Teaching crisis: Fed Uni survey looks to learn why teachers leave, where they go

But little is known about what actually triggers their decision to leave, where they go after leaving, what they do, and whether they might consider a return to the classroom in the future.

All of this has major implications for schools, government and the community.

Federation University Associate Professor Robyn Brandenberg is leading a national study I left the teaching profession ... and this is what I'm doing now to better understand the staffing crisis across Australian schools.

"Once we understand more about why they left and where they are, that sort of information is critical to feed back in to the current debate about the teaching crisis," Associate Professor Brandenberg said.

"This is an important project because there is already extensive research on teachers who intend to leave the profession. We know the reasons teachers say they want to leave include work intensification, salary, increasing levels of administration and a general lack of respect for the profession - there's a lot of research that has been done in this area," Associate Professor Brandenburg said.

"But we really need to hear from the people who have already left and find out why they left, what they are doing now, and whether they intend to return to teaching in the future."

She hopes the research will give former teachers a voice and the opportunity to share their stories.

"This research is going to be critical for government, for stakeholders and particularly for school principals, leadership in schools and teacher education programs," she said.

"This will inform us and perhaps we might need to look at re-evaluating some programs. There are nuances and context-specific reasons why people leave but what we are looking for is to find whether they are any general trends we can identify clearly that impact firstly on their decision to leave and where are they going."

The loss of so many teachers, and survey results that show half of graduate teachers leave the profession within five years, has massive implications for schools and the entire education system.

"If we are spending four years working with our pre-service teachers, and two years in other cases for career change teachers, we are spending and investing so much in them so if they are graduating and it's not what they anticipate there's also a financial impact," she said.

Many schools, particularly those in regional and rural areas, struggle to attract even a single application for job vacancies while other schools are forced to drop some subjects.

Ballarat's Catholic education leaders recently travelled to Ireland on a recruitment drive to entice Irish teachers to move to western Victoria.

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Associate Professor Brandenberg urged former teachers to take part in the survey to help those currently in or soon to enter the profession.

Researchers hope the findings from a national study will provide a clearer picture of why people have left their teaching careers and what they have moved to in the next phase of their working lives.

"We want to encourage as many as possible to participate and we'd love it to be a large national project so we can identify reliable trends. It's not just our profession, we need to connect to business, government, and the public service for example because many teachers have left and we'd love to know what they're doing," she said.

"They could have retired, they may have started a new business, they may be travelling around the world - we don't know what they are doing, but once we do know more, that knowledge will impact policy and practice."

I left the teaching profession ... and this is what I am doing now": A National Study survey can be completed here.

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