Portfolio — 27 August 2026

The Minister for Education announced a package of measures to strengthen initial teacher education, centred on the new Strong Beginnings (Excellence) Fund and mandatory curriculum reforms for university teacher-training programmes [TA-260827-educat-c4c5df1d4e7e]. The announcement builds on yesterday's rollout of 1,000 Commonwealth Teaching Scholarships, continuing the portfolio's sustained focus on teacher workforce supply and quality [TA-260827-educat-c4c5df1d4e7e].

**Strong Beginnings (Excellence) Fund**

The government established the Excellence Fund following a recommendation from the Teacher Education Expert Panel, committing more than $7 million over four years and $1 million annually to support higher-education providers in sharing successful teacher-training approaches [TA-260827-educat-c4c5df1d4e7e]. The first round delivered grants totalling about $1.5 million to six providers for projects spanning classroom-behaviour management, professional-experience assessment tools, prior-learning assessment resources, parent-teacher conference practices, First Nations student retention, and mentor feedback improvement [TA-260827-educat-c4c5df1d4e7e].

**Curriculum reforms and oversight**

From this year, providers must embed new core content into teacher-training courses, covering the neuroscience of learning, literacy, numeracy and classroom-behaviour management [TA-260827-educat-c4c5df1d4e7e]. The government also created the Initial Teacher Education Quality Assurance Oversight Board to raise national consistency and quality across programmes [TA-260827-educat-c4c5df1d4e7e].

**Workforce pipeline signals**

Domestic applications to undergraduate teaching programmes rose 6.5 percent in 2026, with university offers up 6.3 percent, extending a pattern of double-digit growth in prior years [TA-260827-educat-c4c5df1d4e7e]. The Minister framed today's measures as part of a broader joint effort with state and territory governments, pointing to teacher pay rises, Commonwealth Teacher Scholarships of up to $40,000 and the Paid Prac scheme [TA-260827-educat-c4c5df1d4e7e].

"We're strengthening the training teachers receive at university and we've rolled out Paid Prac," the Minister said [TA-260827-educat-c4c5df1d4e7e].

The portfolio's approach ties targeted funding, mandatory curriculum content and a new oversight board into a single push to lift the quality and consistency of teacher preparation, connecting upstream training reform to downstream workforce incentives already in train [TA-260827-educat-c4c5df1d4e7e].