The change coincided with a 22 per cent decline in offers made to aspiring teachers in the first round of university offers, an analysis by The Age found. The minimum ATAR for teaching will be hiked up to 70 in 2019. Credit:Jason South A total of 1933 offers for education or teaching courses were made to school leavers, 220 fewer than last year. The remaining 697 places went to other applicants, down from 1211 in 2017. It came as the average ATAR of students pursuing education courses increased to 69.53, up from 62.7 last year. In previous years, some education courses have only required an ATAR of 30.

This turnaround was welcomed by Victorian Education Minister James Merlino. "We always said we wanted to raise the bar for those wanting to become a teacher to ensure we keep lifting standards in our classrooms," he said. The minimum ATAR will be hiked up to 70 in 2019 as part of a state government push to improve teacher quality and stem an oversupply of graduates entering the profession. All aspiring teachers also have to pass a new non-academic test that screens them for resilience, ethics and empathy. While the changes will sting aspiring teachers who didn't reach the benchmark, they have not stopped Joanna Wallace from pursuing her dream.

The former Narre Warren South P-12 College student said she was thrilled to receive an offer to study primary education at Federation University Australia's new Berwick campus. "I've been wanting to be a primary teacher since year 9 … I'm always looking after younger kids and was never really around people my own age when I was growing up." She achieved an ATAR of 83.55 and believes the tough new standards will lead to better teachers. But Joanna Barbousas, the president of the Victorian Council of Deans of Education, warned that the changes could lead to a teacher shortage. "There are concerns around the short term finances of university education programs and what it will mean for the profession in terms of a decrease in teacher supply," she said.

Associate professor Barbousas, who is also the head of La Trobe University's education department, said entry requirements were important but the real focus should be on the quality of courses. Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Meredith Peace dismissed concerns of a teacher shortage, and said the changes would improve the standing of the teaching profession. "Teaching is an incredibly complex job and we need to make sure that we have people that can deal with those complexities and deliver the highest quality education," she said. The number of offers for some teaching courses has more than halved over the past four years. A total of 285 first round places were offered at Australian Catholic University's primary teacher education course in 2014, but this year there were just 131 offers.

The large drop coincided with an increase in the university's clearly-in ATAR score from 58.5 to 65. Offers also plunged for Deakin University's primary teaching course, Victoria University's Prep-Year 12 teaching stream, and RMIT's Primary Education course. Loading The number of people applying for graduate entry teaching has also plummeted. In 2012, 4667 people put education courses as their first preference, but this dropped to 951 people this year.

However, it is possible the figures reflect that fewer people are being offered a place in a course through the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre.