Insight: April 20

Next Tuesday Insight asks, ‘What makes a great teacher?’

It will test two young teachers in front of a class to see if they have what it takes, and it claims the results are fascinating.

Currently across Australia, experiments are underway to target and build better teachers. In New South Wales, the first group of super teachers have started in schools. These “highly accomplished teachers” – paid more than $100,000 a year – have the task of raising teaching standards in some of the state’s most disadvantaged schools.

In Victoria, a new program called ‘Teach for Australia’ is recruiting university graduates from a range of backgrounds to teaching for two years in the state’s most challenging schools.

Some argue that student test scores should be taken into account in assessing the teacher. But teacher unions are dead against using student test scores – like the NAPLAN test they’ve decide to boycott – as a marker of teacher performance. The union argument is that merit pay for teachers ruins the collegiality of the profession.

But what are great teachers doing differently? And can it be taught?

It airs 7.30pm Tuesday night on SBS ONE.