Calling for ‘urgent national action to improve the quality of initial teacher education’: the reification of evidence and accountability in reform agendas

Abstract

In early 2015, the Australian Government and an associated Ministerial Group called for ‘urgent national action to improve the quality of initial teacher education’. Following this call for action, the Australian Government launched a series of reforms into initial teacher education, targeting ‘teacher quality’ and ‘classroom readiness’. The reforms are based on a logic of deficiency within initial teacher education, mandating new accreditation processes, standardized assessments and the National Literacy and Numeracy Test for pre-service teachers. In this paper we set out to explore these reforms, considering the policy trajectories, technologies and technicist network in which they are operationalized. We propose the concept of reification and objectification to examine the institutionalization of auditing, standardization, and accountability. These reforms aim to intervene in both the content and delivery of initial teacher education. We argue that reforms such as these recondition our conceptions of professionalism and teacher quality. There is a contraction in scope for progressive or experiential teacher education, and moreover, the ongoing de-professionalism of teachers and teacher educators, whom are subjected to constant surveillance.

Keywords:

• Initial teacher education
• teacher quality
• classroom readiness
• reification
• Students First
• accountability
• performativity

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their scholarly input into this paper. We acknowledge that the work of the reviewers has assisted in strengthening the contribution of the paper.

Notes

1. Teach For All is the umbrella term that includes all 46 programs in each of the independent partner organizations (at the time of writing).

2. The reforms are aimed at the initial teacher education sector, which includes undergraduate and postgraduate, early years through to secondary education programmes.

3. NAPLAN stands for the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy. This is a mandated annual test for all schools and students, managed and administered by ACARA. It tests students in years three, five, seven and nine, in five domains including: reading; persuasive writing; spelling; grammar and punctuation; and numeracy. The results are published on a website called ‘My School’ to compare schools results using a value-added measurement.

4. This excludes the reference list.

5. For a list of the members in more detail, see: https://www.studentsfirst.gov.au/teacher-education-ministerial-advisory-group-members.

6. Council of Australian Governments.

7. Whilst the final report was published in November 2015, following the release of the TEMAG report, iterations of this study were published consecutively leading up to this date – see Mayer et al. 2012, 2013.