A $10 million Australian Government campaign celebrating inspirational teachers risked overlooking the workplace conditions driving educators from the profession, according to new research led by Curtin University.
The Be That Teacher campaign launched in October 2023 as part of the Federal Government’s National Teacher Workforce Action Plan, aiming to elevate the profession’s status and encourage more Australians to consider teaching.
To test its effectiveness, researchers analysed materials produced between January 2022 and December 2025, including government policy documents, ministerial speeches, interviews, media releases and material from the campaign’s archived website.
Lead author Dr Saul Karnovsky, from Curtin’s School of Education, said celebrating teachers and improving the profession’s public image were worthwhile goals but inspirational messages could not replace action on the conditions affecting recruitment and retention.
“The problem arises when inspiration starts becoming a policy response to a workforce crisis,” Dr Karnovsky said.
“Governments are telling prospective teachers this is meaningful work, they can change a child’s life and they can be ‘that teacher’.
“Those things can absolutely be true, but they don’t remove excessive workloads, occupational stress, administrative demands or the other working conditions research consistently tells us are pushing teachers out.”
The research found the campaign presented teaching as emotionally rewarding and morally meaningful through stories of individual educators inspiring students and transforming their lives.
It argued this focus shifted attention away from the material and structural conditions shaping teachers’ work.
Dr Karnovsky said relying on the image of an extraordinary teacher could also place responsibility for overcoming difficult conditions on individual educators.
“We keep returning to the idea of the extraordinary individual teacher who changes lives,” Dr Karnovsky said.
“But teaching isn’t sustained by extraordinary individuals continually overcoming difficult conditions.
“It is sustained by workplaces in which teachers have the time, resources, professional support and conditions required to do their jobs well.”
The paper cites previous Australian research linking teacher turnover and retention to workload, workplace conditions, stress and wellbeing.
It notes research in which 46 per cent of Australian teachers reported considering leaving their jobs within 12 months because of workload and stress.
It also cites a survey of more than 22,000 Australian teachers, in which 86 per cent described their work as emotionally demanding and 58 per cent attributed their stress to excessive workload.
Dr Karnovsky said describing teaching as a calling or vocation could unintentionally reinforce expectations educators should tolerate poor conditions because their work was socially important.
“When we continually describe teaching as an opportunity to make a difference, we need to be careful about what else we’re asking teachers to accept,” Dr Karnovsky said.
“Meaningful work should not require people to sacrifice their own wellbeing to prove how committed they are.”
Dr Karnovsky said recruitment campaigns could help counter negative perceptions of teaching, but 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.”
The paper calls for teacher wellbeing to be understood in the context of institutional and workplace arrangements, rather than treated primarily as an individual educator’s responsibility.
It argues recruitment and retention policies should give greater attention to the material and relational conditions of teachers’ work.
The open-access paper, Crafting the inspirational teacher: governing through affect as policy response to teacher recruitment in Australia, was published in the Journal of Education Policy.
