National pivot to skills will ensure new teachers are equipped for rewarding careers

Across the country there has been a sudden rise in university enrolments for teaching with national statistics pointing to a 14 per cent increase in offers for teaching places across Australia in 2025.

It wasn’t so long ago a real crisis in school workforces was emerging. Teacher

retention rates were dropping and national enrolments in teaching courses were

falling short.

Drawn-out discussions about pay and school funding were discouraging school

leavers – already exhausted from socially-distanced learning through the Covid

pandemic – from considering the teaching profession.

The pandemic was a particularly torrid time for our educators. As the outbreaks

spread, local teachers worked tirelessly to navigate social distancing and new

technologies that ensured that quality, inclusive learning in schools was maintained.

Then, just as communities were resolving the Covid aftermath, school leaders

began worrying that the pipeline of future teachers was running dry.

Three years later we have a very different picture. Across the country we are seeing

a sudden rise in university enrolments. It suggests a shortfall of teaching enrolments

is reversing, with national statistics pointing to a 14 per cent increase in offers for

teaching places across Australia in 2025.

Students in the main quadrangle at the University of Sydney. Picture: Supplied

At the University of Sydney, we’ve welcomed a hefty 30 per cent increase in teaching

enrolments this year, primarily at an undergraduate level – in both high-school and

primary teaching courses.

These reversing trends aren’t accidental. The uplift follows Commonwealth

Government changes to HECS and scholarships, alongside a significant program

within the University of Sydney to redesign eight undergraduate qualifications with a

focus on core teaching skills. And the resolution of a long-running pay dispute helped

as well. Starting salaries for teachers are now highly competitive with many other

professions.

As an educator, I’ve long pondered the X-factors that transform a good teacher into

becoming great. Our best teachers often tell me what drives them most is the rich

reward of developing the minds of young and dynamic learners. But new academic

research has now revealed a list of qualities that help make great teachers. They

include the ability to be reflective, resilient, adaptable, motivated and to communicate

clearly.

The study, conducted by 11 researchers over three years shows many of these

qualities are personal traits that cannot be taught but it also reveals that an

overlooked X-factor for great teachers is what they are explicitly taught.

Teachers trained in evidence-based methods are far more likely to enjoy teaching in

the most complex, challenging classroom environments, and support a diverse

community of students while managing day-to-day classroom activities.

Until recently, these cornerstone skills weren’t mandatory in teacher training and

accreditation. Australia was failing to consistently deliver graduates who felt ready for

the classroom – leading to churn and attrition.

Professor Mark Scott said the best teachers are driven by the reward of developing young minds. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers.

Now, a national, uniform approach to teacher training has been adopted by higher

education providers. Core content and skills training will be based on expert

guidelines mandated by State and Commonwealth governments. This not only

transforms how we teach our teachers – it is a sea change that means our teaching

graduates will arrive in classrooms with the hidden X-factor to take charge in the

classroom.

This change will also help attract the best and brightest to the teaching profession,

including postgraduate students. This year, our university’s Master of Teaching

degree had a 20 per cent enrolment increase, the highest since 2021. The cohort

includes career changers with construction, neuroscience and meteorology

backgrounds. They arrive with unique talents and life experience that provide an

amazing springboard to becoming great teachers.

These successful professionals are drawn to the unique challenges of teaching and

the immense enjoyment of sharing knowledge with a classroom of dynamic and

unpredictable young learners.

While we must keep working hard to encourage more to pivot to teaching degrees, I

feel optimistic our national workforce of highly skilled, well-trained graduates is

growing again.

We can have no doubt the greatest advocates for teaching careers will be this new

wave of energised and inspiring teachers. They are the professionals this Australia’s

Best Teacher campaign celebrates, and who young school leavers will want to follow

and emulate.

Professor Mark Scott is Vice Chancellor and President of the University of Sydney

and served as Secretary of the NSW Department of Education from 2016 to 2021.

Recently, Professor Scott also served as chair of the Commonwealth Government’s

Teaching Education Expert Panel.

Australia’s Best Teachers is a News Corp Australia advocacy series, in partnership with Officeworks, Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools, Education Perfect and Big Ass. Fans.