TEACHER-TRAINING Independent Body Urged In Australia

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31061, 17 May 1966, Page 12

TEACHER-TRAINING Independent Body Urged In Australia

(N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) SYDNEY, May 16. The Professor of Education at Sydney University, Professor W. F. Connell, has called for an independent federal board to take over all teacher training in Australia.

Speaking last night at the seventh annual conference of the Australian College of Education at the university. Professor Connell said the board should be as free from state and federal government control as universities. It would raise teacher training standards throughout the country, he said. “The board should be kept in touch with state departments of education, Roman Catholic schools and independent schools, by including representatives from these three employing authorities on its governing board.” It would have to ensure that teachers trained under its control met the “reasonable requirements” of employing bodies. Financially Separate “If, however, it is to reap the full value of its independence it must be financially and functionally separate,” Professor Connell said. “Its offices must not be housed in, nor its officers directly connected with, a state department or other employing authority.” “Its chairman must not be a state director or an official of a state department of education or other employing authority.” Professor Connell said that about one-sixth of Australia’s teachers of matriculation

classes had done no university work in their subject. About half the teachers of matriculation French and more than half in geography, mathamatics, chemistry, physics and biology had not majored in their subject. Only 2000 of a total of 100,000 teachers in Australia had taken formal study in education beyond their initial training. Unless there was radical reorganisation, the vast majority of teachers —now entering the profession at 17 or 18 years of age—would not undertake further professional study.