The regulation of school teaching qualifications is to be strengthened under a new Bill introduced into Parliament this week (8 December) to ensure children get high-quality teachers and high-quality education.
Minister for Education, James Merlino said the new law would enhance the powers of the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) to regulate school teaching degrees.
“The Bill also gives the VIT the power to regulate pathway programs into school teaching degrees,” Mr Merlino said.
“These programs provide students with preparation and an avenue for entry into a teaching course,” he said.
“The changes will ensure that the programs properly equip prospective students for a bachelor-level Initial Teacher Education program.”
Mr Merlino said VIT would also gain explicit powers to endorse continuing education programs for school and early childhood teachers, to give greater assurance to teachers that the programs met an objective quality threshold.
The Minister said other changes included clarifying and streamlining VIT’s inquiry and investigation process; removing a person’s eligibility for provisional registration where they had previously been provisionally registered for six years; and empowering VIT to reinstate a person’s registration within 12 months of expiry in special circumstances.
He said that in response to a recommendation to improve child safety from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, VIT’s powers to share information, including with other regulators and interstate teacher registration authorities, would be broadened.
“Victoria was the first jurisdiction in Australia to introduce minimum standards for entry into initial teacher education programs, with the introduction of the minimum ATAR in 2018 and the personal attributes assessment,” Mr Merlino said.
“Changes in the Bill will complement and reinforce those entry requirements and continue to ensure the quality of school teaching and the status of the profession,” he said.
