Education Department plan to import teachers from English-speaking nations hits major hurdle

A plan to import teachers from countries like the UK and NZ has failed while dozens of teachers from Ghana and Zimbabwe are set to get jobs in NSW classrooms instead.

A program designed to headhunt teachers from ­ English-speaking countries overseas and recruit them for NSW classrooms has so far failed, with the majority of short-listed applicants coming from Zimbabwe and Fiji.

The Department of Education’s chief people officer, Yvette Cachia, said in November that a “Recruitment Beyond NSW” program would predominantly target teachers in New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

The program is a stopgap measure to plug the statewide teacher shortage, which is particularly acute in high schools where 22.6 per cent of maths classes in grades 7-10 are taught by a teacher unqualified in the subject.

New data reveals 139 applicants have been short-listed for the program since November. Of those, zero come from Canada, just three come from the UK and only one applicant comes from New Zealand.

By comparison, 28 teachers short-listed for jobs come from Zimbabwe, 44 come from Fiji and six come from Ghana.

A drive for overseas teachers has failed to generate applicants from English-speaking countries.

Education Department chief Georgina Harrison said in November that, when looking at applicants, “factors we will be taking into account are similarity and context, and proficiency in the kind of teaching and expectations we would have here in NSW”.

Opposition education spokeswoman Prue Car told The Daily Telegraph the overseas recruitment drive was not going to lift academic results.

Opposition education spokeswoman Prue Car. Picture: Gaye Gerard

“The NSW Liberal government ignored teacher shortages for too long, and now their solution is putting overseas teachers with no Australian experience into our schools,” she said. “The Perrottet government are short-listing teachers from countries like Zimbabwe and Ghana, where education systems are completely different to Australia’s. It’s a Band-Aid solution that won’t improve results.

“Recruiting more local teachers must be prioritised, which would provide more long-term certainty and ensure student teachers have Australian classroom experience.”

According to other statistics provided to NSW parliament, 2424 foreigners have been granted “conditional ­approval” to teach in NSW schools since 2019.

Of those, 674 teachers hailed from the UK, more than 200 came from Ireland, the US and New ­Zealand while 189 were from India.

Teachers from China, ­Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, ­Jamaica and Tunisia were also given the tick to work in local schools over the past three years.