Latest news with #CatherinedeFontenay
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- The Guardian
Helping Australian teachers share lesson plans could improve stagnating student results, Productivity Commission says
A national online database of lesson plans would help teachers cut hours from their weekly workloads and help reverse years of stagnating student results, the Productivity Commission says. The commission's fourth interim report on how to lift Australia's flagging productivity focused on building a skilled and adaptable workforce. Naplan test results show one in three school students don't meet minimum literacy or numeracy standards, and Catherine de Fontenay, one of two commissioners leading the inquiry, said 'anything that improves our foundational skills in schools is going to have the biggest impact on productivity'. The commission said it 'repeatedly' heard during consultations that the tools and resources available to teachers varied between jurisdictions and sectors, while not all states and territories had developed lesson planning materials to share through a database. Sign up: AU Breaking News email The commonwealth should invest and promote a single online platform containing the materials, the report said, with the understanding plans would be adapted for local contexts and for the wide range of students' abilities. The commission also said the federal government should take the lead in devising a national approach to education technology in schools, including tools using artificial intelligence. 'Effective implementation of both reforms requires collaboration and buy-in from state and territory governments, school sectors, school leaders and teachers,' the report said. De Fontenay said the inquiry had revealed a lack of coordination around how to use AI in the classroom. 'What we found is that all the states are on a journey. A lot of them are at the (stage) of trying to ban the use of GenAI, with various levels of success,' she said. While some state school directorates are focused on the risks, others are developing their own GenAI tools, including Educhat in NSW. 'Teachers are in a very difficult situation right now,' de Fontenay said. 'All continue to experiment and try out different technologies, but in the midst of the fear there is lots of potential as well. 'For a kid who is struggling, AI can tailor the next question based on how they are doing on earlier questions, and then give them work that targets their weaknesses. 'There's a lot of potential, but there are always risks. This has to be a collective agreement in terms of how to proceed.' A week out from treasurer Jim Chalmers' economic reform roundtable, the commission also recommended easing regulatory restrictions around the jobs Australians are able to perform, which it said were exacerbating skills shortages. 'They should start by considering occupations – including motor vehicle repairers, painters and decorators, and hairdressers – where OERs [occupational entry regulations] apply in only some jurisdictions and are not demonstrably improving outcomes.' De Fontenay said it was not a question of doing away with minimum requirements, but pushing back against creeping 'credentialism'. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'It's more a question of proportionality. Audits are a good example. Right now the level of auditor requirements are the same as if you are auditing BHP or a small enterprise. We think there should be a lower tier risk of licence with simpler requirements,' she said. In aged care, the demands and expense of educational requirements could be a barrier to somebody with a natural aptitude, de Fontenay said. 'We don't want to see people who are really suited to this type of work prevented by excessive entry requirements. 'And in particular, we'd like to see in remote communities that it's easier for people to receive culturally safe care from people in their communities.' The interim report also proposed initiatives to boost the skills of those already in the workforce. The commission recommended providing financial incentives, potentially in the form of a tax credit, to small and medium-sized businesses who invest in training their staff. The report also backed better recognition of prior education and making it easier for students to claim credit for other study. 'AI is very much on everyone's minds, but occupational change has been a big feature of labour markets here and overseas,' de Fontenay said. 'We need to prepare people to change occupations when their preferences change, or when their professions shrink or evolve.
West Australian
12 hours ago
- Business
- West Australian
Productivity Commission says teachers should be given better lesson plans to boost productivity, results
Teachers should be able to draw from a national database of lesson plans and support materials as they grapple with increasingly complex demands from students with a wide range of abilities. The Productivity Commission says Australia must focus on addressing stagnation in school students' achievements to make sure they leave with the skills they need to take on further education and be able to find jobs. In the latest of its 'five pillars' reports looking at tackling sluggish productivity, the commission says outcomes at schools are stagnating and more students are leaving school without 'foundational skills' in reading, writing and maths. Teachers are spending too much time doing things unrelated to preparing for lessons despite working on average 52 hours a week, don't always have access to materials to help them, and too many are having to teach outside their areas of expertise. There's also a big problem with the broad range of abilities of students in any one class, leading to a 'challenging and complex' job for teachers to meet all their needs. 'The academic abilities of students in any one class is wide and teachers are under huge pressure to produce quality materials for all of them,' commissioner Catherine de Fontenay said. 'We need to give our teachers time and support to do the thing they do best – teach.' The report concludes the best way to increase productivity in schools is to give all teachers easy access to high-quality lesson planning materials and advanced educational technology including artificial intelligence, such as chatbots. At the moment, the resources available to teachers largely depend on where they are – some States (including WA) have centralised pools of resources, but not all, and access and quality can vary across sectors. This has also lead to duplication in funding across States developing syllabuses and lesson plans. The PC recommends the Commonwealth step in and set up a single platform where teachers across the country, in public and private schools, can access a full bank of high-quality lesson planning materials that cover components of the national curriculum. It also says there should be a national approach to the use of technology. This would better share the best innovations across all schools and help teachers tailor their teaching to the level of all students in their class, including those who are struggling. Even modest improvements in student achievements would lead to big benefits for the nation down the track, with PC modelling showing boosting in NAPLAN scores between 1.4 and 4.3 per cent could lift GDP by 2 per cent in the long term. Teachers called for better investment in schools, preschools, TAFE and education support staff at a discussion led by Education Minister Jason Clare on Friday, ahead of next week's economic reform roundtable. The Australian Education Union wants the government to set up a national commission for teaching, in line with a recommendation from the UN. 'We must urgently address teacher shortages and the unsustainable workloads facing the teaching profession and back Australia's teachers with the resources that they need,' AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe said. 'Every student, no matter where they live or what their background, deserves access to a full range of senior secondary academic and vocational subjects that can open up their future work pathways.' The PC's skills and education report released on Sunday night also recommends that states dump licensing regimes for some jobs where there is little evidence that registration improves outcomes, including for mechanics and painters in WA. At the moment, painters in WA must have a license if they're going to do more than paint about two rooms on any job – a scheme the Commission says has no bearing on safety or quality and should be scrapped. It also calls for smoother pathways in both directions between university and vocational education, and lower financial barriers for small and medium businesses that want to help their workers do training. Jim Chalmers has received more than 900 submissions plus input from some 41 roundtable meetings held by ministerial colleagues ahead of next week's mini-summit. The Treasurer has cautioned people to temper their expectations and recognise the roundtable is most likely to result in broad reform directions for the government this term rather than lots of fully formed policies.
