NSW Education department hiring bureaucrats three times faster than teachers
As NSW classrooms suffer through a teacher shortage, high-paid bureaucrats are being added to the ranks of NSW’s Department of Education at thrice the pace new teachers are being recruited.
Education
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The Education department has been hiring new bureaucrats three times faster than it has been recruiting teachers, with 49 additional executives employed in 2021 compared to three years earlier.
An analysis of staffing numbers can reveal that the number of “executive directors” employed by the department has also increased from 34 to 58 since 2019. The midpoint salary for an executive director is more than $324,000 per year.
An extra Deputy Secretary was employed last year – a position with a midpoint salary of $435,000 annually.
Labor estimates the bloated number of bureaucrats has cost taxpayers $14 million a year – enough to hire 162 graduate teachers.
Between 2019 and 2021, the number of executives employed in the department bureaucracy grew by 16 per cent from 305 to 354.
But the number of teachers in schools grew just five per cent – from 66,801 to 70,279 in 2021.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said more than 6,500 teachers have been recruited this year, but the government still struggling to fill teacher shortages, with more than 2,400 full time equivalent positions vacant across NSW schools at the start of term four.
It comes after Education Minister Sarah Mitchell was forced to defend a program to hire teachers from interstate and overseas that has – as of last month – only delivered three teachers into classrooms.
That’s despite promises that the Recruitment Beyond NSW program would recruit 460 teachers in 2022-23.
“This is just proof that after 12 years in power the Perrottet Government has run out of ideas on how to fix the teacher shortages,” Labor Leader Chris Minns said.
“The Perrottet Government has been great at recruiting department staff, and abysmal at getting teachers into classrooms.”
Eight of the new senior bureaucrats, including the new Deputy Secretary, have been hired in the Early Childhood sector.
“There are new initiatives I’ve asked the Department to deliver, including an extra year of pre-kindergarten for all kids across NSW,” Ms Mitchell said.
“The Department has recruited new senior executives to lead our once in a lifetime, $15.9 billion Early Years Commitment.”
As The Daily Telegraph previously revealed, an ambitious plan to bring 3,700 extra teachers into the public school system has delivered fewer than 30 teachers into classrooms so far.
Of the 27 teachers currently in classrooms under the Teacher Supply Strategy, 20 were graduates of a program to fast track teachers into principal roles, while seven were casual teachers working in a supplementation program.
Ms Mitchell’s office said 170 teachers are currently in train to be delivered under this program.
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