Policy makers as experts and teachers in need of reform: a critique of ‘evidence-based’ reforms of initial teacher education in Australia

In 2023 the Australian government mandated reforms to initial teacher education (ITE) courses across Australia. The key rationale of the Strong Beginnings Report is to better prepare teachers for the classroom and help stem the flow of teachers leaving the profession. This article suggests that the Strong Beginnings Report mobilises forms of evidence that privilege bureaucratic intervention over teachers’ insight and capacity. Using Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ approach to policy analysis, I argue that the Report selectively draws on evidence to position teachers as underprepared for the classroom and in need of reform. It does this by (i) suggesting that one of the main reasons teachers leave the profession is because they have inadequate skills, (ii) downplaying the broader social, economic and political context in which teacher attrition occurs, and (iii) deprofessionalising teaching by casting it as a technical process. Building on works that critique the impacts of standardisation, regulation and oversight in educational reform, I contend that the proposed reforms will do little to improve ITE or address teacher attrition. More than this, they will work to further discredit teachers and undermine the value of public education.