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This report provides an analysis of an online survey hosted by the Joint Principals’ Associations. The survey was completed by 1351 teachers, all of whom have less than three years of teaching service. The qualitative data collected from these respondents reflects well on the profession. It indicates that we are attracting graduates to teaching who are genuinely interested in the profession and who have a passion for making a difference to the lives of the learners with whom they work. Yet, although 93% of our survey respondents enjoy teaching, 24% indicate that they will leave the profession within 5 years.
The level of pressure associated with teaching in the first few years of service is seen to be the main contributing factor to 25% of beginning teachers expecting to leave the profession. The pressure they feel is from two key stressors.
Click here to download a complete copy of the report (176Kb PDF file). Click here to download the press release issued by ASPA (33Kb PDF file). The rest of the Executive Summary reads: - There is a real tension between achieving a high quality of classroom teaching and progressing one’s career through taking on additional management and day to day administrative responsibilities.
- A significant minority of beginning teachers are placed under extra pressure by having to provide classroom instruction in unfamiliar subject or year level contexts.
26% of survey respondents have taken on management roles within their first three years of teaching. 27% of respondents indicate that they are teaching outside of their expertise. The three subject areas where this has been most strongly felt are: - English
- Mathematics
- Religious Education.
This report establishes that schools rather than universities are considered by our survey respondents to be more effective in relation to “teaching about teaching”. There are notable differences between the ratings by beginning teachers of the universities where they received their training. One measure of the importance a school plays in the lives of beginning teachers is the extent to which the workplace culture provides a supportive environment. 89% of beginning teachers’ surveyed indicated that they received “good” to “excellent” support from their teacher colleagues in schools. We believe that considerable potential exists to capitalize on this high level of collegial support and this is worthy of further investigation. Despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, the majority of teachers in our survey have stayed to teach in schools in the state where they went to university. Only the Northern Territory and the ACT “gained” overall with more teachers moving into these locations than have been trained there. Essentially any investment from a state or territory government into teacher training provides a direct benefit back to that regional community. Finally, our survey data supports the view within the profession that there are not enough incentives for teacher graduates to seek employment in Australia’s less populated regions. 86% of survey respondents chose to only seek teaching appointments in urban centres. Approximately 55% did not consider rural schools and approximately 80% did not consider an appointment in a remote school. |
