Abstract
This chapter sets forth the landscape of school education and classrooms of today. It presents an overview of current issues governing the provision of teacher workforce, focusing on Australia. More specifically, it explores the problematics of the attractiveness of teaching from the viewpoint of those in other professions. In doing so, it looks into current attempts to ‘gatekeep’ the profession through establishing more rigorous entry standards, and through increased regulation and accreditation, using Australia, and the state of New South Wales, as illustrative examples. It then considers the outcomes this added rigor might have for the attractiveness of the profession, particularly in terms of attracting those who can bring their life and work experiences to teaching, and to the management of schools. The chapter examines these dynamics in the context of current and predicted teacher shortages, particularly in some geographic, socioeconomic and subject areas.
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Notes
- 1.
Recent fears that significant numbers of older teachers might succumb to covid-19 have, mercifully, diminished at the time of writing.
- 2.
Who was to know how soon that dole-queue future would materialize, with the advent of covid-19?
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Varadharajan, M., Buchanan, J. (2021). The Recruitment, Support, Retention and Attrition of Teachers in Australia. In: Career Change Teachers. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6038-2_2
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