Precariously employed early career teachers in Australia: A critical policy historiography of the Australian Guidelines for Induction

Internationally, education systems are facing significant challenges in teacher supply and retention.  In this context, retaining early career teachers has become more important. Research shows that an effective induction supports early career teachers to transition to the profession. However, precariously employed teachers are less likely to receive access to this induction. This study uses a critical policy historiography approach to compare the positioning of early career teachers in two key induction policy documents: ‘Graduate to Proficient Australian Guidelines for Teacher Induction into the Profession (AITSL, 2016) and the new ‘Guidelines for the Induction of Early Career Teachers in Australia’ (AITSL, 2023) to determine how this positioning has changed over time, with a focus on the precariously employed who are continually positioned as problematic in policy. This study uses the idea of ‘public issues’ and ‘private troubles’ as a framework to gain an understanding of the root causes of social problems. Early career teachers feel that their induction experiences have been deficient since the inception of the 2016 Guidelines, and therefore it is important to find out what these ‘public issues’ and ‘private troubles’ were in this time to inform future policy. Policy historiography is important because it allows the researcher to track the processes of educational change and expose relationships between the past and the present, while examining the roots and development of policy. In this way, it is possible to find out what the policy reveals about power and who is advantaged and disadvantaged by the policy. This study has implications for policy and practice to support precariously employed early career teachers as they enter the profession.