Changes to the Teacher Accreditation Act 2004
Changes were made to the Teacher Accreditation Act 2004 in December 2021.
The most significant change was that from 29 November 2022 NESA became the only authority in NSW to make teacher accreditation decisions for mandatory levels of accreditation and some voluntary levels of accreditation for all teachers.
Schools continue to have a key role in supporting teachers with teacher accreditation.
NESA’s published its revised policies for teacher accreditation on 24 October 2022 in the NSW Teacher Accreditation Manual (TA Manual).
The requirement for teachers who deliver NESA syllabuses to be NESA accredited has not changed. However, there have been changes to teacher accreditation processes and requirements for schools.
NESA continues to implement teacher accreditation changes in stages.
NESA’s registration requirements for teacher accreditation
Independent schools must have “evidence that demonstrates the school implements NESA teacher accreditation policies and procedures to support teachers in attaining and maintaining teacher accreditation” (requirement B3.1 the NSW Registered and Accredited Individual Non-government Schools Manual).
A school must have internal procedures for teacher accreditation that are consistent with NESA’s TA Manual. This includes schools that previously outsourced their TAA to AISNSW or another school. A school’s internal teacher accreditation procedures replace any TAA policies and procedures.
As NESA is implementing teacher accreditation reform in stages, there have been changes including:
- Suitability to teach assessments introduced in February 2023 (more information here)
- Teachers maintaining Proficient Teacher accreditation must keep their own personal Elective PD log from July 2023 (more information here)
- Principals and Service Directors no longer need to attest in eTAMS a teacher is maintaining their Proficient Teacher accreditation from November 23 (more information here)
- The optional NESA Accredited PD Priority area of ‘Leadership to support the learning outcomes of students/children’ was introduced in 2023
- Non-practising teacher accreditation, a new category of teacher accreditation for qualified teachers who want to remain connected to the profession even though they are no longer working as a teacher, became available in December 2023.
