Recording date: Monday 8 August 2022

E&OE

Nadia Mitsopoulos:

Education ministers are meeting with school leavers and unions on Friday to address the national teacher shortage. Now, one idea that’s on the table is an apprenticeship for teachers so they’d be teaching while training. This is actually being pitched by Universities Australia and its Chief Executive is Catriona Jackson. Good morning.

Catriona Jackson:

G’day Nadia.

Nadia Mitsopoulos:

Where did this idea come from?

Catriona Jackson:

Oh, look, we’ve been talking with members, all the universities and education deans all around the country, to come up with some practical solutions to what we all know is a really serious problem for the country, but most importantly, for our kids.

Nadia Mitsopoulos:

So how would it work? What’s the idea here?

Catriona Jackson:

So, the idea here is just to make sure not to make any difference to the qualifications required. It is incredibly important that we maintain the quality of teacher education. So, either you do a four-year degree, or you do a normal degree, a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, and then you add a two-year postgraduate qualification.

What the apprenticeship would do, would just mean that during that postgraduate bit or during the tail end of your four-year degree, you’d get into the classroom a bit more often and there would be a clear agreement with employers that you’d have a job at the end of it.

One of the problems we’ve got for these young teachers – especially if they were going through it young – when they’re at university is, they’re not sure there will be a job at the end. They might end up in a casual appointment and then another casual appointment or actings, and it’s just a little bit unclear that there’s a clear pathway for them.

We want to clear that up and make sure they’re getting enough experience in the classroom – really good hands-on experience. But then clarity as well around there being a job at the end just makes it more likely they’ll stick with this really fantastic profession and get into the classroom as a teacher.

Nadia Mitsopoulos:

That’s the key here, isn’t it? That guaranteed job at the end, because some might listen and go, “well, we already do practicals … this is just a longer practical.” I think we need to be clear, it’s not that at all.

Catriona Jackson:

Absolutely not. The idea here is to do a bit more practical, but at the same time, the job at the end is the different part. And look, these are all matters for discussion. It’s terrific that education ministers from all around the states and territories and at the federal level are meeting at the end of this week. Because we all know every single parent, every single person in Australia, knows we’ve got a teacher shortage, we’ve got a nursing shortage, and these are things we really have to look at as a country. Everyone’s heard stories. I mean, who’d be a teacher or a nurse right now? If you’re a teacher, you are teaching in class, but at the same time, you’re teaching virtually for some kids who are home having PCR or RAT tests or whatever it might be.

The pressure is just absolutely enormous. And through these last two and a half years that have been no fun for anyone, the pressure has been huge on them as well as on students. Look, there are some things you might learn through the COVID period, and one of them is that there are some incredibly important professionals in this country. Teachers and nurses are incredibly important. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got enough of them, that they’re getting the right kind of education, they’re getting the terrifically high-quality standards, so we can make sure that every single kid going through our school system has the best possible chance at life.

Nadia Mitsopoulos:

Catriona Jackson is the Chief Executive of Universities Australia and my guest this morning. We’re talking about the idea of having teacher apprentices. So, there would be guaranteed a job and they’d obviously get paid for that time in the classroom?

Catriona Jackson:

That is a matter for employers to work out and on that model, they might get paid. Certainly, there are other ideas as well. There are ways of making sure you get a bit more practical experience when you’re in the postgraduate area. So, one of the other things you can do is you can make sure that people who are a bit older, not 19, 20, 21-year-olds, but people who have perhaps had another profession or are thinking about changing careers, have better access to training up and getting an education to become a teacher.

One of the other ideas we’ve put on the table is just adopting and scaling up the sorts of programs that combine study and paid employment so that there’s not such a barrier. So, you are a 35-year-old lawyer and you think, “gee, well, I’ve done enough lawyering … I’d like to go into teaching now.” Ways of being able to maintain some sort of salary while you’re doing that two-year post grad qualification is another idea for the ministers to mull on this Friday.

Nadia Mitsopoulos:

Okay. Would this create though, a heavier workload for the qualified teacher in the room?

Catriona Jackson:

It’s really important that we don’t add to that workload, they have enough workload already. None of this can be done in isolation. Universities need to talk to governments, need to talk to the professional accreditation people, need to talk to unions. So, this is why it’s great that people are coming together at the end of this week because none of these things can be sorted out, or the best ideas adopted unless we have a really collective approach. So, you’re absolutely right, one of those criteria needs to be not putting additional pressure on teachers in classrooms who already are bearing enough pressure.

Nadia Mitsopoulos:

Has this been done before?

Catriona Jackson:

Look that one I was just speaking about then, there’s a thing called the Nexus program, which is terrific. It helps those professionals get really good accelerated and concentrated training to become teachers. So, there are programs running in this area already. Not the apprenticeships, but in the sort of scaling up programs to combine study and paid employment. That’s already happening and it’s already working. So, we can look to a model in Australia, which is great.

Nadia Mitsopoulos:

And before I let you go, Catriona, is this also about trying to get people back to those teaching degrees?

Catriona Jackson:

Oh look, absolutely. Because look, my mum was a teacher, and everyone looks up to her. It was an incredibly important job for her, and I still run into students of hers on the street who say, “gee, wow, I remember Mrs Rosa … she made me go on and do this and this and this … and I still read up on my Shakespeare.” I’m actually not pretending, I really do run into these people.

Everyone knows how important this job is. We all have a job of work to do to make sure that teachers are properly respected, but that all the authorities who need to get into the room together – universities, governments, professional accreditors, unions – have a proper conversation about how it is we can make sure we are respecting what is an enormously important profession.

But just making the policy adjustments, making the arrangements that mean that young people can get into the profession properly in a streamlined way and older people can get into the profession in a properly streamlined way. So, we’re just making it more likely to have a really flourishing group of teachers at the same time as also acknowledging that skilled migration is an important element here. So that needs to be discussed as well.

Nadia Mitsopoulos:

Oh, well, we’re going to continue discussing this and I appreciate your time. Good to talk to you.