Information about punishments handed to badly behaved school teachers could be become publicly available under a “reimagined” regulatory regime, the head of the education professional watchdog has suggested.
Victorian Institute of Teaching chief executive Martin Fletcher will tell The Age Schools Summit on Wednesday that the regulation of the profession must evolve if it is to retain the trust of parents, students and the public.
The institute had nearly 160,000 registered teachers and received about 1300 complaints or notifications about the behaviour of educators in the latest reporting period, the 2024-2025 financial year.
It referred two teachers to a hearing panel or prosecution that year, cancelled or suspended 27 teaching registrations and issued 71 warning letters.
Fletcher will make his case at the summit at Melbourne’s Crown Conference Centre, where the state’s leading educators, policymakers, and thought leaders will gather to tackle the most pressing challenges and opportunities in Victoria’s education landscape.
Keynote speakers this year include state Education Minister Ben Carroll, opposition education spokesman Brad Rowswell and Department of Education deputy secretary David Howes.
Fletcher, who ran the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency for 15 years, told this masthead that the teaching profession was many years behind medicine when it came to practitioner transparency.
He said teachers enjoyed a high level of trust in the community, but the regulatory environment needed to evolve.
“It’s less about restoring trust and more about how we continue to build and maintain trust.”
The public can currently check a teacher’s credentials on an open online register. A separate register of disciplinary action discloses suspensions, but not conditions placed on a teacher’s registration.
Fletcher says it is time to consider making more information available to the public.
“If you go to the register of health professionals in Australia, you can get a lot more information about that person, their qualification, any restrictions on their registration, languages they speak, where they practise,” he said.
“So I think there is an opportunity for us to look at how we might reimagine the teaching register here in Victoria, to create greater transparency.
But Fletcher said there would be no rush towards changes, promising wide consultation first.
“We’re trying to balance … the public right to know with the privacy rights of the individual … but I think that’s a debate we’re very keen to have.”
Victoria’s largest professional group in teaching, the Australian Education Union, which represents more than 60,000 teachers, principals and education support workers, did not respond to a request for comment.
Parents Victoria chief executive Gail McHardy said confidence in their children’s teachers was a consistently important issue for families, but urged caution in making changes to the teaching register.
“The focus should be on the quality of regulation rather than simply increasing access to information,” McHardy said. “Greater transparency may strengthen trust, but trust ultimately comes from a regulatory system that responds effectively to concerns and maintains high professional standards.
“There may be merit in making registration status and any serious restrictions easier to understand, but extensive public disclosure of personal professional details risks creating unintended consequences for teachers.
“A stronger national approach to teacher registration is also worth exploring, particularly if it reduces red tape and helps qualified teachers move between states while maintaining consistent standards.”
The Age Schools Summit 2026 is at Crown Conference Centre on June 10.
