Associate Professor Louise Jenkins, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Education is available to comment on the recent Teacher Education Expert Panel report. She argues the report does not address the workplace issues that make the greatest difference in the retention and further development of teachers and their teaching.
Associate Professor Louise Jenkins, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Education
Contact: +61 3 990 52842 or Louise.Jenkins@monash.edu
The following can be attributed to Associate Professor Jenkins:
“As a Faculty, we believe that the final report of the Teacher Education Expert Panel fails to address the significant issues affecting teaching as a profession in Australia.
“We endorse the attention in the report to issues of equity and diversity, Indigenous teachers and students, and partnerships with and mentoring in schools, but the deliberations of the panel and the outcomes appear limited.
“Overall, the report does not address the workplace (including conditions and pay) issues that make the greatest difference in the retention and further development of teachers and their teaching.
“The report also doesn’t engage with the growing body of international research into effective teacher education and professional learning, including the importance of workplace learning.
“Prescribing what prospective teachers are taught in universities will not have the effects intended; decades of research show that such front-loading of content gets ‘washed out’ in the practice of student teaching without appropriate interventions in the workplace.”
“As the largest and most research-intensive Faculty of Education with the highest completion rates in the country, we’re looking forward to the prospect of engaging with the government and the Teacher Education Expert Panel more closely on these reforms.”
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