The Victorian Government is banning teachers with interstate one-year degrees from teaching in Victorian government schools.
Deputy Premier and Minister for Education Ben Carroll has this month announced changes to Victoria’s teacher recruitment policy, preventing teachers from Western Australia from working in government schools unless they have completed a postgraduate initial teacher education degree of at least two years’ duration.
One-year Graduate Diplomas in Education which are acquired in Western Australia do not meet the nationally agreed Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) accreditation of initial teacher education programs in Australia.
AITSL’s nationally agreed standard requires postgraduate initial teacher education (ITE) programs to be two years (full-time equivalent) in length and the incorporation of ITE core content into programs.
The Western Australian decision undermines Victoria and other states and territories due to the operation of mutual recognition laws. Under mutual recognition, the Victorian Institute of Teaching is required to grant Victorian teacher registration to people who have Western Australian registration and want to teach in Victoria.
While Western Australian teachers are still eligible to be registered, Victoria has the authority to prevent them from being employed in Victorian government schools through changes to the school employment policy.
“Our children deserve the very best education possible. We have been very clear that graduate teachers who want to teach in Victoria should have credentials achieved under a nationally consistent accredited course, no matter where they study,” Mr Carroll said.
“The investments we’ve made in boosting our teacher workforce are working – we have around 12,000 more teachers registered now than there were in 2020 and we’re continuing to back them with the resources they need to do an excellent job.”
The Victorian Government has written to the Victoria Catholic Education Authority and Independent Schools Victoria to encourage them to review their own employment policies to prevent the undermining of nationally consistent standards of initial teacher education programs and graduates.
It also continues to advocate to the Commonwealth for a national solution to a national problem and will raise this at the October Education Ministers Meeting.
