Improving retention and graduation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in initial teacher education programs

The levels of retention, support and graduation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander initial Teacher Education students across Australia are in critical need of improvement. In 2012, the Australian Council of Deans of Education, through the Queensland University of Technology, led a project with the More Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Teachers Initiative to focus on these issues. While some of the barriers that have an impact on the graduation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers are well-known, this was the first large-scale Australian study to look at the issues nationally and in depth. Thirty-four Teacher Education programs across the country were audited, meetings were held in each state, both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous faculty and staff were consulted, and approximately 70 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander pre-service teachers were interviewed. This paper reports on the outcomes of that project, including the evidence that while recruitment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students into Teacher Education has, in some sites, reached parity with the rate of nonIndigenous recruitment, retention rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education students are well below what is reasonably expected across the nation. The paper focuses both on the quantitative data and, even more significantly, on the voices of the pre-service teachers themselves, offering insights into the ways forward. As a result of this study, Deans and Heads of School of Teacher Education programs across the country have developed Action Plans alongside their university's Indigenous Higher Education Centres to improve support and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander preservice teachers.