Six providers share $1.5 million to strengthen teacher training

Six Australian higher education providers will share around $1.5 million to strengthen teacher preparation, with projects focused on professional placements, mentoring, classroom management, First Nations student retention and pathways for people moving into teaching from other careers.

The Australian Government has awarded the first grants through the Strong Beginnings (Excellence) Fund, supporting six projects aimed at improving initial teacher education.

Minister for Education Jason Clare announced the funding as part of the Government's broader reforms to teacher preparation, which followed recommendations from the Teacher Education Expert Panel.

The Excellence Fund will provide more than $7 million over four years, followed by $1 million each year on an ongoing basis, to support higher education providers to develop, test and share approaches to improving teacher education.

“One of the best ways to help teachers from day one is to improve the training they receive at university,” Mr Clare said.

“This will help more teaching students complete their course and successfully transition into the classroom.”

Melbourne Polytechnic will lead a partnership focused on helping teaching students develop classroom management skills during professional experience placements.

The University of New England and Charles Sturt University will work together to develop a new professional experience assessment tool for pre-service teachers undertaking placements.

Queensland University of Technology will develop resources to support more consistent and effective recognition of prior learning and prior practice, with the Government saying the work could help reduce barriers for mid-career professionals seeking to enter teaching.

The University of Melbourne will develop approaches to strengthening classroom management and parent-teacher conferences during professional experience.

Griffith University will focus on supporting the retention of First Nations teaching students during professional placements.

RMIT University will lead a partnership examining how teaching students can receive better learning opportunities and mentor feedback while on placement.

Together, the projects place a significant focus on the professional experience component of teacher preparation and the support students receive as they move between university study and classroom practice.

The grants form part of broader changes to initial teacher education underway nationally.

From 2026, higher education providers have been required to embed new core content into accredited initial teacher education programs.

The Government said the changes include greater emphasis on how the brain learns, teaching children to read, write and count, and classroom behaviour management.

An Initial Teacher Education Quality Assurance Oversight Board has also been established to support greater consistency and quality across teacher education programs.

The latest funding is intended to complement these reforms by identifying approaches that can be tested and shared more broadly across the higher education sector.

Professional experience is a prominent feature of the first round of funded projects.

Placements give teaching students an opportunity to apply their university learning in educational settings, work alongside experienced teachers and develop their professional practice.

The Government has also introduced the Commonwealth Prac Payment to provide financial support to eligible teaching students while they undertake mandatory professional experience placements.

Commonwealth Teaching Scholarships provide another pathway, offering eligible undergraduate teaching students up to $40,000 over four years and postgraduate students up to $20,000 over two years.

Scholarship recipients make a commitment to teach following graduation in government schools or eligible early learning settings.

The announcement comes as applications for undergraduate teaching degrees continue to rise.

Domestic applications increased by 6.5 per cent in 2026, following increases of 9 per cent in 2025 and 10 per cent in 2024.

Offers for undergraduate teaching courses also increased by 6.3 per cent in 2026.

The Government pointed to Commonwealth, state and territory initiatives, including Commonwealth Teaching Scholarships, teacher pay increases and the Commonwealth Prac Payment, as contributing to efforts to attract more people to the profession.

The Strong Beginnings grants announced in this round are focused on initial teacher education, rather than vocational education and training qualifications for the broader early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce.

The funding should therefore not be interpreted as a new investment in Certificate III or Diploma-level preparation for early childhood educators.

However, the broader initial teacher education agenda intersects with ECEC through the preparation of degree-qualified teachers and government initiatives such as Commonwealth Teaching Scholarships, which can involve a commitment to work in eligible early learning settings.

Themes addressed by the successful projects, including professional placements, mentoring, First Nations student retention and pathways for mid-career entrants, also reflect workforce development issues relevant across education.

The first Strong Beginnings (Excellence) Fund projects will now explore approaches that could inform the continued development of teacher preparation across Australia.

The full announcement is available from the Australian Government Ministers' Media Centre.