The challenge to retain second-career teachers

We knew before COVID-19 hit that teacher education in Australia faced a twin challenge: there’s limited appeal for high-achieving graduates to take up teaching as a career and the profession has high attrition rates among early career teachers.

This global pandemic will likely see some of those high-achieving graduates – along with many others as the unemployment rate rises – turn to teaching as their second career. But there are issues that lie ahead for these career-changers that we must address if we’re to avoid them walking away from the profession, like so many current teachers already do.