Strengthening a Research-Rich Teaching Profession for Australia. Final Report

Overview & Synopsis

Three education-related organisations have been communicating for years about working together to enhance the relationship between teaching, teacher education and research. The current policy context surrounding teaching in Australia is clearly one that calls for greater alignment across all components and stages of the teaching profession, including pre-service teacher education and the continuing professional learning of in-service teachers. There is also a need for greater knowledge mobilisation and transfer to strengthen the links between research, policy and practice in education. This was identified, for instance, in recommendations from a Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) report calling for an 'integrated system' where 'higher education providers, school systems and schools work together to achieve strong graduate and student outcomes' (2015, p. vii). The project reported here aimed to gather information from across the education field to support greater alignment for an integrated system, and generate recommendations to sustain existing educational research and consolidate development leading to research-rich and self-improving education systems in Australia. The perspectives of teachers, educators, system leaders, education researchers and teacher educators are central to this aim as they are the source of current practices and future ideas, issues, challenges and opportunities that will enrich system-level improvement in Australian education through research.