Former Dean of Education at Deakin University Rails at Government Inaction to Correct Failings in Teacher Education. (September 6, 2007)

    According to Justine Ferrari in The Australian, Richard Bates, former dean of education at Deakin University said the governmental reports recommending changes to entry requirements, length and content of courses, practical training, standards, induction and professional development, have all but been ignored. The most recent report was released in February.

"Cabinet has again clearly ignored the report of its own inquiry, though it is one of the best reports to be produced in 20 years," Professor Bates said. He is a former chair of the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) and is now a researcher at Deakin. He also told Ms Ferrari: "There is no lack of advice or understanding of the issues facing teacher education; there is however a significant lack of political will in addressing them."

The current chair of the ACDE, Sue Willis from Monash University, said governments had held 100 inquiries into teacher education over the past 30 years: "Almost none of them have led to change. The recommendations are almost always ignored or chosen selectively and therefore not capable of bringing about the needed improvements."

Both academics were quite impartial in their condemnation considering previous Labor governments to be comparably culpable.

Professor Willis said: "Relative to the higher education sector generally, that is in relative funding terms, teacher education is significantly worse off than it was three years ago, and even than it was a year ago. I believe that the quality of teacher education in Australia is at considerable risk."

But the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, wasn't having any of it: "While the Howard Government has taken a leadership role through the establishment of Summer Schools for Teachers and funding for increased practical experience for teaching students, the Deans of Education have been their own worst enemies," Ms Bishop said. Their claims about a lack of funding are simply a smokescreen to cover their own inaction. If the deans want the federal Government to directly intervene in the structure and content of education courses at universities that is a task that I accept with relish. At a time when universities in general are calling for less government regulation, the Deans of Education are inviting increased government intervention in many aspects of the management of their faculties."

Unfortunately, on the basis of such reporting it's impossible to gauge the relative merits of the accusations.

Here is a case for pitting Ms Bishop and the DEST secretary, Lisa Paul, against Professors Willis and Bates, on say SBS's Insight program, to see what boils up.