Jayne Purnell is passionate about becoming a teacher. Her mum was an educator, and her early work as a swim teacher confirmed her heart belonged to the classroom. "And I found working with kids so rewarding, and I think it was just … a pathway that I wanted to go down," she said. Ms Purnell is still studying to be fully qualified, but she is one of about 100 students who — since 2023 — have been teaching in ACT classrooms. Under the Restricted Permit to Teach (RPTT) program, teachers are restricted to working three days a week, earning 60 per cent of the full-time salary of $80,184. Ms Purnell previously worked as a Learning Support Officer in the school she's now teaching at. So far, she has enjoyed stepping up. "And I think being able to go to uni and getting the support from uni, and also the teaching team at Ainslie [School], and just being able to jump-start my career in teaching." The Restricted Permit to Teach program The RPTT program allows Undergraduate and Masters students to lead classrooms solo during their final year of study with additional mentoring and support, and they can work across the ACT public and independent schools network. The idea isn't new — other regions of Australia put students in charge of classrooms before the ACT to help deal with widespread teacher shortages, from the pandemic onwards. But advocates of the ACT program say the territory is going about it differently. The University of Canberra is one of the institutions in the ACT region that trains the teachers of tomorrow. Professor Barney Dalgarno is the Executive Dean of Education at the University of Canberra, and admits that earlier versions of "student-teaching-class" programs threw many people in the deep end before they were ready. "What we were seeing in other jurisdictions is that students were telling us that they were coerced into working full time while studying full time, and we heard a number of cases of them actually dropping out of their degrees because of the pressure and stress of that experience," Professor Dalgarno said. While the program does help with the chronic teacher shortage across the country, Professor Dalgarno argues that done correctly, putting students in charge of a classroom doesn't just help the school children. "It definitely helps to address the teacher shortage that we're experiencing nationally, but we actually see it as a plus for the students' experience," he said. "By the time they get to their final year, they really want to be putting things into practice as frequently as possible." Program worth the 'juggle' Jacinta Klein is a second year Masters student who teaches German at an independent ACT school. She decided to switch out of a fledgling career in architecture to teaching several years ago. "While that was rewarding, there was something missing," she explained. As Ms Klein moved into the final phase of her degree, she was itching to get into the classroom. She said adding the RPPT program to her study had made life full, but an excellent mentor and supportive colleagues made a "huge difference". "It's a juggle, I'm not going to lie," she said. "I've got school three days a week, university one morning a week, and then I've got an afternoon where I can work on my university projects and prepare lessons and stuff. An enthusiastic supporter of the RPTT program is David Matthews, the Chief Operating Officer of the ACT Education Directorate. Mr Matthews said that no student teacher was compelled to do the RPTT course, and that it did not give an unfair advantage to those who did take part. He is keen to emphasise there are multiple paths to becoming a fully qualified teacher. "We are open to recruiting all graduates, whether they've undertaken a [R]PTT in their final year of studies or not. And we do a lot of work with universities," he said. The directorate does not have a formal requirement to notify schoolchildren, or their families, that a participant in the program will be teaching them. "They're not required to do that as such," Mr Matthews said. Review raised concerns about burn-out In early 2024 the ACT Teacher Quality Institute published an initial review of the first year of the RPTT program in the ACT. It found it had led to many positive results, but that students expressed concern about clashes with university assessment periods, which created "competing demands". There were also concerns raised about student burn-out occurring early in their career. Mr Matthews acknowledged this feedback, and said the directorate took seriously any reports of overwork or burnout. "It's not the feedback that I've received, but if we were to get that feedback, we would certainly take that on board," he said. Mr Matthews also conceded the early data is too thin to say definitively if the RPTT program provided a smoother start for teachers, or whether it was more effective at keeping them in the system long term. "It is too early to say because we know that that first three years of teaching already is a challenging period around teacher retention," he said. "But what I'd say generally is when we've looked at the data, we haven't seen any additional concerns around our [R]PTT cohort." Professor Dalgarno added that to fundamentally improve teacher recruitment and retention, the elephant in the classroom was money, and lots of it. "To really solve it, it needs money," he said. "If we were to reduce the face-to-face teaching time of every teacher in the country by, say, 10 per cent — just to give them more time to work with their colleagues, do their preparation, get their admin done — I think we would improve retention in the profession immediately. 'If you feel ready to do it, go for it' Back in the classroom, Ms Purnell said that while there's not much spare time in her week, the support she receives at Ainslie School makes the step up to teaching manageable. "It definitely is a challenge. But I think being able to go into uni and learn at uni, and then being able to put that learning straight into the classroom helps me a lot," she said. As for Ms Klein, she acknowledges that while the RPTT program isn't for everyone, it's been a good experience for her. "I think that there's some students in my university course who've decided, I'm just going to wait the extra six months and start teaching afterwards, for various different reasons. "I think if you feel ready to do it, go for it. It's a very good experience."