Teacher training is the answer to improving student results

The most significant in-school factor affecting student achievement is teaching quality. There’s a huge amount of evidence about which teaching practices are most effective. Many Australians reasonably assume evidence-based teaching is consistently covered in university teacher education programs, but unfortunately this is not the reality.

The Teaching and Learning International Survey asked teachers around the world how prepared they were after completing their education training, and in almost every area — including being prepared to manage student behaviour, teach their specific subjects, and teach mixed-ability classes — Australian teachers reported being significantly less prepared than the OECD teacher average.

These findings are consistent with what we know about Australian teacher education.

Take classroom management. It’s hard to think of a more important topic for new teachers to learn. Yet several studies have shown the textbooks used in Australian teacher education degrees do not adequately cover evidence-based practices for managing student behaviour.

This partly explains why Australian classrooms are relatively rowdy. The PISA data shows that our schools are among the worst in the OECD for discipline — students are far more likely to report noise, disorder, and that the teacher has to wait a long time for students to become focused on the lesson.

The result is that a massive amount of learning time is lost. Improved school discipline is strongly associated with better PISA results (and student wellbeing), and a large part of this is classroom management.

Take early reading instruction, another essential topic for new primary school teachers. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study — which assesses the reading ability of students in year 4, and is a separate test to PISA — indicates one in five Australian students are below the international literacy benchmark.

One likely reason is, again, teacher training. A recent audit of preparation to teach reading in initial teacher education found most literacy subjects don’t sufficiently cover the key elements of reading instruction, such as phonics.

If primary teaching graduates aren’t even equipped to teach reading effectively, then what exactly is the point of them spending years at university getting an expensive piece of paper?

To help turn this around, states and territories should develop strong and detailed expectations for essential, evidence-based content to be covered in all university education programs.

And if any university refuses to comply, then the relevant government education department should refuse to recognise the degree and thus prevent ill-prepared graduates teaching in schools.

Of course, many universities do a decent job of training teachers. It’s the inconsistency that is the problem. While no one likes having external accountability, universities would actually benefit from clear government expectations about the content they should teach to prospective new teachers. It would increase transparency and leave universities open to less public criticism.

And unlike other fixes, this one isn’t a big spender. About $60 billion of taxpayer money is given to schools annually, and per-student spending increased substantially in recent decades (well above inflation), including for government schools.

The only possible way to argue funding hasn’t significantly risen is to contend that increases in teacher salaries don’t actually count as increases in school funding — surely a case study in failing the common sense test.

Having high expectations of new teachers without giving them high-quality training is unfair to them, unfair to the schools they work at, and especially unfair to their students.

Blaise Joseph is an education research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies and a former teacher.