[Greens-Media] World Teachers’ Day – Quality of teaching key to high quality education - Sue Pennicuik MLC

[Susan.Pennicuik at parliament.vic.gov.au]

World Teachers’ Day – Quality of teaching key to high quality education 

Greens MP and Education spokesperson Sue Pennicuik speaking on World 
Teachers Day said that the quality of teaching and teachers was the most 
important determinant in educational outcomes. 

"This puts the issue of how we train, resource and reward our teachers 
front and centre in the debate about how we improve our education system. 
We need to be training our teachers for longer and giving them a greater 
depth of skills and knowledge so they are better equipped to deliver 
excellence in education." 

"However, I am concerned that given how poorly we fund education in this 
country, we are continuing to lose many of our good teachers to better 
paid jobs outside the profession," Ms Pennicuik said. 

Australia lags significantly behind many comparable countries in education 
spending as a recent report from the OECD showed with this nation ranked 
19th out of 28*. 

"When you look at the state by state figures the picture for Victoria is 
even worse. This state still spends less than the national average per 
capita. Nor do state averages give the complete picture because we also 
have an increasingly two tiered education system with some schools 
receiving lavish funding while other schools struggle to get the bare 
minimum of resources," said Ms Pennicuik. 

"I believe that Australians want a high quality education system that is 
fair and accessible to all students, not just a fortunate few." 

"My message for World Teacher’s Day is ‘Well supported teachers are 
essential to excellence in education. Governments need to focus on 
supporting and properly resourcing teachers in all our schools, if we want 
our children to be happy and successful at school and in life," she said. 

A former secondary teacher herself, Ms Pennicuik paid tribute to the 
teachers of the world for their dedication to the demanding and varied job 
they do. 

* 2008 OECD Education at a glance Report 

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