Aspiring teachers across NSW will face personality assessments from next year in a move that could affect the career paths of students at Dubbo in the future.
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The NSW Board of Studies confirmed the move to implement personality tests at all universities.
The assessments will draw from tests similar to those undertaken for the army and will weed out candidates unsuited to teaching before they begin their degrees, NSW Council of Deans of Education president Chris Davidson said.
"The challenge is to have one that works for teaching," she said.
"You probably need a much higher degree of empathy than you do in the army," she said.
Professor Davison said the national program was necessary despite tough new regulations on literacy and numeracy imposed by the NSW government.
She said the personality assessments were being implemented because students with poor communication or behavioural issues were still undertaking teaching degrees.
Greg Shortis retired at the end of 2013 after 39 years of teaching, including almost a decade as principal of Dubbo Public School.
On Sunday he said it was important every effort was made to ensure teachers dealing with children were "fit and ready to make positive changes in their lives".
"It's so important teachers are happy and positive and have the right mental framework to work with children," he said.
But he reported the young graduating teachers he encountered during his career did not exhibit the kinds of poor communication or behavioural issues described by Professor Davison.
"They were exceptional teachers and passionate about teaching young kids," he said.
"I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I didn't have any trouble with it."
He said if the end result was better teachers, then it would be a positive step, but hoped the test would do what it was supposed to do.
The move to implement personality tests comes after a crackdown on teacher training by the NSW government in September.
For the first time this year, aspiring teachers had to achieve three band 5s to be accepted into university and pass literacy and numeracy tests, under changes announced by Education Minister Adrian Piccoli.
"We already have high teaching standards in NSW schools. But we need the high achieving students of today to be the high achieving teachers of tomorrow," Mr Piccoli said in September.
"The greatest in-school influence on students is quality teachers, so higher standards for future teachers are part of our plan to improve student results.
"Teaching is an incredibly important and rewarding job and I encourage this year's HSC students to consider it as a career."
