Labor is threatening to introduce minimum entry scores for teaching courses if universities don't lift admission standards.
Deputy opposition leader Tanya Plibersek wants Australian universities to take students from the top 30 per cent of high school graduates into teaching degrees, putting the brakes on "a very worrying trend" of those without direction selecting the course.
Ms Plibersek says teaching should be "as attractive as a profession as medicine" and on Sunday asked universities to increase their entry cut-off marks to ignite competition among applicants.
"We cannot afford to continually dumb down teaching degrees, to enrol people who will never be competent teachers ... (and) we are doing a disservice to the profession as a whole if we continue on this path," she told reporters in Sydney.
The move comes after data released last year shows Australian universities are accepting students with dismal results.
Figures released to a Senate inquiry show one student was accepted to a teaching course at a Victorian uni in 2018 with a score of 17.9 out of a possible 99.95, while the lowest score accepted at another institution was 22.1.
The university sector, however, says low scores don't tell a student's full story and only represent a tiny number of teaching admissions.
"Fewer than one-in-four students are chosen on the basis of their ATAR alone. There is no evidence to show that those with higher ATARS become better teachers," the Australian Council of Deans of Education said in a statement.
Ms Plibersek said was prepared for a battle with universities on the issue.
"The universities have already told me they don't like the fact I'm calling them out on this, but too bad."
