The federal government have launched a review into university teacher education courses in a bid to improve teacher quality.

Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge said the review will investigate strategies for attracting high-quality candidates into the teaching profession and how to better prepare them to become effective teachers.

“If you look at the last 15 years, the proportion of those top students going into teaching has declined by about 15 per cent,” he told Liam Bartlett.

“It’s the fastest to decline than any other course that students are choosing.”

It’s hoped the review will help Australia return to the top of the global education rankings.

“It will look at the attractiveness of the course, the length of the course, it may look at the status associated with teaching,” he said.

“We do attract some unbelievable people to go into teaching, and we have got brilliant teachers out there, but we haven’t consistently attracted the brightest kids finishing school to go into teaching.

“Ultimately teacher effectiveness is the most important thing which occurs in the classroom to lift school standards, and so we want to continue to improve that.”

The review is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

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