Internships in Initial Teacher Education in Australia: A Case Study of the Griffith Education Internship
Among its key findings in its review of initial teacher education (ITE) programs in Australia, the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) reported that the national standards are weakly applied, there is a need to lift public confidence in I
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Introduction: The Aim of the Chapter
This chapter focuses on the importance of Internships in initial teacher education (ITE) in Australia. Internships are situated within the wider attention being afforded to improving ITE programs, evident through the reviews and their terms of reference in recent years. To illustrate, the TEMAG report Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers (TEMAG, 2014a) stated that it “…grew out of two clear propositions: that improving the capability of teachers is crucial to lifting student outcomes; and that the Australian community does not have the confidence in the quality and effectiveness of new teachers” (p. 1). The scale of this initial teacher education agenda in Australia was highlighted in the preceding Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group Issues Paper (TEMAG, 2014b, p. 5) which stated that, “In 2012, there were around 76,000 domestic pre-service teachers enrolled in these programmes – 62,000 in undergraduate programmes and 14,000 in postgraduate programmes”. That issues paper acknowledged other reviews conducted in most Australian jurisdictions in the previous two years, including: • New South Wales – Great Teaching, Inspired learning: Blueprint for Action (New South Wales Government Education and Communities, 2014)
P. Jervis-Tracey School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt Campus, 176 Messines Ridge Road, Mt Gravatt, Queensland 4122, Australia e-mail: [email protected] G. Finger (*) School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Gold Coast, Queensland 4222, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 R. Brandenburg et al. (eds.), Teacher Education, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0785-9_10
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• Victoria – From New Directions to Action: World class teaching and school leadership (State of Victoria Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, 2013) • Queensland – A Fresh Start: Improving the preparation and quality of teachers for Queensland schools (Department of Education & Training and Employment, 2013) • South Australia – Building a Stronger South Australia: High Quality Education (Government of South Australia, 2013) Disturbingly, these reviews highlighted important areas for strengthening both accountability processes and improvement agendas in the quality of ITE programs (Finger, 2013). For example, the six key findings of the most recent review by TEMAG (2014a) included the following three findings: evidence of poor practice in a number of programs; insufficient integration of teacher education providers with schools and systems, and, inadequate application of standards. Consequently, the design and implementation of quality ITE programs should address those concerns through producing quality graduates and ensure public confidence. Importantly, Internships are located in the final semester of an ITE program during which ITE students are expected to demonstrate the expectations of the A
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