At the same time more than 1500 future healthcare workers have started degrees this year with ATARs below 50, while the number entering primary and secondary education degrees has almost doubled from 7.3 per cent in 2013 to 14.3 per cent in 2016. Education Minister Simon Birmingham. Credit:Louise Kennerley According to research from the Grattan Institute, the same students are up to twice as likely to drop out of university, partly contributing to more than $1.6 billion in unpaid HECS debt last year and forcing the federal government to consider radical measures such as collecting debt from the dead in order to bring spiralling student loans under control. On Monday, the Australian Education Union urged the government to act. "Teaching courses should be about turning high-achieving students into high performing teachers, not helping students who struggled at school learn the basics before they enter the classroom," said AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe.

The principal researcher at the Australian Council for Educational Research, Lawrence Ingvarson, blasted universities for their admissions policies. "The arrogance is breathtaking," he wrote last week. "It is time to drop the rationalisations about low imperfect ATAR scores and face the fact that we have a problem. No one can deny that we have created a situation that is not in our national interest." Dr Ingvarson singled out teaching degrees as particularly concerning. He said over the past 10 years, universities had reached a point where almost everyone who applies finds a place in a teacher education program. "Over the same period, Australia's performance on international tests of student achievements has declined significantly," he said. "A situation [like] that would be rectified quickly if it was happening to the medical profession."

NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli has previously accused universities of using students as "cash cows." Last year he implemented a policy restricting teaching places to students who had scored above 80 in three subjects in their HSC. The AEU is calling for the policy to be implemented nationally. But the President of the NSW Council of Deans of Education, Chris Davison, revealed in January universities easily skirt the minimum mark requirements because it does not apply to double degrees such as a Bachelor of Science and Education. Only 10 per cent of teaching courses have been impacted. Dr Ingvarson suggested teaching degrees should be turned into a strictly post-graduate qualification in a bid to stem the glut of underqualified teachers. He also urged the government to bring newly instituted national literacy and numeracy tests forward to the start of degrees. "Plans to require basic literacy and numeracy tests after graduation also imply that course time should be spent remedying basic academic deficiencies," he said. "Is there any other profession where this line of argument would be accepted or taken seriously?"

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham has repeatedly warned the sector that "he will act" to get universities into line after being tasked with bringing billions of dollars in ballooning public student debt under control. On Monday, he said the government was "rightly concerned" about trends in the sector. "While I've asked the Higher Education Standards Panel to examine university admission processes, at the end of the day universities must take responsibility for the students they choose to enrol and support them to succeed." The findings from the Federal Government's higher education reform panel are due to be released later this year.