Taxpayers spent $77.5m to educate new teachers. Only a few hundred remain in schools

The federal government has spent $77.5 million over nine years on a non-profit to educate new teachers, but only 474 are still teaching in schools. 

That’s a taxpayer cost of about $163,502 per teacher — and according to a Greens senator who was questioning the Education Department in Senate estimates this week, it isn’t good enough value for money. 

“Even on its own terms, Teach for Australia is not delivering,” Greens education spokesperson Penny Allman-Payne told Crikey. “The point of the program is to put teachers in high-need schools, but we know that of the less than two-thirds of program graduates who are still teaching, fewer than half are still in socio-educationally disadvantaged schools.