Strengthening a Research-Rich Teaching Profession Report

This project 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.

Download the Report here.

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 the 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 report noted that innovations and practices that have a demonstrable impact on student learning need to be identified and shared nationally.

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.

Funding was provided by the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA), the Australian Association for Education in Research (AARE) and the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE), with each of these organisations recognising their shared concern for the relationships between systems, teachers, research and student outcomes.