|
courses | hecs/oldps
| higher education home | higher
education links
publications | issues | research | scholarships | statistics | universities
Teacher education courses and
completions
Initial teacher education courses and 1999, 2000
and 2001 completions
Roy Ballantyne
John D. Bain
EIP 02/03
© Commonwealth of Australia 2002
ISBN 0 642 77257 6
ISBN 0 642 77258 4 (Electronic Version)
DEST No. 6769.HERC02A
This work is copyright. It may be reproduced in whole or
in part for study or training purposes subject to the inclusion of an
acknowledgement of the source and no commercial usage or sale. Reproduction for
purposes other than those indicated above, require the prior written permission
from the Commonwealth available from the Department of Communications,
Information Technology and the Arts. Requests and inquiries concerning
reproduction and rights should be addressed to Commonwealth Copyright
Administration, GPO Box 2154, Canberra ACT 2601 or email
commonwealth.copyright@dcita.gov.au.
This report is funded under the Evaluations and
Investigations Programme of the Department of Education, Science and Training.
The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the
Department of Education, Science and Training.
Executive summary
Teacher education is a large and complicated enterprise in Australia. These
complexities lead to data management difficulties at the level of the faculty or
school, the institution, DETYA, and other external agencies. Each of those
stakeholders may have, from time to time, a need for data of adequate quality
and appropriate detail to inform policy-useful labour market analyses. There has
been a lack of such quality data that is also accessible and credible to all
parties.
This project was commissioned by the Evaluations and Investigations
Programme, Higher Education Division of the Department of Education, Training
and Youth Affairs (DETYA) with the following objectives:
to develop a classification
system and database incorporating all programs leading to teacher
qualifications to inform the review and further development of DETYA's
existing classification of teacher education courses, and to provide
information for a range of policy and research purposes; and
to provide information on the
numbers of initial teacher education graduates (1999 to 2001) by
specialisation to inform policy, including decisions about future intakes so
that damaging shortfalls or surpluses can be avoided.
Two major tasks were envisaged:
to map teacher education
programs offered by educational institutions throughout Australia; and
to collect student completions
numbers (1999 to 2001) for all programs, and, where appropriate, for
specialisations within programs.
The project has primary concern with data appropriate for informing teaching
labour market considerations. This points to the need for accurate information
in the following areas (paralleling the two major tasks):
This project addressed the issue of ensuring all (and only) initial teacher
education courses were included by systematically collecting information from
institution websites, checking against other relevant data sources, and
utilising project team members’ knowledge of teacher education provision in
Australia. In relation to subject specialisations, there is no sure and
consistent way of collecting information. This is especially so for secondary
specialisations that are at a level of detail not routinely maintained in any
way by some institutions or DETYA - such as ‘physics’ within the category of
‘science’, or ‘Japanese’ within the category of ‘LOTE’. This project addressed
this issue by collecting directly from institutions data on specific numbers of
completions for each course, categorised by both the level at which graduates
are qualified to teach, and, in the case of secondary teachers, by specified
subject specialisations.
Data were collected for this project using a Microsoft Access form attached
to a database. Both had been designed in consultation with DETYA officers and
referred to the Australian Council of Deans of Education Board for advice.
Substantial descriptive information about each course was entered into the
database from university websites and other sources. Alternative methods were
available for those unable to use the Access file.
Each institution/unit was sent the subset of the database pertaining to their
courses, and was asked to check their program details and to electronically
enter additional required information or amendments. The returned data subsets
were compiled into a complete database containing records of over 400 teacher
education courses throughout Australia.
The collection of data for this project was much more difficult than
anticipated, even though members of the project team had previous experience
gathering data from teacher education institutions.
There are a number of reasons for the difficulties.
The information was sought directly from the faculties or schools of
education. This was appropriate because of the nature of much of the data
sought, which included details not normally collected by DETYA from university
administrations, and some problems in the data passed on by university
administrations to DETYA. However, the faculties themselves often did not have
data available in the appropriate form, and often did not have adequate staff
resources.
The unavailability of data reflected, in some cases, very poor data
management systems; but more commonly resulted from the inherent difficulty in
providing the data sought because of the nature of the courses or the particular
specialisations. The difficulties at some institutions were such that accurate
data could not be provided, and those in the institutions were asked to make a
‘best estimate’, rather than leave a blank or understated data.
While a great deal of effort has gone into providing and checking the data,
there is more that could have been done. The limits on the resources for this
project meant that the line had to be drawn. We cannot be fully confident about
the quality of the data, but hope that it is of sufficient quality to usefully
inform some labour market analyses, and to provide a basis for improved data
collection and management in the future.
Much of this report contains detailed data obtained on initial teacher
education courses and the students who have completed (or will complete in 2001)
those courses.
In section 3.2.1 there is a summary description of the initial teacher
education provision of each institution, providing information on the geographic
location, the faculties or units within the institution that provide the courses
if there are two or more discrete units, as well as individual courses and
completions numbers.
In the main text and in the appendices is very detailed quantitative
information about courses and completions. Analysis is at the level of the
course, the institution and the State or Territory. There is analysis of courses
by size, duration and mode of delivery. Completions are analysed by
qualification category and specialisations. Data are provided in a form that is
relevant to the needs of labour market analyses, and the complete database can
be interrogated to provide additional data.
Of the 410 teacher education courses listed in the database, 310 (76 per
cent) were expecting fewer than 50 completions in 2001. Most of the larger
courses were offered by eight major institutions, which together accounted for
43 per cent of teacher completions across the country (Table 1).
top
Table 1: Number of expected completions in 2001 by institution
Institution Number of graduates Share of total graduates
| Institution |
Number of graduates |
Share of total graduates |
| QUT |
1101 |
8% |
| Melbourne |
1020 |
7% |
| ACU |
903 |
6% |
| UWS |
754 |
5% |
| Newcastle |
694 |
5% |
| CSU |
667 |
5% |
| Deakin |
643 |
5% |
| ECU |
588 |
4% |
| UniSA |
567 |
4% |
| Griffith |
530 |
4% |
| UNE |
510 |
4% |
| Monash |
455 |
3% |
| Sydney |
453 |
3% |
| LaTrobe |
422 |
3% |
| Wollongong |
358 |
3% |
| CQU |
350 |
2% |
| Macquarie |
347 |
2% |
| USQ |
324 |
2% |
| UTS |
302 |
2% |
| Utas |
287 |
2% |
| JCU |
278 |
2% |
| RMIT |
255 |
2% |
| UQ |
245 |
2% |
| VictoriaU |
238 |
2% |
| Canberra |
215 |
2% |
| Ballarat |
204 |
1% |
| Murdoch |
186 |
1% |
| Curtin |
173 |
1% |
| UNSW |
169 |
1% |
| Flinders |
163 |
1% |
| UWA |
160 |
1% |
| Southern Cross |
152 |
1% |
| Adelaide |
140 |
1% |
| NTU |
98 |
1% |
| Notre Dame |
56 |
0% |
| Avondale |
33 |
0% |
| Christian Heritage |
33 |
0% |
| Batchelor |
0 |
0% |
| Totals |
14073 |
100% |
top
Although a range of courses of various durations are included in the
database, the majority are of four years duration. Seventeen institutions are
offering external or mixed mode delivery of teacher education courses,
accounting for 18 per cent of all active courses. External or mixed mode courses
were most accessible in the Northern Territory, and least in the ACT and
Victoria.
A total of 14 073 new teachers are expected to complete courses in 2001, 80
per cent of these being in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. In all States, with the
exception of Western Australia, the expected completions exceed those of 2000
(Graph 1).
Graph 1 Numbers of graduates by State/Territory
top
These larger states produce approximately equal proportions of primary and
secondary qualified teachers; around 40 per cent of all teachers are qualified
to teach primary and 40 per cent secondary (Graph 2).
Graph 2 Numbers of completions expected in 2001 for each qualifications
category by state/territory
top
The smaller states tend to produce more primary than secondary teachers.
Trends indicate that the numbers of teacher education completions in Australia
are increasing at approximately 11-14 per cent per year, with Queensland showing
the greatest increase. Of the specific subject specialisations surveyed, senior
English was found to be the most prevalent, with 19 per cent of secondary
graduates qualified to teach this subject. Other specialisations were reported
as having quite low frequencies, with only 4 per cent of graduates qualified to
teach senior physics, 6 per cent senior chemistry, 7 per cent senior
mathematics, 4 per cent secondary information technology and 8 per cent
secondary LOTE subjects (Graph 3).
Graph 3 Completions expected in 2001 by specialisation as a percentage of
all expected completions in each state/territory
top
Whether the number of completions of teacher education students with the
various specialist and generalist qualifications is appropriate to meet demand
and avoid damaging surpluses or shortages must be assessed in terms of
information about actual and anticipated demand for beginning teachers to work
in government and non-government schools, and early childhood and adult
education settings. Consideration of demand is outside the scope of this
project.
The final chapter of this report considers the challenges for ongoing data
collection and management. Some challenges and problems are easily fixed, others
seem intractable. The challenges are considered in the context of the further
development of DETYA’s collection and statistical management; internal faculty
of education data management, and the feasibility of maintaining the database
developed for this project.
The ‘Field of Study’ (FOS) classification, that includes seven initial
teacher education sub-categories, has been used by DETYA for the purposes of
classifying courses. This is being replaced by a ‘Field of Education’ (FOE)
classification, which, in conjunction with a separate code to identify courses
‘providing initial teacher training’ (Element 312), provides largely comparable
information. The classification systems are outlined, and some instances from
the DETYA student statistical collection are discussed to illustrate problems
with the collection and limitations of the classification systems. Problems for
on-going data collection and maintenance include the needs to be certain that
all relevant courses are included, and unwanted ones are excluded. The problem
of double counting individuals, especially in the context of early exit points
in courses is discussed.
The discussion of the challenges for ongoing data collection and management
point to difficulties and possible solutions in obtaining data for (a) generic
level labour market analyses (for example, total primary and total secondary
teachers), and (b) for analyses concerning specific secondary specialisations
(that could be extended to other specialisations or attributes of teacher
education students).
Some possible solutions regarding data for generic level labour market
analyses include:
Universities to ensure the
correct classification of courses prior to submitting data to DETYA;
Consideration of appropriate
ways to deal with issues related to early exit points (so that courses are
appropriately classified and there is not double-counting), and the
preparation of relevant directions/guidelines for data collection;
Flagging of those courses that
cannot clearly be placed in a useful subcategory under FOS 502 (that is, not
50201 or 50299) – such as a large graduate program with both intending primary
and intending secondary teachers. Consider the feasibility of collecting
disaggregated data independently from regular data collections;
Not being concerned with the
very large number of courses with very small numbers of students completing.
Information about such courses may be vital for some purposes, but generally
not for labour market analyses.
For data collection and management for labour market analyses concerned with
particular specialisations, it may be useful to support consultations about
suitable data management systems at the faculty level, and provide any necessary
further assistance.
The database developed as part of this project may be a valuable resource for
the development of some of these strategies, and for other purposes. Whether and
how it is updated and refined will need to be considered in the context of these
other matters of data management. The future of the database will also need to
be considered in the light of its value in assisting the development of
appropriate analyses of the teaching labour market and informing good
evidence-based policy.
Full Report
 (482KB)
Return to the Top of the Page
|
