The fall happened after the state raised the minimum ATAR for a teaching degree.Victoria experienced a sharp decline in students entering teaching courses after the Andrews government introduced tougher new university entry standards designed to weed out poor candidates.
In 2018, the Andrews government raised the minimum tertiary admission rank for year 12 students entering teaching to 65, progressing to 70 in 2019. It also introduced a new character test for aspiring teaching students,The number of students starting a teaching course in Victoria fell 24.6 per cent, from 8787 students in 2017, to 6623 students in 2019, data from the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership shows.
It follows a review into the quality of initial teacher education launched last year by the former Morrison government. Barbousas said the national conversation about teaching had flipped from quality to supply. AITSL chief executive Mark Grant said that while Victoria experienced a considerable drop in undergraduate ITE commencements between 2017 and 2018, and a further drop in 2019, this followed a trend which began about 2015-2016.
adamlcarey ‘Personal Attributes’- Skin colour? Gender? Labor voter? Global warmer?
LOL, no mention of the increasingly grim conditions for teachers that became more publicly understood over that time. Yes, entry hurdles will have stopped some people from applying, but young people also make rational career decisions.