New teachers in rural and regional schools will also receive help to get to know the local community and build professional networks. “Starting a new career can be a daunting prospect but this program will make sure new graduate teachers have all the support they need as they start an exciting new path,” Education Minister James Merlino said. The Australian Education Union has campaigned on the issue of mentoring as a way to ease the pressure on graduate teachers. Meredith Peace, the education union’s Victorian branch secretary, said the program was a step in the right direction. “For a long time we’ve been telling governments that we need to support new teachers as they step out of university and into our classrooms,” Ms Peace said.

“Our members regularly tell us that the first couple of years are the most challenging and that burnout is more prevalent amongst young teachers than ever before.” Ms Peace said the initiative would reduce the "growing trend of teachers leaving the profession after only a couple of years". Primary school teacher Katerina Duckstein dreamt of being a teacher throughout high school but says that after two years in the job she was almost ready to give it away. Primary school teacher Katerina Duckstein would have liked a mentor in her first two years in the job. Credit:Justin McManus She spent four years studying at university but realised when she started working that she still had a lot to learn.

“It’s kind of like just being thrown out of a bus ... it's not a gradual build-up,” Ms Duckstein says of the switch from studying to entering the teaching profession. “I was really excited to get out there and have my own grade, but after a couple of years I was really burnt out,” the 27-year-old says. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video It wasn’t just the extracurricular demands that regularly chewed up her evenings, such as lesson plans, marking and data entry. It was the lack of someone to turn to when she felt overwhelmed.

Not because her more senior colleagues were uncaring, Ms Duckstein says, but because they were just as flat-out as she was. By her third year as a primary school teacher, Ms Duckstein says, she was almost ready to pack it in, but she switched instead from full-time teaching to a casual relief teaching job. Loading This has let her concentrate more on her favourite aspect of teaching: face-to-face time with children. But she still thinks it’s a choice she might not have had to make if she had been mentored during the first two years of her career.

“In your first year you get a mentor or should get a mentor, but then in your second year, you’re just left to your own devices,” she says. “For me personally, I would’ve liked it up until my third year.” Graduate teacher conferences will also be extended to include second-year teachers as part of the initiative. The one-day conferences are currently only open to first-year teachers.