High school teachers should be encouraged into universities and polytechnics as “expert teachers” in order to boost student retention and counter a looming shortage of academics, says a recommendation in a report to an Australian state government.

Due to be released today, the report of Victoria’s expert panel on tertiary education recommends that a pilot program be established to prepare a stream of high school teachers proficient in teaching Years 11 and 12 also to teach at first- and second-year undergraduate level.

“As we broaden the higher education sector and take in many more students, and so need more staff, the notion that there is one standard route of entry into that workforce as an academic doesn’t seem to me to make long-term sense,” the panel chairman, Kwong Lee Dow, told The Australian.

A former vice-chancellor of Melbourne University, Professor Dow said teachers experienced in engaging school students could have a key role in preventing new undergraduates from dropping out.

He said that would be especially important as the sector expanded and brought in students from poorer families without traditional academic backgrounds.

In some cases, he said, school teachers could even deliver initial university programs within a school.

Paul Kniest, policy and research co-ordinator at the National Tertiary Education Union, said that if universities were to recruit school teachers, they should also provide them with scope and support to pursue research. “We would be concerned if they were seen as a source of `teaching only’ academics,” Mr Kniest said.

From Andrew Trounson at the Australian.