ITE program accreditation overview

In the Australian Government Response to the TEMAG Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers report, AITSL was tasked with leading reform in ITE in six key areas covering selection, quality assurance, robust assessment, professional experience, induction, and national research and workforce planning.

Since 2015, AITSL has worked with ITE providers (universities and other education institutions offering degrees that enable graduates to register as a practising teacher) and the state and territory teacher regulatory authorities to embed these reforms.

The first step was the 2015 revision of the Accreditation of initial teacher education programs in Australia: Standards and Procedures, first endorsed in 2011, to incorporate the new requirements recommended by the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG).

A key feature of the strengthened system is that to retain accreditation ITE providers must collect, analyse, and interpret data and evidence from multiple sources to inform the ongoing evaluation of ITE programs and determine their effectiveness in producing classroom ready graduates.

The accreditation of ITE programs is done in two stages:

Stage one is the initial accreditation process for ITE programs and applies to:

• New ITE programs being put forward for accreditation. In stage one, ITE providers demonstrate how their program will meet the 2015 Standards and Procedures. A critical element of this is the provider's plan for demonstrating the impact on student learning of its pre-service teachers within their ITE program (i.e. during professional experience placements) and of its graduates and/or graduate cohorts following completion.
• ITE programs previously accredited under the 2011 Standards and Procedures. Depending on the requirements of their teacher regulatory authority, ITE programs accredited under the 2011 Standards and Procedures were either required to submit a transition plan detailing what they were doing or would do, to ensure their programs met the 2015 Standards and Procedures or they were required to reapply for accreditation under the 2015 Standards and Procedures in their entirety.

Stage two occurs at the end of the initial Stage 1 accreditation cycle (not exceeding five years) and applies to:

• all ITE programs that have completed a cycle of accreditation and have evidence of impact to inform their evaluation and review. In stage two, ITE providers analyse and interpret the data and evidence collected during the previous cycle of accreditation to inform the future design and delivery of their programs.

Once ITE programs have been accredited at stages one and two, providers are required to report annually to their teacher regulatory authority on the outcomes of the program and to continue to provide subsequent accreditation applications at stage 2 at the end of each of their accreditation cycles (not exceeding five years).

As more ITE programs move towards accreditation stage two and have had the opportunity to collect and analyse relevant data, we will have greater ability to determine the impact the TEMAG reforms are having. Few programs have gone to accreditation stage two yet due to the expiry date of their existing accreditation cycle, granted under the 2011 Standards and Procedures. We can expect to see the majority of ITE programs being accredited at stage two from 2019 through to 2022.