This paper suggests that as university missions have adapted to accommodate major developments associated with, for instance, mass higher education and internationalisation agendas, university workforces have diversified. They now, for instance, incorporate practitioners in areas such as health and social care, and professional staff who support…

In recent years, Western Australian school have faced a significant increase in the number of secondary school teacher resignations. By analysing qualitative data gathered from interviews of 11 recently resigned secondary teachers, and three senior level administrators, the researchers sought to begin to understand the reasons behind a teacher…

The problem of teacher shortage is of grave concern internationally, impacting countries such as the US, England and Australia. One popular approach to addressing issues of teacher attrition has been to hire international teachers (a.k.a. overseas-trained teachers) to fill the gap. In this paper the authors document the challenges and barriers…

This ALTC project is a collaborative endeavour between the four public universities involved in teacher education in Western Australia (Curtin University, Edith Cowan University, Murdoch University and The University of Western Australia), focussed on improving the quality of preparation of pre-service teachers for rural, regional and remote…

The provision and maintenance of quality teachers is a matter of priority for the profession. Moreover, teacher attrition is costly to the profession, to the community and to those teachers who leave feeling disillusioned. There is a need to investigate the experiences of early career teachers to consider how these issues contribute to decisions…

The success of languages education in Australia depends on a dedicated force of proficient and qualified teachers. The reality, however, is that we are losing our teachers at an alarming rate. While teacher attrition across Australia has been widely researched, little investigation has been conducted specifically into the post-graduation…

The educational performance of Aboriginal Australians lags behind non-Indigenous Australians with the gap increasing the longer students remain at school. The Australian government has released its Closing the Gap policy with the specific intent to redress gaps in health, education and housing, as these are seen as key indicators to life success.…

Mentoring as a strategy to assist and retain beginning teachers in the profession has been perceived as the panacea for reducing attrition rates. Whilst this may be true in many cases, mentoring alone has been unable to stem the flow of resignations. In this essay on scholarship and teaching, the author explores surrounding mentoring programs. New…

New or beginning teachers are well received by the education profession, yet for a large portion of new teachers the assessment of how successful their transition into the first year of teaching tends to be overtly negative. Research reports indicate that the often traumatic and difficult nature of new teachers' experiences is not a new phenomenon…

In this paper, we explore the circumstances leading to an elementary teacher's decision to leave the profession. We analyse her accounts of eleven years of teaching using a storyline technique and a framework provided by the five aspects of teacher self-understandings (Kelchtermans, 2009). We also analyse the interplay between vulnerability,…

The 2007 "Top of the Class" report on the Inquiry into Teacher Education in Australia found teacher induction failure and high attrition rates were endemic in most Australian states. Mentoring was advocated as an important mechanism for countering the debilitating drain attrition exerted on the profession (more than 30% within the first…

This study explored the validity of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale in a sample of 853 practicing teachers from Australia, Canada, China (Hong Kong), Indonesia, and Oman. The authors used multigroup confirmatory factor analysis to test the factor structure and measurement invariance across settings, after which they examined the relationships…

In a previous article (Bellamy et al., 2003), the authors reported on survey research that investigated reasons why academics from business disciplines enter and remain in academia, and the conditions they deem necessary to creating ideal work satisfaction. For both entering and remaining, as well as in achieving ideal work satisfaction, the most…

Attracting and retaining effective education leaders and teaching staff for regional, rural and remote schools in Australia is a major sustainability and quality issue facing every State and Territory. It is also a major concern in pre-service teacher education, particularly for those universities which have a commitment to rural and regional…

Teacher induction programs provide the critical support that new teachers need as they move from university teacher education studies to the everyday realities of teaching. Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) work through a range of new and challenging experiences as they explore their sense of themselves as professionals. Their identities are being…