New university course puts teacher's aides on the fast-track to becoming classroom teachers

Outside of work she's a student herself, enrolled in an online course with the aim of becoming a teacher specialising in music.

Mrs Frew has worked in schools for over 15 years and always intended to get a teaching qualification but life got in the way.

"I was raising a son and juggling work and house and family," she said.

"My son just turned 18. ... I have a bit more energy available now I can devote to some study."

Mrs Frew has enrolled in a relatively new pathway at Charles Sturt University which is designed to make it easier and faster for teacher's aides to become classroom teachers.

It comes as governments, universities and school systems are grappling with how to address a widespread shortage of teachers.

Charles Sturt University senior lecturer in school of education Dr Libbey Murray said teacher's aides could get up to one year of credit for previous vocational study in an education field, such as learning support, and up to another year for other university study.

The students begin their studies in a bachelor of education studies for a minimum of two years, followed by at least one year in a master of teaching.

"We really noticed that we had a cohort of students who are already in our schools doing an amazing job working with children," Dr Murray said.

"We know from all of the mid career work we're doing [that] to change people's career progression and trajectory midway through their life can be really tricky for those people. So we wanted to set up a course that kind of reduced those barriers for them and really supported them to do that.

"They're a great group to work with. They're so passionate and so dedicated and we're really grateful to have tapped into this market because they're a really retainable group and that's been our problem in teacher education."

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The course received $500,000 from the NSW government to provide scholarships to support the teacher's aides while on work placement.

It could potentially encourage a largely untapped cohort of 100,000 teacher's aides across Australia to be qualified, bolstering the supply of new teachers.

The ACT's teacher shortage taskforce found the school assistant workforce had grown rapidly, with a 47.6 per cent increase in full time equivalent positions in the past six years.

The taskforce discussed employment-based pathways and incentives to get teaching assistants to take up teaching qualifications, given their experience of working in schools.

While Charles Sturt's program is unique across Australia, the University of Canberra also has learning support assistants in its sights as a source of future teachers.

Executive dean of education Barney Dalgarno said his university would be introducing a new undergraduate certificate in education next year with a specialisation in learning support that can be used as a credit towards a teaching qualification.

"The idea is that existing learning support assistants could do the course to improve their basic grounding in education, but also be given credit so that if at a certain point they decide to move into becoming a teacher, then they get credit from that study into their degree," professor Dalgarno said.

The August roundtable discussions between education ministers, unions and teachers highlighted the need to get more people completing initial teacher education courses, but some cautioned against shortcuts that could affect the quality of the training for new educators.

Dr Murray said her university was confident the teacher's aides would be well-prepared by the time they graduated.

"The fast-tracking in this case isn't kind of grabbing people off the street and sending them into a classroom in a year or two years' time without enough experience or expertise," she said.

"Principals are really backing this and really on board with growing their own and I think that's probably one of the most important parts of what this is."

Mrs Frew said other learning support assistants had shown an interest in the program while her teacher colleagues and principal were very supportive of her study.

"I've got so many wonderful teachers around me that I work with, colleagues that have been through it who've been very helpful up until now as well. There's never a question that they can't answer or help me with, so that's nice."

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