The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) called for submissions in response to its position paper, Classroom Ready: Demonstrating the impact on students learning of initial teacher education programs. The paper outlined an approach to evidence-based assessment of initial teacher education (ITE) programs and their impact on school student learning.
Three questions were posed to the public and relevant stakeholders for consultation over a period of three weeks. There were 27 responses in total, and during that three week period there were over 860 downloads of the position paper. The majority of respondents were from Victoria (41 percent), followed by New South Wales (18.5 percent), Queensland (18.5 percent) and South Australia (14.2 percent). The roles of the majority of respondents fell under the category of ‘other’ (33 percent), followed by teacher educators (30 percent), school leaders (19 percent), teachers (11 percent) and government employees (7 percent).
The responses raised some common themes about the validity and reliability of data related to demonstrating impact, and the resourcing, context and ethical implications of data collection. These themes are outlined in the summary below, followed by an outline of the broader challenges identified by some respondents.