Grattan Institute recommends an overhaul of the teacher career path in Australia to establish new selective and prestigious positions for highly effective classroom teachers, so that Australia’s top teachers are better recognised, rewarded, and deployed to improve teaching quality in all schools.
Grattan’s research suggests that the creation of these positions could help lift teaching quality across the whole workforce and improve student learning (see Grattan Institute: Top teachers: sharing expertise to improve teaching (2020) and Attracting high achievers to teaching (2019)).
While the NSW Department of Education’s Options Paper identifies a range of reforms that could help strengthen the NSW school education system, Grattan also recommends the department:
- Ensure the new school-based instructional roles for highly effective classroom teachers are tightly linked to subject-specific expertise.
- Ensure the design of the new school-based instructional pathway role provides sufficient collaboration time to allow for regular work directly with other teachers.
- Provide ongoing professional learning and guidance for highly effective teachers in these new school-based roles.
- Create ‘Master Teacher’ roles to support and guide the new school-based instructional roles for highly effective teachers.
Jordana Hunter
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