Top university graduates to teach in Victorian schools

News bulletin: 28 September 2009

Six hundred university graduates have recently applied to teach in educationally disadvantaged schools under the new Teach For Australia recruitment program.

Teach For Australia is a not-for-profit organisation and part of a $550 million partnership between the Victorian Government, the Commonwealth and the business sector to raise the level of teaching nationwide.

The program will recruit 75 high-achieving graduates, who may be heading for law, accounting, sciences, consulting or similar careers and place them into Victorian schools.

Successful applicants will receive a six-week intensive education course before they are allocated to schools.

Once graduates have been placed in schools, they will spend 80 per cent of their time in the classroom and earn salaries of more than $45,000 per year.

Graduates will also complete a two-year Post Graduate Diploma of Teaching through the University of Melbourne and participate in a leadership program with Teach For Australia’s corporate partners, including Boston Consulting Group and Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

The main intention of the program is to attract some of Victoria’s brightest graduates into the teaching profession and to form close relationships between private businesses and the education system.

Similar programs have been successful in the United Kingdom and United States and have seen a large percentage of graduates returning to the field of teaching after several years of further experience in the corporate world.