Going against the grain: NSW teaching students reveal pressure to ditch their ‘passion’

The proportion of NSW school leavers entering teaching degrees has fallen for a third year in a row. Meet the trainee teachers going against the grain.

The proportion of NSW school leavers entering teaching degrees at universities has fallen for a third consecutive year, driven instead to humanities, health and science by the profession’s poor reputation.

Less than five per cent of more than 72,000 people who applied for a university course through NSW’s Universities Admission Centre in 2024 picked the field of education as their first preference.

Just 4.74 per cent applied while 2,722 overall received offers, despite the state government’s promise of a $85,000 starting salary for graduates.

It’s a marked decline from the 6.12 per cent who chose the field in 2021, although UAC records dating back to 2017 show teaching has long been among the least popular pursuits.

At UNSW, where a new primary school teaching degree with honours launched this year, teaching students and their peers are all too aware of the heavy workloads driving their predecessors out of the profession, themselves facing opposition from family and friends discouraging them from enrolling.

Pictured at the University of NSW in Randwick in Sydney are education students Synyee Hong (1st year primary education), Zoe Patsiokostas (4th year fine arts and education) and Tao Kong (2nd year maths and education). Picture: Richard Dobson

“My parents really wanted me to become a doctor (or) become a lawyer, and they didn’t see me as a teacher because they didn’t think it was a good first option,” primary education student Clair Lu said.

“But I really enjoyed working with students and making a big impact.”

First-year primary education students Clair Lu (1st year primary education) Annika Freiheit (1st year primary education) and Krisha Patel (1st year primary education). Picture: Richard Dobson

In fact, teaching wasn’t even the first move for high school visual arts teacher-in-training Zoe Patsiokostas and maths teacher-to-be Tao Kong.

It took working as a retail manager and a pastry chef before the realisation education was “where my true passions are”, Zoe said.

“Coming out of high school, the impact that my teachers had on me was always something that I remembered and reflected on. Getting to be that for someone else was a big push.”

Tao was told teaching would be “a waste” of his high ATAR, but it took attempting a pure mathematics degree to change his mind.

“As (someone with) an Asian background, my parents wanted me to do engineering or actuarial (studies) with the maths passion that I had, but then I realised … that I would want to wake up every day and go to work if I was teaching,” he said.

Early exposure to the classroom environment – as well as a healthy dash of optimism – are helping the UNSW students, including primary education student Krisha Patel, stay the course.

“(Prac) was so good, if I did second-guess teaching, this just made me (sure) this is the job for me,” she said.

“Even though we only went for five weeks, I noticed so many different changes in the students that I was placed with. Watching them grow … was so rewarding.”

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