Governments may need to pay postgraduate students to study teaching to help plug Australia's teacher shortage, the chair of the federal government's expert panel into teacher training has said.
In an address to the National Press Club, Sydney University vice-chancellor Mark Scott said given the sector's severe worker shortage, governments may need to fund mature-aged students looking for a career change.
"I think you need a different program structured for mid-career entries into teaching," the former managing director of the ABC said.
"I think it's very hard for many of those people, they might be in their late 30s, or 40s.
"They may have a mortgage, they may have families, they have an expensive life, it's very hard to say to them, 'Take two years out of the workforce and go back to university'.
"I think one of the issues that governments around the country may have to realise is they may have to pay those students while they study."
Professor Scott chairs the Initial Teacher Education Quality Assessment Expert Panel, which has been tasked with developing new national standards for university teaching courses by the federal government.
New Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has already committed to developing a national action plan to fix chronic teacher shortages across the country, with his state and territory counterparts.
To be agreed in December, that plan will consider policies like paid final-year internships for teachers and reducing the current two-year postgraduate teaching qualification to one.
Some teaching course entry standards 'disturbingly low'
Professor Scott told the Press Club the right policy settings would be a difficult balance.
"We need an increase of supply of teachers, but at the same time, we want that supply to be of teachers coming at a higher standard," he said.
"We may all want higher ATARs for teachers, but if we put the ATAR level up, would we actually get more teachers coming in to do it?"
But he said he was concerned about the entry standards at some institutions.
"I can tell you that the ATAR levels at some universities for initial teacher education are really quite low, and I would argue disturbingly low," he said.
Mr Clare is expected to set out the terms of reference for the expert panel's inquiry in coming weeks.
