No.2-26, 15 September 2026 | Open PDF
Improving educational outcomes for vulnerable young people in regional and remote communities
We are the education profession, and we know that many members seek opportunities for their lifelong learning journey, including exploring post graduate opportunities. One such opportunity has arisen, with an ARC project working with young people in regional and remote communities who disengage from education inviting current or former teachers to work on it while completing a PhD.
We know this commitment to research and lifelong learning is not for everyone. But if you, or a colleague is interested, please contact me at qtu@qtu.asn.au by Week 1, Term 4, and our QTU Research Services section will connect you with the research team.
Some of our Darling Downs schools are already partnering with this project. Other partners include Rural Medical Education Australia and Western Downs Regional Council.
For clarity, the QTU is neither a funding partner nor listed as a supporter of this ARC project. But some of the project investigators are friends of the QTU, and we will be following the project over the coming years. We appreciate being able to promote this opportunity to our members.
The Queensland Teachers’ Union of Employees (QTU) has a proud history of partnering with education researchers where such research establishes demonstrable links to the QTU’s values and priorities. Our interests include improving salaries and conditions, addressing the teacher shortage crisis, promoting and protecting public education, and advocating for schools to be adequately funded, staffed, and equipped to meet the needs of students and educators.
Recent examples of research partnerships include the QTU’s support for the Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project Time Use, Time Poverty and Teachers’ Work. The QTU has also supported new research on career change teachers, as a stakeholder partner in an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project. I have just submitted the foreword to the project’s final report that will launch in October. Like the Time Poverty project, the voice of QTU members in the Career Change Teacher Project is loud and clear. Leah Olsson, Gill Crotty, and Craig Wood are also leading work, in partnership with Southern Cross University and our Women Teachers and Girls Education Committee, on school-related gender based violence. The Expect Respect Vol 2 report was launched at Council in 2025, and the subsequent report is imminent.
I am proud of our QTU members who have actively supported these projects. Your contributions are appropriately de-identified and ethically represented, but your contributions open the school gate and show lived experience in classrooms and admin offices. You enrich and ground the research.
Cresta Richardson
President