Research On External Quality Assurance System Of Initial Teacher Education In Australia

The External Quality Assurance System of Initial Teacher Education refers to the organic whole composed of a series of pre-service teacher quality assurance activities,which are carried out by institutions or organizations like the government and third-party associations,thus facilitating initial teacher education and the pre-service teachers to meet certain quality standards.The establishment of external quality assurance system for initial teacher education is gradually becoming a common trend in the reform of initial teacher education in the world.Now,China has also begun to regard the establishment and improvement of the external quality assurance system of initial teacher education as an important means to improve the quality of initial teacher education.This paper selects the external quality assurance system of initial teacher education in Australia as the research object,trying to explore important experiences that can be learned by China.The purpose of this research is specifically directed to the following two aspects: one is to outline the overall picture of the external quality assurance system for initial teacher education in Australia by introducing and analyzing its history,content and features;the other one is to put forward suggestions for improving the external quality assurance system of initial teacher education in China based on the useful experience of constructing the Australia’s external quality assurance system of initial teacher education.The establishment of the external quality assurance system of initial teacher education in Australia has roughly gone through three stages of development,namely the budding stage（1901-1971）,the exploration stage（1972-1995）and the establishment and improvement stage（1996-present）.Since the early period of 21 st century,Australia has given weight to the external quality assurance of initial teacher education,which is related to the following reasons: firstly,government has paid great attention to initial teacher education;secondly,initial teacher education has become increasingly prominent;thirdly,the quality of initial teacher education has been widely questioned.The federal quality assurance agencies and the state-level quality assurance agencies take responsibility for the external quality assurance system for initial teacher education,which the former plays a macro-leading role and the latter plays a meso-level regulation function.The external quality assurance system of initial teacher education in Australia includes three aspects: the first one is to formulate quality standard of initial teacher education,covering input standards,process standards and outcome standards;the second one is to take quality control of initial teacher education,including organizing Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education to standardize the quality of enrollment,and clarifying the components of high-quality professional experience and the responsibilities of all involvers;and the third one is to launch quality assessment for initial teacher education,which includes the national accreditation system of initial teacher education programs,initial teacher education quality review system,initial teacher education quality annual report system,pre-service teacher’s professional experience quality assessment system.We found that the Neo-liberalism and Neo-conservatism,and the Concept of Public Governance in Education are the supporting concepts behind the external quality assurance system of initial teacher education in Australia.Besides,Australia government develop the external quality assurance system of initial teacher education by comprehensively using a variety of policy tools and adopting the means,such as quality assessment and quality accountability.Based on China’s reality and Australia’s experience,the paper proposes that China should establish and improve the external quality assurance system for initial teacher education from the following aspects: the first is to build a government-led,multi-participated external quality assurance system for initial teacher education;the second is to build a coordinated and complementary policy tool system of external quality assurance for initial teacher education;the third is to build a national standard system of quality assurance of initial teacher education,which leads the development process;the fourth is to build a diverse and scientifically designed external quality assessment system for initial teacher education;the fifth is to build a quality accountability mechanism for initial teacher education with diverse subjects,comprehensive content and strict procedures.