Lack of relief teachers is a huge problem facing SA’s country schools

Country schools are struggling to cope with the lack of relief teachers — and often can’t secure replacement teachers even when they give the Education Department half a term’s notice.

Country schools can’t secure relief teachers even when they give the Education Department half a term’s notice for known absences, and have to combine classes to ensure students are supervised.

Regional and remote principals surveyed on the Education Department’s permanent relief teacher (PRT) service have raised concerns over a “chronic shortage”, as more than half can’t access teachers when they need them.

SA Area Schools Leaders Association president Ray Marino, principal of Cleve Area School, told the Sunday Mail more relievers were needed “especially in the more rural and isolated areas”, as “a lot of people don’t like moving north of Gepps Cross or south of Darlington”.

PRTs are permanently employed staff who are each used as fill-ins across a number of schools. Schools are supposed to use them before trying to access casual temporary relievers but in many cases can’t get anyone, even when notifying weeks in advance about gaps when regular staff need to travel for training courses.

Lack of availability was the key issue raised by the more than 60 principals who responded to the department survey, released under Freedom of Information laws, as well as the poor quality of some PRTs.

They wrote that a “chronic shortage” meant relievers were “never available”.

“Can be very difficult to secure a PRT, even with five weeks’ notice,” one wrote, while another said: “At times we are just required to push classes together.”

Another principal complained: “As a rural city location we have 12 schools, yet only four PRTs. We requested a PRT for a planned absence. This was the 17th request for a PRT that day. We need many more PRT/TRTs.”

Others complained of many PRTs being part-time and therefore unavailable for full week vacancies, relievers being based too far from their school, and inconsistency in their distribution across country areas.

Mr Marino said Cleve sometimes had to combine classes and tried to do it with smaller senior school ones, but “even in (country) primary schools we have to divvy up the students” between available teachers.

“Especially during winter we do have high demand because people in the country also get sick just like people in the city,” he said, adding there was also a particular shortage of relievers in specialist areas such as maths, tech studies, IT and home economics.

The department could not say how many PRTs it employed.

“The survey was designed to gain a better understanding of how schools experience the service,” a spokesman said.

“There’s inherent unpredictability in demand and SA’s wide geographical spread presents a challenge. We are looking at how we can overcome those issues and make it easier for schools to get the staff they need.”