Schools without vacancies accused of stopping work over staff shortages

The state government has hit back over the NSW Teachers’ Federation’s plans to go on strike next month, saying it is guilty of “misinformation.”

Schools without a teacher vacancy have been downing tools over so-called classroom shortages.

The state’s top education union has co-ordinated dozens of stop work meetings to protest a claimed teacher shortage in schools that did not have a single vacancy when teachers went on strike.

In an extraordinary escalation of the war between the state government and the union, Education Minister Sarah Mitchell yesterday blasted the NSW Teachers Federation for running a “misinformation” campaign about staff shortages alongside claims of low salaries which she said was divorced from reality.

Public school teachers and principals voted over the weekend to strike on December 7 over what it says is the Government’s failure to address unsustainable workloads.

But union president Angelo Gavrielatos quickly hit back, citing internal Department briefing documents explicitly saying NSW faced “a large and growing shortage” of teachers in specialisations like maths and science and in rural and regional areas.

But Ms Mitchell said striking was not the answer after students across the state had been deprived of enough time in the classroom thanks to Covid lockdowns.

“We have 90,000 dedicated, incredible teachers in NSW being poorly represented by a union unwilling to negotiate – they are more interested in spending member’s fees on ill-informed misinformation campaigns than improving educational outcomes for students,” Ms Mitchell said.

“The union is hell bent on causing yet more disruption for students and parents in one of the most disruptive school years in history.”

Teacher strike to go ahead

Of 101 public schools where teachers held stop-work meetings so far this year:
43pc of industrial action sites had zero vacancies.
64pc industrial action sites had one or zero vacancies at the time of action.
77pc of industrial action sites had two or less vacancies.
92pc had under 5 vacancies.

“One of the Federation’s main claims is around workload. Yet they haven’t once come to the table with a solution or suggestions to address the issue.”

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that of 101 school strikes co-ordinated by the union across the state’s public schools since March this year, 43 schools did not have any vacancies at the time the strike was held according to official Department of Education vacancy data.

And two thirds of them only had either none or just one vacancy at the school.

Across the board there are 3,038 vacant roles in NSW public schools equating to a vacancy rate of four per cent while for much of 2021 that figure was about two per cent — considered normal for a large workforce like the NSW Education Department.

Teachers Federation chief Angelo Gavrielatos said the government’s position was beyond “denial and we are now seeing lies being perpetrated with respect to the teacher shortage.” NSW teachers are among the best paid graduate jobs in the state. Leadership roles are paid between $124,000 to $144,000.