Student teachers should spend more time on practical skills and less time on the history and philosophy of education, an expert panel has recommended. The teacher education expert panel, set up by the federal government to improve teaching courses and address workforce shortages, released its discussion paper on Thursday, outlining plans to radically reform degrees. It proposed strengthening standards for initial teacher education (ITE) programs and placing greater accountability on universities to prove their success rates. The chair of the panel, the University of Sydney vice-chancellor, Mark Scott, said teaching degrees should be geared towards evidence-based, practical outcomes to best prepare teachers for the demands of the job. “We need…