The Australian Government considers that every Australian student should have access to high quality teaching and the quality of Australia’s education system is dependent on the quality of its teaching workforce. There are significant teacher workforce challenges, such as addressing teacher shortages and rewarding high quality teachers, that require innovative and creative responses from the Australian Government, states and territories.
In particular, the Australian Government is committed to developing effective workforce planning and supporting structures to identify teaching performance and to reward quality teaching at the national level through the $550 million Smarter Schools – Improving Teacher Quality National Partnership (TQNP) agreement. This especially includes the TQNP Facilitation Reform to improve the quality and availability of workforce data.
This page provides access to national teacher workforce data collection and analysis, wholly or partly funded by the Australian Government, which are intended to inform teacher workforce issues and teacher workforce planning. They are relevant to teachers and school principals, education authorities, other key education stakeholders, and parents and students.
Teacher Workforce data
Staff in Australia’s Schools 2010
The Staff in Australia’s Schools (SIAS) 2010 national survey of teachers and school leaders , undertaken by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), gathered information from over 17,000 secondary and primary school teachers and leaders across the country in the latter half of 2010. It aimed to address key gaps in the data available to characterise the teaching profession to support workforce planning.
A supplementary report, which provides further data and analysis for primary and secondary teachers in selected curriculum areas.
Staff in Australia’s Schools 2006-07
The Staff in Australia’s Schools (SIAS) project, undertaken by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in collaboration with the Australia College of Educators, gathered information from over 13,000 secondary and primary school teachers and leaders across the country in 2006-07. It aimed to address key gaps in the data available to characterise the teaching profession to support workforce planning. The project's findings and recommendations are presented in two components:
OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey 2008
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), conducted over 2007-08, is the first international survey to focus on the learning environment and the working conditions of teachers in schools and aims to fill important information gaps in the international comparisons of education systems. The survey involved over 70,000 lower secondary teachers (years 7-10) and principals from 24 participating countries, and it included Australia.
TALIS was undertaken in Australia by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) between October and December 2007. It focussed on aspects of the learning environment which influence the quality of teaching and learning in schools. This included the three key areas of: recognising, rewarding and evaluating teachers; developing effective teaching practices, attitudes and beliefs; and school leadership. A secondary theme was teacher professional development.
A direct link to a PDF copy of the TALIS International Report can be found on the OECD website.
A link to the Report's Executive Summary is on the OECD site.
ACER prepared a report on Australian data from TALIS 2008. The Australian TALIS 2008 Report is available on the ACER website.