Important updates to ECT accreditation for those in New South Wales

The New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA) has updated the professional development requirements for Proficient, Highly Accomplished and Lead Teachers maintaining their accreditation.

 

These updates are important for approved providers, early childhood service directors, professional development providers and early childhood teachers in NSW to note. 

 

These changes include the removal of Accredited and Elective professional development (PD) categories to give teachers more flexibility to complete their 100 hours of professional development, and as a result of the change the Accreditation of Professional Development Courses Policy is decommissioned effective immediately. 

 

Under the new policy, teachers will be able to include a wider range of professional learning opportunities and other compliance training as part of their maintenance-of-accreditation PD requirements. Teachers will still need to complete 100 hours of PD over a five-year cycle. 

 

In line with the changes Sections 5, 7, 11, 12 and 14 of the NSW Teacher Accreditation Manual  (TA Manual) have been updated.

 

Employers remain responsible for notifying NESA if a teacher does not meet maintenance of accreditation requirements.

 

This change brings NSW into line with other states and territories, and has been welcomed by the NSW/ACT branch of the Independent Education Union Australia (IEUA), with Branch Secretary Carol Matthews saying “teachers are the professionals and they are best placed to know what professional development suits them in terms of their career stage and teaching context.”

 

The outgoing professional development system, she continued, was “unnecessarily prescriptive” and the process for accrediting PD sessions was excessively complex, resulting in fewer NESA-accredited courses being available to teachers, further contributing to teacher shortages. 

 

“Where courses were available from private providers, they were often prohibitively expensive, especially for accredited teachers in early childhood centres who are still campaigning for pay rates comparable to their school-based colleagues,” she added.

 

 “This new process puts teachers back at the centre of the profession and the government is to be congratulated for listening to the voice of the profession.”

 

A comprehensive overview of the changes is available here.