Quarter of SA teachers are teaching subjects they are not trained for

“Can’t do this for much longer … I love teaching the kids but the workload is unbelievable.” Read what SA teachers really think about the system educating your children.

One in four South Australian teachers are teaching subjects for which they have no training or experience, a study has revealed.

The UniSA survey of 1600 teachers found more than half of teachers delivering unfamiliar subjects were not receiving additional time, mentoring or professional development to learn them.

Researchers have detailed how the practice – known as “out-of-field teaching” – is widespread in regional SA and low socio-economic areas within metropolitan Adelaide.

In a report released this week, they said the teaching of unfamiliar subjects was adding to high workloads experienced across the public education system.

Lead researcher Joel Windle said teachers increasingly were being asked to teach subjects not within their expertise because of a growing national teacher shortage.

“It is often because they are filling in at schools which have been unable to find new staff,” he said.

“The biggest issue is that they are not being given support to be able to move their fields of expertise.

“It often comes down to each school as to what support is given.”

Mr Windle said teaching new subjects created more work for teachers because they had to do more preparation for lessons, often in their own time.

“This is mostly happening in schools which are already under pressure and are having the greatest difficulty attracting staff,” he said.

Mr Windle said “out-of-field” teaching was particularly difficult for young teaching graduates, who were “still finding their feet”.

The UniSA study, commissioned by the Australian Education Union, also found pre-packaged commercial curriculum materials increasingly were used in a bid to reduce the burden of teachers.

The report said these resources varied in quality – and did not help teachers unfamiliar with their subjects.

“Both commercial and departmental materials are sometimes viewed as poor quality and imposed without consideration for local needs or unsuitable,” it said.

Teachers told researchers they were not able to influence changes to teaching methods because they were not involved enough in decision-making within schools.

AEU state president Andrew Gohl said the UniSA report would be used for enterprise bargaining negotiations with the state government.

“We’ve done the work, we’ve listened to educators and commissioned this research,” he said.

“Now it’s time for change and that starts with a new enterprise agreement.”

Education Minister Blair Boyer said he acknowledged the “significant” workload issues teachers continued to face following the pandemic.

“I look forward to discussing this research further with the AEU and working collaboratively to address these issues,” he said.