Quality teaching: the best teachers for every school

To have a top five schooling system Australia needs teachers who are among the best in the world. This will mean:

encouraging our best and brightest to join the profession;
equipping all teachers, particularly new teachers, with the skills they need to excel; and
giving experienced teachers high quality professional development to maintain and enhance their skills.

Higher entry standards and better pre‑service training for new teachers

Greater use of enhanced admissions processes to initial teacher education courses will help ensure our graduate teachers have the personal attributes and passion needed for teaching. Initial teacher education programs will also be reviewed, in consultation with universities and teacher employers, to ensure they are world class and will produce the highest quality teaching graduates.

To ensure teaching graduates are ready for the classroom, they will need to successfully complete a literacy and numeracy assessment before graduation. A national approach to improve supervised teaching practice will be agreed, including a minimum of 80 hours in the classroom before graduation.

More support in the early years of a teaching career

Graduate teachers will be better supported as they enter the profession through greater use of dedicated mentors and extra support for the first two years of teaching.

Enhancing the performance and professional development of all teachers

Under the new Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, teachers will be able to be certified against the Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher levels — providing formal recognition of their ability and skills.

Every teacher will be entitled to an annual performance review, ensuring teachers are appropriately recognised as their expertise and effectiveness develop over their career.

John is a first year university student studying to become a high school science teacher. The new accreditation standards for teaching programs will ensure that John's course is assessed against nationally agreed benchmarks.

A new national approach to practical experience for teaching students will set out the qualities and skills John must demonstrate at each stage of his course. His supervising teacher will be given access to new online resources to help her better support and assess John.

Before John graduates he will need to demonstrate that he is in the top 30 per cent for literacy and numeracy. Before he starts his first job he will be assessed against the graduate level of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

As John begins his teaching career, he will be given extra time out of the classroom to plan his lessons, and receive mentoring from a more experienced teacher. John will have ongoing training throughout his career to ensure he is the best teacher he can be.