Teachers from one Australian state will be banned from Victorian schools

Teachers exploiting a loophole to work in Victorian classrooms without meeting the state’s minimum qualifications will be banned from government schools under a new policy aimed at side-stepping Australia’s problematic mutual recognition laws.

The Victorian government will today announce changes to the state’s education recruitment policy to prevent teachers from Western Australia with one-year teaching qualifications from working in any government school classroom.

The ban comes after this masthead revealed in July that dozens of teachers were exploiting a loophole to work in Victorian and NSW classrooms without meeting the states’ minimum qualifications, following a WA decision to lower its standards with the introduction of a one-year diploma of education.

Victorian Deputy Premier and Education Minister Ben Carroll said WA’s decision to turn its back on the nationally agreed two-year minimum teaching qualifications had undermined the standards for other states and territories, due to the operation of mutual recognition laws.

While those laws mean the Victorian Institute of Teaching must grant registration to the WA teachers even if they do not meet Victoria’s minimum standard, Carroll said the recruitment policy change would give it the authority to prevent them from being employed to work in any government school.

“Our children deserve the very best education possible. We have been very clear that graduate teachers who want to teach in Victoria should have credentials achieved under a nationally consistent accredited course, no matter where they study,” he said.

“The investments we’ve made in boosting our teacher workforce are working – we have around 12,000 more teachers registered now than there were in 2020, and we’re continuing to back them with the resources they need to do an excellent job.”

Victorian Institute of Teaching chief executive Martin Fletcher said everything must be done to ensure teaching remains one of the nation’s most trusted professions.

“These changes future-proof that trust – ensuring every new teacher meets high national standards for their qualifications, and is equipped with the skills, knowledge and preparation needed to succeed from day one,” Fletcher said.

While the rule changes do not cover the state’s private or Catholic schools, the Allan government has asked the authorities that govern them – Victoria Catholic Education Authority and Independent Schools Victoria – to consider a similar ban “to prevent the undermining of nationally consistent standards of initial teacher education programs and graduates”.

The Catholic Education Authority is set to consider the request, and chief executive Professor Elizabeth Labone said Victoria’s Catholic schools were committed to providing the highest quality of education possible to the students in their care.

Independent Schools Victoria chief executive Rachel Holthouse said her group respected the government’s decision regarding one-year graduate diplomas in education and would “continue to work closely with them” as it responds to the request.

The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership’s nationally agreed standard requires all postgraduate initial teacher education programs to be two years. But facing a growing teacher shortage, the Teaching Registration Board of Western Australia last year stepped away from the agreed standard and reintroduced registration for graduates who complete only a one-year diploma of education.

Australia’s mutual recognition laws have also created a watering down of standards in other industries. This masthead has revealed a similar loophole being exploited by underqualified building surveyors via WA, and construction workers using forged documents and lax checking by Queensland regulators.

The Victorian Institute of Teaching has already received 22 mutual recognition applications from WA-registered teachers with one-year diplomas, and is expecting a far larger influx of underqualified registrants later this year when current diploma students graduate.

The NSW Education Standards Authority confirmed it had also received mutual recognition applications from WA diploma of education graduates, which acting NSW Education Minister Courtney Houssos described in July as “cutting corners and under-preparing teachers for expert classroom practice”.

A spokesperson for the authority said it was not yet ready to announce any action to address the issue there.

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