Journal article
Career change teachers in hard-to-staff schools: should I stay or leave?
Australian educational researcher, Vol.51(2), pp.481-496
04/2024
PMID: 36817651
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Abstract
Recruiting career changers into teaching has emerged as a part of a strategy by governments worldwide to address complex teacher shortage problems in hard-to-staff schools. In this paper, we present a case study of two career change teachers and trace their career journey into Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and the teaching profession in two separate hard-to-staff schools. We interviewed these teachers during the first 2 years of their career change journey. During this period, 'push-and-pull' factors impacted their intentions to stay in the profession. Challenges included inadequate school-level mentorship support, social-geographic isolation in a regional school setting during the COVID-19 remote learning and the more complex working conditions in hard-to-staff schools. The adverse impacts of these challenges were, to some extent, mitigated by the participants' commitment to making a positive difference in the lives of children and young people through the teaching profession, a strong work ethic and support provided by their ITE programme in the form of university-based mentors and adjustment to study requirements. The participants responded to these push-and-pull factors in ways that highlighted their reflexive decision-making and determination to stay in teaching despite challenges. We discuss the implications of these findings for workforce planning strategies aimed at recruiting career change teachers in hard-to-staff schools.
Details
- Title
- Career change teachers in hard-to-staff schools: should I stay or leave?
- Creators
- Babak Dadvand - La Trobe UniversityJan van Driel - The University of MelbourneChris Speldewinde - The University of MelbourneMerryn Dawborn-Gundlach - The University of Melbourne
- Publication Details
- Australian educational researcher, Vol.51(2), pp.481-496
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Number of pages
- 16
- Grant note
- The funding for this project was provided by the Melbourne Graduate School of Education as part of the Research Development Award for Team-Based research.
- Identifiers
- 991013345422802368
- Copyright
- © The Author(s) 2023, corrected publication 2023.
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article