Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank and acknowledge my friend the member for Curtin, the distinguished former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Notre Dame, for moving this motion today. Let me also acknowledge the year 12 students in the Berowra electorate, who are preparing for life beyond the school gate—some are preparing for university and others for vocational education, while some are moving into the workforce. I want to congratulate our HSC students on completing school and wish them well for their exams, and I want to say to all of them that we look forward to the many ways in which they'll contribute to the great future of this country.

The Morrison government is investing more money in schools than any federal government in our history. We're doing this because we recognise that one of the most important differences any government can make to the future of our young people, no matter what their background, is to ensure they have a chance to learn and are equipped with the skills, knowledge and capacity to keep learning in the years ahead. But we also know that money alone does not create a great education system. No matter how much money we put into education, we can't change the fact that one of the most important factors in the quality of the education a child receives is the teacher a child learns from. Great teachers bring deep subject matter expertise combined with a passion for educating students and for the subjects they teach as well as the skills to manage the classroom and pass on their knowledge.

Today I want to talk about an amazing organisation which has been funded by the Morrison government and its predecessors on both sides of the House and which is doing so much to bring outstanding people into the teaching profession, where they're improving student performance and changing lives. For the past 10 years this organisation has been quietly working to ensure more children can have the best possible teachers and to raise the status and quality of the teaching profession in Australia. Teach for Australia takes top graduates from a range of disciplines and puts them through a tailored masters of education while working in the classroom, where they are coached, mentored and supported by highly experienced teachers. It was an honour to serve on their board prior to my election to this place.

Over the past decade, 800 highly talented Australians who are at the top of their field have chosen to teach because of Teach for Australia. Teach for Australia has shown some of the things we assume about the teaching profession are not necessarily true. Firstly, we assume top graduates don't become teachers because the pay is low, the work is hard and the status isn't high. That's not the case. Eleven thousand people have applied for the roughly 800 places Teach for Australia has filled. Teach for Australia has been ranked among the top 100 graduate employers in Australia. One Teach for Australia participant, Surajeev Santhirasegaram, left his burgeoning career in finance to move to Western Australia and teach high school maths and physics. He says he was motivated by work with a purpose. He loves being on the ground with students and wants to be creative and self-driven in his work. It seems that, for many people, teaching is an attractive pathway but investing the time and money in further education for a career you can't try before making that investment is a difficult obstacle to overcome. Teach for Australia provides a different pathway.

Secondly, we too easily assume that the best way to prepare a great teacher is to teach educational theory in lecture halls. The Teach for Australia model shows that learning in the classroom with high-quality professional development happening alongside can produce great results. In 2015, a survey of principals who had a Teach for Australia teacher in their school found that 80 per cent of principals said that Teach for Australia teachers were more or much more effective than typical graduates with the same level of experience.

Thirdly, we assume that if someone can become a management consultant or investment banker, they will choose that over teaching. But the Teach for Australia retention stats show a different picture. Fifty per cent of Teach for Australia graduates remain in teaching three years on. This compares to about only one in four students who start an educational degree through traditional pathways who are still in teaching five years of graduation. The Morrison government is investing in Teach for Australia because it is game-changing for the teaching profession and for the whole education system in Australia.

Teach for Australia provides an avenue for some of our top students to pass their knowledge on to the next generation and it's building the status of the teaching profession. It allows us to think creatively and freshly about how we build educational quality in Australia. Each dollar we spend on Teach for Australia is a wise investment in the future of our nation. Teach for Australia graduates bring a growth mindset to our education system. They realise that, as the PISA results indicate, our education system isn't performing as it should be and we need to attract people into the teaching profession to achieve real change on the ground. That's what Teach for Australia graduates are doing every single day. I want to commend the outstanding Melodie Potts Rosevear, founding CEO of Teach for Australia, who has led it since its inception, and her team for their dedication to young people and I want to thank the government for their continued support of TFA.

See this speech in context