More Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Teachers Initiative: final report

More Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Teachers Initiative (MATSITI) has been a five year (2011-16) program to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people entering and remaining in professional teaching positions in Australian schools. A number of projects were undertaken within the themes of promoting teaching, teacher education, recruitment and employment, leadership development, and remote schools. The three key deliverables for MATSITI were: qualitative and quantitative research reports on factors and effectiveness of strategies to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers; a series of partnerships and co-investment agreements with school authorities, university schools of education and other agencies to increase recruitment, retention and leadership in teacher training and in schools; and national community engagement and marketing strategies to promote teaching as a career option for secondary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. This final report provides a comprehensive appraisal of the achievements against the stated outcomes of MATSITI.

The final report recommendations build upon the external evaluation of the MATSITI in 2015: (1) fund MATSITI or equivalent employment strategy for a further four years to sustain current initiatives and leverage investments to date; (2) develop and launch a national campaign for promoting and marketing teaching as a career for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; (3) increase the profile of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers as leaders through bold affirmative action strategies that provide leadership development, succession planning and targeting of suitable leadership positions to be filled by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants; (4) work with public, Catholic and independent education sectors, and universities to develop culturally safe recruitment and employment practices that enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers and teacher education students to identify; and effective systems for storing and reporting de-identified study and employment data; and (5) forge stronger links between all Australian universities' schools of education and Indigenous Higher Education Centres; respond to research findings on reasons for the low completion rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher education students; and implement effective retention strategies to maximise the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher graduates.

Edited excerpts from publication and publisher's website. Show less