About this award

The Future Teachers Award backs public school graduates who are going on to teach. Australia needs teachers, and it particularly needs teachers who understand public education from the inside because they were educated in it.

The award is a single payment in the first year of study, when the costs of starting are highest and the support available is thinnest.

Why the first year

Attrition from teaching degrees is concentrated in first year, and it correlates with financial pressure rather than academic difficulty. Students who leave rarely say the course was too hard. They say they could not keep going.

Recipients also join a cohort that stays in contact through their degree and into their first postings, which is where the second attrition cliff sits.