A comment I had published eleven years ago – and still on the mark of what needs to be done.

Sure, funding is important and the need for good facilities paramount. However, for a long, long time now the country has been missing the boat – and continues to overlook the thing most important. Our teacher training programs are in need of overhaul. The selection of people to teach is something that has –needed attention for the last thirty years.

The fact that there is ‘open quota’ on universities’ meaning they can take in as many people as they like regardless of their adequateness to teach is a blight upon Government for allowing this. Nothing changes. Many years ago when my son was in Year 11, a group of career advisers from the Commonwealth Dept of Education visited and counselled with students about what level of Year 12 TER they would need for particular professions. “Ninety nine will get you dentistry, 96 doctoring, 94 engineering ……. ” and so on. The count-down finished at 60, good enough for someone to train as a chartered accountant. “Oh”, one of the advisers to these students said, “If you get less than sixty, there is always teaching.”

Sadly, we have not learned. As a recently retired Principal, I can tell you a big job was teaching teachers to teach