Great teachers are the product of quality tertiary programs stressing learning design and instructional strategies, not necessarily an automatic outcome of school OP results.

That is according to Associate Professor Dr Ken Purnell, of CQUniversity.

Dr Purnell said the best predictor of a university student's graduate GPA is their first-year university results, not how well they ranked at school.

"A student who may have been disinterested in the school work offered at their school may progress to have a real interest in changing teaching so that kids can really learn," Dr Purnell said.

"What teachers know and can do makes the greatest difference in learning gains for students.

"The use of OPs, which is about ranking students based on school learning, in which their interest level may have been very high, very low, or somewhere in between, has little relevance to university studies if a student is interested in the area of study and has quality teachers who use expert pedagogical content knowledge."

Dr Purnell said CQUniversity Education graduates are ‘quality guaranteed' to have met the required professional standards, not only of the teacher registration authority, but also of those showing high levels of proficiency in literacy and numeracy.

CQUniversity students are required to complete mastery tests in literacy and numeracy as part of their university studies and attain a high mark before they are eligible to graduate.

"Upon entry, lecturers generally don't know the OPs of students in their classes.  But across their four-year program in Education, we work with them to meet the high standards required of our graduates.  If they do meet these standards, including in literacy and numeracy, they graduate. If they don't meet the standards they fail - and that includes a number of students with the highest OP results."