Keen to unpack how the different school sectors present images of the ‘good’ or ‘quality’ teacher in an increasingly market-driven system, Dr Meghan Stacey from UNSW Sydney and The University of Sydney's Dr Nicole Mockler analysed close to 900 teacher job ads posted in 2019.

Stacey says independent schools in particular, emphasised the personal attributes of the candidates they sought – a framing which feeds into the problematic narrative that one is simply ‘born to be a teacher’.

“We saw this really superlative language (being used), you know, ‘looking for someone who's motivated, who has passion, who's dynamic’ – words that we really didn't see so much in the public and Catholic sector advertisements,” she tells EducationHQ.

And while this focus might be understandable from an employer’s perspective, Stacey says depicting teaching as a career that depends on one’s natural abilities and personality ultimately does the profession a great disservice.

“I do think that there's a tricky history when it comes to teachers, where perhaps as a profession, we've had to maybe combat a little bit, these perceptions that people can kind of be ‘born to be a teacher’, rather than it being something that's really highly skilled and involves a lot of complex expertise.

“And because of that, it actually can be learned, and it's a distinct skill-set and set of knowledge that people study for a long time.

“So [this narrative] kind of denigrates and sidelines all of that hard work and learning that all teachers have done and continue to do...” the former teacher says.

 A ‘rather unique’ feature of Catholic school advertisements was a required commitment to the Catholic faith, the study found. Again, these ads foregrounded personal attributes ahead of candidates' professional expertise.

Stacey would like to see “a bit more emphasis on practice” within teaching ads on the whole.  

A fabricated hierarchy

Crucially, the study detected an obvious hierarchy was being constructed via the advertisements.

While public school posts reflected a need for those who could support and build 'basic capitals' like literacy and numeracy, and cater to diverse student groups – including those experiencing disadvantage – ads from independent schools described ‘beautiful’ sites and targetted ‘excellent’, ‘enthusiastic’, and ‘dynamic’ teachers.

“[Some] referred to the backdrop of the harbour maybe, I think one talks about a shuttle bus to take teachers to the school. So, (they noted) advantages for location, which wasn't really present in the other sectors,” Stacey says.

Public school ads, meanwhile, tended to hone in on the specific community being served.

“That just reflected [the] really wide range of students that these schools do cater to,” Stacey says.

“We also saw words around ‘gifted’, which came through as well…

“We talk a lot about public schools being residualised. But … they are highly varied and they really do cater to the full gamut of students that are enrolled in schools in New South Wales.”

Prominent school leader Rebecca West has previously spoken out about the invisible ‘fault lines’ within the teaching profession – unspoken ravines of distrust and animosity that she says divide the three sectors.

West has blamed biased media reporting and negative commentary for further wedging ‘underlying cracks’ through the teaching workforce.

Stacey says the job ads under scrutiny established a “definite perception of hierarchy” between the sectors.

Yet she is quick to clarify that the study is not suggesting that there are differences in the quality of teachers employed in public, independent and Catholic schools.

“We don't believe that, that's not what the data we've gathered shows at all.

“Rather, what it shows us is just how that figure of the teacher is being represented.

“So, while we don't think that there is a hierarchy of teachers out there, across these sectors there is certainly perception of and representation of that hierarchy.

“It does worry me to think about the division that might be created in the profession as a whole," Stacey says. 

And while a pecking order might not be caused by different approaches to teacher recruitment specifically, Stacey suggests the findings do speak to our marketised school system that “features so much inequity”.

Meanwhile, unions and school principals have warned they are losing public teachers to private schools who can offer salaries with pay packets in the tens of thousands more.

Earlier this year, the Australian Education Union said it continued to hear that principals of private schools were ‘poaching’ teachers from the public school system amid the current staffing shortage crisis.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, NSW teachers are now being offered almost $30,000 bonuses in an effort to attract educators to hard-to-staff schools.