Sydney based mathematics teacher Eddie Woo has been named Australia's local hero for 2018 at the Australian of the Year Awards for his work helping children in Australia and around the world with maths through his YouTube channel "WooTube".

Australia’s top teachers should earn $80,000 a year more, and top students should get $10,000-a-year scholarships if they take up teaching, a new report has recommended.

The Grattan Institute has proposed a $1.6 billion reform package to double the number of high achievers who become teachers, and increase the average ATAR of teaching graduates to 85, within the next decade.

Attracting Australia’s best students could pay dividends, with the report suggesting a typical student could gain an extra six to 12 months of learning by Year 9 with a higher-achieving teacher workforce.

“Australia needs more high achievers in teaching, because great teachers are the key to better student performance,” Grattan Institute school education program director Peter Goss said.

“The low status of teaching in Australia has become self-reinforcing, putting off high achievers who might otherwise want to teach. By contrast, high-performing countries such as Singapore and Finland get many high-achieving students to apply, and then select the most promising candidates.”

The report recommends three changes.

1. $10,000 cash-in-hand scholarships for high achievers to study teaching. Scholarship holders should be required to work in government schools for at least several years.

2. The creation of two new roles in schools: an Instructional Specialist and Master Teacher. These teachers would be paid more and have responsibility for improving teaching at their schools and in their regions. Grattan suggests Instructional Specialists make up about 5 to 8 per cent of teachers and that they be paid about $140,000 a year — $40,000 more than the highest standard pay rate. Master Teachers would make up about 0.5 per cent of teachers and they would be paid about $180,000 a year — $80,000 more than the highest standard pay.

3. A $20 million-a-year advertising campaign, similar to the Australian Defence Force recruitment campaigns, to promote the changes and re-position teaching as an attractive, challenging, and well-paid career option.

The report shows bright young Aussies are turning their backs on teaching, with demand among high achievers falling by a third in the past decade — more than for any other undergraduate field of study.

Only 3 per cent of high achievers now choose teaching for their undergraduate studies, compared to 19 per cent for science, 14 per cent for health, and 9 per cent for engineering.

But a Grattan survey of nearly 1000 young people aged 18 to 25 with an ATAR of 80 or higher, found they would take up teaching if it offered higher top-end pay and greater career challenge.

The report recommends all three schools sectors in Australia — government, private, and Catholic — implement the reform package.

It believes state and territory governments, some of which have failed to adequately fund schools, should pay for the reforms in government schools.

Private and Catholic schools should pay for the reforms themselves, without extra taxpayer money.

“Our reform package would transform Australia’s teaching workforce,’ said Dr Goss. “In the long term it would pay for itself many times over, because a better-educated population would mean a more productive and prosperous Australia.”

Would a $10,000 scholarship encourage you to be a teacher? Do you support higher pay for teachers? Comment below.