NSW education authorities are investigating how they can endorse high school teachers as subject specialists even if they do not have university qualifications in that discipline amid shortages of qualified teachers, particularly in maths and science.
However, the union warns that the move will compromise standards, and principals say formal qualifications are key to ensuring the quality of teachers hired from interstate and overseas who are being targeted to boost the numbers of STEM teachers.
A ministerial briefing, written in late January and marked “sensitive”, discusses alternatives to a requirement for high school teachers to have university qualifications in the subject they teach – such as maths or English – as well as an education degree. The alternatives could include vocational study or workforce experience in their discipline.
It said the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) was working with the state Education Department and universities to develop “defendable” recognised prior learning to “support the department’s teacher recruitment strategy”.
But the document – obtained by the NSW Teachers Federation under freedom of information laws – acknowledges the proposal would be contentious. “Stakeholders such as the [Teachers Federation] and secondary principals, as well as many teachers themselves, would be greatly concerned by an apparent dismantling of the expectation that teachers have a subject major,” it said.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the government was looking at ways to recognise interstate teachers with significant experience. “At the moment there are barriers around the differences in teaching qualifications across the country,” Mitchell said.
“This isn’t about watering down teaching standards, it’s about modernising the profession to recognise the significant experience of qualified teachers.”
Teachers work out of field when they teach without a university major or minor in that subject, such as when a PE teacher leads a maths class. They can teach out of field if their principal cannot find a qualified teacher, or does not have enough of them to meet timetable requirements.
In NSW, about 22 per cent of year 7 to 10 maths teachers work out of field, as well as more than 22 per cent of history teachers, one in five English teachers, almost a third of special education teachers, and 37 per cent of technological and applied sciences teachers.
Internal research by the department has found students achieve better academic results if they are taught by a fully qualified teacher.
Under present rules, teachers are given “codes” so that potential employers can identify their subject qualifications. There are exceptions; they can apply for a code in a subject if they satisfy a panel of experts that they have taught it successfully for at least two years in the past five.
However, subjects such as maths, English and science were excluded, the document said.
At present, NESA also refuses to recognise the out of field teaching experience of interstate or overseas-trained teachers. Those decisions are left to employers.
NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos said he was yet to meet a parent who would be willing to have their child taught by less-qualified teachers. He said the department had long failed to do the workforce planning required to avert a shortage.
“The government now intends to make the schoolchildren of tomorrow pay for the neglect of sound policy and planning by the politicians of today,” he said. The union blames pay and conditions for a shortage of teachers in some geographical regions and subjects, andits members will strike on Wednesday.
The head of the Secondary Principals’ Council, Craig Petersen, said the present system of granting codes to teachers without formal qualifications involved robust assessment of how those candidates had taught the NSW curriculum. He was concerned about hiring teachers from other jurisdictions without requiring university qualifications.
“If it’s someone who has been teaching outside the NSW jurisdiction, and therefore not teaching the NSW curriculum, or the NSW HSC, we would question how you make the judgment about their proficiency in delivering NSW curriculum and assessment,” Petersen said. “That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be done. But I would like something that’s more than defendable, I want something that’s rigorous.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/teachers-warn-plan-to-address-staff-shortages-could-lead-to-lower-standards-20220502-p5ahug.html
