Stakeholder alignment to government reform: mapping responses to the Teacher Education Expert Panel (TEEP) proposal to improve the quality of Professional Experience in Australia

High-quality Professional Experience (PEx) placements are central to the preparation of ‘classroom ready’ graduate teachers in Australia. However, there are frequent suggestions from the Australian Government that PEx is not as effective as it could be. Perennial PEx concerns raised in government reviews include: the need for strong partnerships between higher education providers and schools; the quality of ITE candidates and their suitability to teach; the ongoing shortage of high-quality placements and mentors; placement diversity and timing; student placement poverty; and the need to address workforce shortages. Against this backdrop we sought to systematically examine 60 stakeholder submissions to Reform Area 3 of the Australian Government’s 2023 Teacher Education Expert Panel Discussion Paper, which recommended new PEx guidelines, system-level partnership agreements, Centres of Excellence, and student support to ‘improve the quality of practical experience in teaching’. Using content analysis software Leximancer, we mapped themes and perspectives in the responses of seven stakeholder groups, each with distinct motivations and expertise: higher education providers, regulatory bodies, Councils of Deans, employers, teachers’ associations, advocates and individuals. An eighth group, ‘other’ represented three stakeholders that did not fit existing categories. Three overarching meta-themes were identified: (i) provision of funding and resources, (ii) creation of high-quality placements, and (iii) the necessity (or not) of new partnership agreements. While stakeholders noted broad support for the recommendations of the Discussion Paper, a diversity of perspectives was evident in their discussion of resources and preference for ‘centralised’ agreements to support consistent and widespread delivery of high-quality PEx.