101 Damnations: the persistence of criticism and the absence of evidence about teacher education in Australia

Abstract

There have been 101 government inquiries of one sort or another into Australian teacher education since 1979. Most have presumed or documented concerns about the performance of teacher education. There has, however, been surprisingly little impact from the reports of these many inquiries. They have not – so far – increased the relatively low level of consequential regulation on Australian teacher education; nor have they arrested the long run of declining government funding. This paper argues that in the absence of compelling evidence of differential effects of well‐ or poorly‐organised programmes, or well‐ or poorly‐funded programmes, there is no likely end to the stream of reports and no reasonable hope of restoration of adequate funding. Compelling evidence, the paper argues, would need to disaggregate the impact of student intake, teacher education programme and school context characteristics on subsequent teacher performance and student achievement.

Keywords:

• teacher education
• evidence‐based research
• evaluation outcomes
• Australia

Notes

1. The possibility of national accreditation is on the policy horizon, with two suitors currently offering to regulate teacher education on a federal model (Australasian Forum of Teacher Registration and Accreditation Authorities, 2007) or a national model (Teaching Australia, 2007).