest programme given Kevin Rudd’s 2007 policy of a discount for HECS-HELP tuition fees for mathematics and science subjects had just been dumped by the Gillard Government[18].

Nobel Prize winner Professor Brian Schmidt even went so far as to donate $100,000 of his own prize money to keep the programme alive[19]. He has suggested it is one of the most effective tools available to teach science to this age group.

After intense political pressure, Labor back-flipped on their decision and thankfully re-instated the programme.

The Leader of the Opposition has already announced we would continue this programme into the future.

Given the programme is in such high demand and currently used in around 55 per cent of schools, it tells us there is a strong need to enhance primary school teachers’ confidence and competence for teaching science[20].

We want the best advice on what universities need to ensure that all teachers are graduating with an appropriate knowledge in mathematics and the sciences.

We also believe it is necessary to ask the group to examine the teaching of languages as well.

The Coalition has already announced that we will work with the States to ensure at least 40 per cent of Year 12 students are studying a foreign language within a decade.

One of the key barriers in realising this objective will be the availability of language teachers.

There are only around 9,500 teachers teaching Languages Other Than English[21], and given there are some 290,000 teachers[22] this represents only about 3 per cent of the workforce.

While a range of policy levers will be required to meet our languages target, clearly we will need to boost the number of skilled teachers in this area.

For example, how can we encourage more students who have already studied a language at the undergraduate level to pursue a Diploma of Education?

We will ask the group to examine this issue and once this advice is received, we will work with universities to ensure that language education is made a high priority in the future criterion of our teachers.

Finally, the Coalition will work to improve teaching practicum arrangements.

We want to improve university and in school practicum opportunities for student teachers and ensure they have extensive support from experienced mentor teachers.

It is critical that pre-service teacher education leaves new teacher graduates with the right mix of academic and practical skills.

The education systems in our Asian neighbours like Shanghai, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei are not comparable to Australia in a number of ways.

I have always urged caution about over simplistic comparisons between countries or “PISA envy” as described by Stephen Dinham of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education in a recent article that describes our growing obsession with the outcomes of students in those systems[23].

However as the Grattan Institute notes there are always useful lessons to be learnt by looking a bit more closely at what others are doing.

For example, our Asian neighbour countries do have an extensive focus on teacher practicum and mentoring.

In Shanghai, all new teachers have not one, but two mentors. One is for classroom management, the other for subject content[24].

We will ask the Ministerial Advisory Group to undertake a rigorous benchmarking exercise of the world’s best practice teacher programmes against Australia’s own courses.

This will help to make suggestions for improvement to the agreed Professional Standards for Teachers and the Education Programs Standards, both of which are administered by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership.

It is not our intention to either duplicate or dismantle any of the existing work that has been done by AITSIL but rather enhance it.

I envisage that the group will be five education experts. They will be asked to undertake their research in the three areas I have described and report in the short term. Once their advice has been received they will not become a permanent fixture.

Today, I have sought to outline the Coalition’s approach to teacher quality in a quite specific way. I hope the sector will engage with me on the terms of reference I announce today and that they may well suggest appropriate experts to serve.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on teacher quality. Education is my great passion. I believe a focus on teacher quality is one of the most transformative changes an Australian Government can make in education.

If we are fortunate to be elected, I intend to pursue this with every fibre of my being.

Thank you.