About the Pipeline Report
The Pipeline Report analyses the characteristics of undergraduate and postgraduate students who are entering, are currently enrolled in, or have completed their initial teacher education (ITE). Insights in the report include:
- improved estimates of the number of ITE students studying early childhood, primary and secondary education
- the subject areas that ITE students will be qualified to teach, such as mathematics and science. This will be critical to understanding supply into the future
- a comprehensive assessment of which students commenced and completed ITE, who they are and where they come from
- improved clarity on how to assess and predict the available supply of graduates available to work in any state or territory.
Key findings
Key findings in the Pipeline Report include changes to the supply of teaching graduates and a detailed understanding of the characteristics of pre-service teachers in the ITE pipeline. For example:
- Despite increasing numbers of commencements, the overall numbers of ITE graduates available to teach in any year (number of completions) has largely plateaued. This is not, however, consistent across primary, secondary and early childhood programs nor across jurisdictions.
- A greater understanding of those ITE students at risk of not successfully completing their program of study may inform effective support processes to increase the number of ITE graduates and the diversity of graduates.
The full set of key findings is on pages 8 to 22 of the Pipeline Report.
A comprehensive Technical Report, showing which data were used and how the data were transformed and summarised, supplements this Pipeline Report and is also available.
Both reports were released in November 2020, with minor amendments made to the Pipeline Report in December 2020.
What’s coming next
The next ATWD report, the National Teacher Workforce Characteristics Report: Australian Teacher Workforce Data Report 2, connects information about ITE students with data on their employment. As the ATWD matures, it will provide further opportunities to understand the supply of teachers and the teacher workforce across Australia and address increasingly complex issues.