Over the course of the next ten years, the educational system is set to see significant upheaval. The majority of these departures will be due to retirement, which is a natural consequence of ageing, and the influx of new employees will be driven mostly by this demographic shift. As a response to the challenges posed by the information society, new professional standards are being developed, and as a result, there will be more stringent requirements and greater demands placed on educators. "The challenge is to avoid generational self-renewal," according to Mayer. "The challenge is to be unconstrained by old or re-worked notions of what it means to be an Australian teacher." Focusing on teachers in their first ten years of employment in public, Catholic, or independent schools, a study of the teaching workforce was commissioned by the MCEETYA Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership Taskforce (TQELT) in March 2003 in order to prepare for these changes and to help address the challenge.