More Aboriginal teachers are needed now!

Abstract

This article describes a 2024 Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success First Nations Fellowship twelve-month research project about promoting teaching as a career to Aboriginal people. The innovation was to ask Aboriginal people how to best promote teaching and utilised Aboriginal voices and perspectives in the creation of promotional materials. The knowledge created could inform how Australian education departments and teacher education institutions attract Aboriginal people to the profession and inspire many more Aboriginal senior secondary students and mature-age students to become teachers. The research also has implications for current Aboriginal teachers and teacher registration boards to consider how the leadership and mentoring demonstrated by Aboriginal teacher role models can be formally recognised and accredited. Role models were found to be one of the most requested methods by Aboriginal people for promoting teaching to other Aboriginal people.