ABSTRACT
Teach for Australia (TfA) has emerged at a time where there is a global trend toward such initiatives, in a nation that has a long history of providing free and compulsory education for its future citizens. In the light of a vast body of sociological literature on educational inequality and disadvantage and increasing literature either advocating or criticizing teaching pathways of this type, this chapter reports on a qualitative study of the Teach for Australia program. It shows how and why the Australian Federal Government came to endorse and support TfA. The chapter provides a brief historical overview of the Commonwealth Government of Australia's changing levels of involvement in school education up to and including Teach for Australia's entry into the Australian education arena in 2009. It draws upon was a qualitative study that collected data from ten participants from the second cohort of Teach for Australia.
