{"id":41323,"date":"2026-06-30T07:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T07:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/41323\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T07:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T07:23:09","slug":"mid-career-professionals-to-make-teaching-switch-under-new-tasmanian-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/41323\/","title":{"rendered":"Mid-career professionals to make teaching switch under new Tasmanian program"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lauren Shivvaan worked in law and the public service before making a life-changing career decision in her late 30s.<\/p>\n

A job as a university tutor gave her the professional clarity she needed.<\/p>\n

“Through that I realised I loved to teach and I should have done teaching all along,” Ms Shivvaan said.<\/p>\n

The Devonport resident, who is now working as a high school legal studies teacher in Burnie, is the type of mid-career professional being sought by a new program that aims to attract more teachers to Tasmanian schools.<\/p>\n

Under the Change2Teaching program, 40 Masters of Teaching students will be paid a wage while studying and working part-time in the classroom.<\/p>\n

The 2027 pilot program, being delivered by the Department of Education in partnership with the University of Tasmania, will be held in schools in the state’s north-west and south.<\/p>\n

“We are really looking for those folk who would like to change their careers and really give back,” Change2Teaching director Mary Ann Hunter told ABC Mornings.<\/p>\n

“As you build confidence and skills in teaching \u2026 by the end of the two years you will be working in the classroom independently.”<\/p>\n

‘We need to do something’<\/p>\n

Like most of the country, Tasmania is in the midst of a burnout-driven teacher shortage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Department of Education data shows that, between 2020 and 2024, the number of teachers quitting within their first five years almost doubled.<\/p>\n

\"Leanne<\/p>\n

Leanne McLean, director of the Peter Underwood Centre for Educational Attainment, says teaching is a rewarding career.\u00a0 (ABC News: Hayden Smith)<\/p>\n

On top of historically poor literacy outcomes, the state government has also been grappling with ways of attracting and retaining teachers.<\/p>\n

“Teaching isn’t for everybody,” head of the UTAS School of Education, Leanne McLean, told ABC Mornings.<\/p>\n

“It’s an amazing career filled with joyous moments, but it also requires extraordinary organisation and a real passion for working with children and young people.”<\/p>\n

Upon completing the program, Change2Teaching participants will be offered permanent positions within Tasmania’s education department.<\/p>\n

Ms Hunter said they would be offered significant mentoring.<\/p>\n

“We are going to wrap around a whole heap of support for these 40 candidates,” she said.<\/p>\n

The Independent Review of Education in Tasmania found that the state’s education sector could “strengthen how it works with tertiary providers \u2026 to ensure that early-career teachers have the knowledge, skills and capabilities so they are well prepared for all aspects of the classroom.”<\/p>\n

The Change2Teaching initiative has been welcomed by the Australian Education Union, with Tasmanian branch president David Genford saying it had come on the back of “good consultation”.<\/p>\n

“We need to do something,” he said.\"A<\/p>\n

Minister for Education Jo Palmer says Change2Teaching is an exciting opportunity.\u00a0 (ABC News: Morgan Timms)<\/p>\n

Education Minister Jo Palmer described Change2Teaching as an “exciting opportunity”.<\/p>\n

“The aim of it is to attract mid-career professionals from other industries,” she said.<\/p>\n

“You might be a scientist, a carpenter\u2026 a journalist, whatever it might be.”<\/p>\n

Bringing ‘real-world experience’ to classrooms<\/p>\n

While new, the Change2Teaching program is not Tasmania’s first tilt at luring mid-career professionals into education.<\/p>\n

Teach for Australia (TFA), in which participants study while working in low socio-economic schools, has operated in Tasmania since 2017.<\/p>\n

Dozens of TFA alumni continue to work in Tasmanian classrooms.<\/p>\n

Damien Viney worked in the Tasmanian cider industry for more than a decade before joining TFA in the program’s 2024 cohort.<\/p>\n

“It was a really positive thing to do at this time of my life,” the 43-year-old father of two said.<\/p>\n

“The more varied teaching backgrounds, the better it is for everyone.”\"Damien<\/p>\n

Damien Viney completed the Teach for Australia program in Tasmania after working in the cider industry.\u00a0 (Supplied: Damien Viney)<\/p>\n

The Year 9 maths and science teacher said he would not have been able to enter the profession without being paid a wage while studying.<\/p>\n

“I would not have been able to support my family through the more traditional university route,” he said.<\/p>\n

Ms Shivvaan said becoming a teacher in her late 30s also benefited her students.<\/p>\n

“I knew who I was,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I had the background and real-world experience behind me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lauren Shivvaan worked in law and the public service before making a life-changing career decision in her late…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,32888,2307,32889,32887,18576,5247,12691],"class_list":["post-41323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-change2teaching","tag-education","tag-masters","tag-program","tag-shortage","tag-tasmania","tag-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}