Federal Education Minister Jason Clare wants Australia to have more teachers. Photo: Wiki.
Targeted scholarships to the value of $40,000 each are up for grabs for students starting teaching degrees in 2026, through the Commonwealth Teaching Scholarships Program.
The Federal Government has opened the third round of funding for the $160 million program and is encouraging eligible applicants to apply now.
The program will deliver 5000 scholarships over five years, with the first and second rounds having already resulted in almost 2000 students receiving the financial help.
Thirty per cent of those students are from regional, rural or remote areas.
The scholarships are targeted at high-achieving school leavers and mid-career professionals from diverse backgrounds.
This includes First Nations peoples, people with disability, people for whom English is an additional language or dialect, people from rural, regional and remote locations, and people from low socio-economic backgrounds.
Successful applicants will receive up to $40,000 for undergraduate studies or up to $20,000 for postgraduate studies in accredited initial teacher education degrees.
The scholarships include a “commitment to teach” requirement, which means recipients must be willing to commit to teach for four years (undergraduate) and two years (postgraduate) in government-run schools or early learning settings.
Education Minister Jason Clare said the scholarship program, which is part of the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan, is aimed at helping to tackle Australia’s teacher workforce shortage.
“Being a teacher is the most important job in the world, and we don’t have enough of them,” Mr Clare said.
“I want more young people to leap out of high school and want to become a teacher.
“And I want more people in the middle of their careers to consider becoming teachers.
“That’s what these scholarships are all about.
“This is one part of our plan to tackle the teacher workforce shortage and builds on our reforms to teacher training and the Commonwealth Prac Payment for teaching students.”
In December 2022, Education Ministers from the Commonwealth, states and territories agreed on the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan.
The plan builds on a range of initiatives already underway in jurisdictions, sectors and individual schools.
Ministers agreed that it is the first step of an ongoing strategy to attract more people to the profession and retain more teachers in the workforce.
The action plan has five priority areas: improving teacher supply, strengthening initial teacher education, retaining the teachers we have, elevating the profession, and better understanding future teacher workforce needs.
To satisfy these priorities, the plan’s strategy is not only to increase the number of people choosing teaching as a career, but also to ensure that initial teacher education supports teacher supply and delivers classroom-ready graduates.
To improve retention, the action plan aims to increase support for teachers, enhance career pathways, reduce unnecessary workload, and free up teachers to focus on core teaching tasks and more collaboration.
All jurisdictions are working to elevate the profession by more publicly recognising the value teachers bring to students, communities, and the economy. A better understanding of the future teacher workforce needs is to be achieved by improving the information available for teacher workforce planning.
An update to the action plan was published last month (October 2025) and outlines the progress made over the past two years.
It also highlights the collaborative efforts across governments, education agencies, and the non-government sector to strengthen and sustain the teaching profession.
Applications for the latest round of scholarships are now open and will close on 12 January 2026.
Visit the Commonwealth Teaching Scholarships Program for more information.
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Region Canberra.
