Australia: Retaining and Attracting Teachers

This article examines how Australia retains and attracts teachers. It analyzes the challenges Australian teachers encounter in their teaching lives and provides recommendations to address these. The recommendations if implemented would not only contribute to improved learning in all areas of Australia, but also more broadly to the country. It is recognized that Australia is a geographically large with diverse communities and this is reflected in schools. It is for this reason the literature review examines low performing schools, which is relevant to the latter parts of this article. That is school identification in Australia and the current tools available to motivate teachers to work in remote and socially and economically disadvantaged regions. How does Australia motivate people to become teachers, develop them, and ensure that the system is able to deliver on the best possible instruction for every child is presented? Teachers learn these tools from initial teacher preparation programs and ongoing professional learning opportunities. The system needs to ensure that it can retain and attract teachers to deliver quality opportunities for every child regardless of school or location.