Initiatives to Address Teacher Shortage. ACER Policy Briefs. Issue 5

This paper is in response to an invitation from the Victorian Department of Education and Training to undertake a targeted review of effective teaching recruitment strategies. The paper provides a "snapshot" of what is happening in other States and Territories and in selected countries overseas. The main focus of the review is on the kinds of strategies that different educational jurisdictions have used to overcome teacher supply problems. This review looks briefly at practices in other Australian States and Territories, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States and New Zealand. The most effective approaches appear to be those that have been implemented as part of a global strategy that looks not simply at the immediate problem but at ways of making teaching an attractive profession in the long-term. (Contains 1 summary table and 47 endnotes.) [This paper was published by the Australian Council for Educational Research and is based on a study commissioned by the Department of Education and Training, Victoria.]