A skills test to weed out student teachers who can't multiply two numbers or read a simple graph is failing to stop them graduating as universities side step the system.
The Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE) is a compulsory test that was brought in to remove incompetent student teachers from the system before they graduate and enter classrooms.
It is supposed to guarantee that student teachers have a literacy and numeracy level equivalent to the top 30 percent of the adult population in Australia.
Sample question to help students prepare for the literacy and numeracy test. One in ten students fail the 130-question test on their first attempt. The answer to this question is: 320kg.
Sample questions to prepare students for the test include problems as simple as multiplying 3.2 by 100.
'The weight of a box of stationery is 3.2 kilograms. What is the weight of 100 such boxes?' reads one sample question.
Another question asks students to look at a table of gym memberships and compare the monthly fee to the yearly upfront fee and work out the difference.
The test is meant to guarantee that student teachers have literacy and numeracy levels equivalent to the top 30 percent of the adult population in Australia. The answer is 19.
Student teachers have three chances to sit the test but are reportedly getting up to five attempts with university support making the test less of a barrier to poor academic achievers. The answer to this graph-reading question is: true, true, false (in that order).
One in ten students fail the 130-question test the first time.
Student teachers have three chances to sit the LANTITE test administered by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).
If they fail on the third attempt, ACER says on its website that it will not allow them to try again without a formal recommendation from the university.
Students are instead trying up to five times after receiving study support and coaching from their universities who back them, the Daily Telegraph reports.
In a separate issue, universities are admitting below-average students directly into teaching degrees using a gap in the rules, according to the report.
