Improving Teacher Preparation for Technologies Education in Australia
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study critically examines how Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes in Australia prepare pre-service teachers to teach technologies subjects and teaching areas. Despite the national curriculum's introduction in 2015, many ITE programmes remain misaligned with its objectives, leaving future educators underprepared to teach essential technological skills. Employing qualitative document analysis of programme structures and course profiles from 41 Australian universities offering ITE programmes, the research identifies significant inconsistencies and gaps in technologies education across states and territories. Key barriers include the application and inflexibility of programme accreditations, hampering the responsiveness of ITE programmes to rapid technological advancements like artificial intelligence, computational thinking, and modern manufacturing techniques. This is compounded by a mismatch between advocacy for technologies education and its practical implementation in ITE curricula. The study underscores the broader implications of these deficiencies for the education system and Australia's future STEM workforce. Recommendations advocate for strengthening accreditation processes to allow greater consistency and adaptability, ensuring minimum curriculum coverage for technologies education, increasing specialisation opportunities in secondary technologies, providing better career guidance for prospective teachers, and promoting national consistency in technologies education. Addressing these issues is imperative for equipping teachers to effectively educate students in a technology-driven world and for sustaining Australia's competitiveness in global STEM industries.
Article Details
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater exchange of knowledge. Articles will be downloadable in HTML, PDF or ePub formats.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.