Literacy and Numeracy testing has been recently introduced to the Australian education system, bringing with it debate as to its necessity and value. The testing is designed to ensure that teachers are in the top 30% of the population in Numeracy and Literacy, or at approximately a year 10 standard (Riddle, 2015). A teacher will be unable to teach without having passed. Arguments surrounding its benefits upon students, upon teachers, and upon the education community as a whole have arisen, potentially leaving many unsure as to their stance on the tests. The arguments against the implemented testing include the fact that they are not designed to test teaching ability, the potential political motive behind the implementation, and the fact that
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Those who argue for it discuss the potential impact that a teacher may have on their students, the learning theories supporting observational learning and a teacher’s ability to model appropriate skills. They also tend to address the failure rate of those tested, and the potential benefits to the education system as a whole of having highly literate and numerate teachers.
On ‘The Conversation’ website, Stewart Riddle (2015) made the claim that “testing teachers’ literacy and numeracy skills is pointless”, suggesting that the testing (a series of multiple choice questions) fails at assessing the ‘fitness’ of an individual to teach. This is true, a fact which has been explicitly stated by the Australian Government’s Department for Education and Training (DET) (2015). This begs the question: if not teaching ability, what is the purpose behind the testing? The official response is that the testing is a “response to public concerns” (DET, 2015) including concerns of employers and parents. The testing follows the lead of the United Kingdom’s ‘professional skills test’ and is considered a response to Australia’s apparent teaching ‘crisis’ (News Limited, 2015). This is the argument given by many politicians, leading many critics of the …show more content…
The literacy and numeracy testing implemented recently was failed by 10% of participants in numeracy, and 8% in literacy. Given that in 2015 there were 382,687 teachers in Australia (ABS, 2015), which would leave approximately 38,268 teachers with inadequate numeracy skills, and 30,615 teachers with inadequate literacy skills. Hattie (2003) found that teachers account for 30% of the influence on learning in children thus the individual knowledge of a teacher is vital to the learning of children in the classroom, especially given that the teacher themselves are the largest adjustable influence on learning. It has been found that children acquire much of their language skills through observation (Fromkin, et al, 2015). It is therefore unsurprising that any given teacher has such a potentially significant impact on students. Teachers are required to fulfil the learning needs of students, from NAPLAN testing preparation, to understanding the grammatical structures of language, however with such a large number of teachers potentially unable to fulfil these needs, there could be detriment to the growth of students’ skills in these areas (Louden and Rohl, 20016). Considering the fact that children rely so heavily upon the model that is their teacher, is it not reasonable to
Those who argue for it discuss the potential impact that a teacher may have on their students, the learning theories supporting observational learning and a teacher’s ability to model appropriate skills. They also tend to address the failure rate of those tested, and the potential benefits to the education system as a whole of having highly literate and numerate teachers.
On ‘The Conversation’ website, Stewart Riddle (2015) made the claim that “testing teachers’ literacy and numeracy skills is pointless”, suggesting that the testing (a series of multiple choice questions) fails at assessing the ‘fitness’ of an individual to teach. This is true, a fact which has been explicitly stated by the Australian Government’s Department for Education and Training (DET) (2015). This begs the question: if not teaching ability, what is the purpose behind the testing? The official response is that the testing is a “response to public concerns” (DET, 2015) including concerns of employers and parents. The testing follows the lead of the United Kingdom’s ‘professional skills test’ and is considered a response to Australia’s apparent teaching ‘crisis’ (News Limited, 2015). This is the argument given by many politicians, leading many critics of the …show more content…
The literacy and numeracy testing implemented recently was failed by 10% of participants in numeracy, and 8% in literacy. Given that in 2015 there were 382,687 teachers in Australia (ABS, 2015), which would leave approximately 38,268 teachers with inadequate numeracy skills, and 30,615 teachers with inadequate literacy skills. Hattie (2003) found that teachers account for 30% of the influence on learning in children thus the individual knowledge of a teacher is vital to the learning of children in the classroom, especially given that the teacher themselves are the largest adjustable influence on learning. It has been found that children acquire much of their language skills through observation (Fromkin, et al, 2015). It is therefore unsurprising that any given teacher has such a potentially significant impact on students. Teachers are required to fulfil the learning needs of students, from NAPLAN testing preparation, to understanding the grammatical structures of language, however with such a large number of teachers potentially unable to fulfil these needs, there could be detriment to the growth of students’ skills in these areas (Louden and Rohl, 20016). Considering the fact that children rely so heavily upon the model that is their teacher, is it not reasonable to