New research has found that the Federal Government's $10m "Be That Teacher" campaign risks overlooking the workplace conditions driving educators out of the profession, even as separate enrolment data shows renewed interest in teaching degrees.
The campaign launched in October 2023 as part of the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan, which included a $25m Workload Reduction Fund, $56 million for scholarships worth up to $40,000 each, and $68m to encourage mid-career professionals to shift into teaching, alongside the $10m recruitment campaign.
The study, led by Dr Saul Karnovsky from Curtin's School of Education, analysed materials produced between January 2022 and December 2025, including government policy documents, ministerial speeches, interviews, media releases and the campaign's archived website. The paper, titled "Crafting the inspirational teacher: governing through affect as policy response to teacher recruitment in Australia," was published in the Journal of Education Policy in August.
Conditions, not stories, drive retention
Dr Karnovsky said celebrating teachers and improving the profession's public image were worthwhile goals, but argued inspirational messaging could not substitute for action on recruitment and retention conditions.
"The problem arises when inspiration starts becoming a policy response to a workforce crisis," Dr Karnovsky said.
The research found the campaign presented teaching as emotionally rewarding through stories of individual educators, a framing the authors argued shifted attention from the material and structural conditions shaping teachers' work.
The paper cites Australian research linking teacher turnover to workload, workplace conditions, stress and wellbeing, including findings that 46% of Australian teachers had considered leaving their jobs within 12 months due to workload and stress, and a survey of more than 22,000 Australian teachers in which 86% described their work as emotionally demanding and 58% attributed their stress to excessive workload.
Dr Karnovsky raised similar concerns about the campaign when it launched in 2023, writing in an article for the Australian Association for Research in Education that policy reforms should focus less on attracting newcomers and more on retaining teachers already in classrooms, and that workload had to be "radically" reduced starting with unnecessary administration.
Enrolment data shows a different trend
The critique comes as separate government data shows a third consecutive year of growth in teaching course interest. Preliminary figures from Tertiary Admissions Centres show applications to initial teacher education courses in 2026 rose 6.5% and domestic undergraduate offers rose 6.3% over the past year, following a 7% rise in applications and a 14% rise in offers from 2024 to 2025.
Education minister Jason Clare has attributed the increase to a "team effort" across federal, state and territory governments, and has pointed to reforms to initial teacher education content taking effect this year, covering the teaching of reading, writing, numeracy and classroom behaviour management.
Dr Karnovsky did not comment on the enrolment figures. The Curtin study instead concluded that improving the profession's image should not substitute for improving the profession itself.
"If Australia wants more people to become teachers, telling better stories about teaching may help," Dr Karnovsky said. "If we want those people to remain teachers 10 or 20 years later, workload, resourcing, professional autonomy, safety and working conditions must also be part of the conversation."