Free teaching degrees for students who take up rural and remote posts
THE state’s best and brightest students will be given free university degrees plus $7500 a year to help them study in exchange for spending three years teaching in the bush.
NSW
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THE state’s best and brightest students will be given free university degrees plus $7500 a year to help them study in exchange for spending three years teaching in the bush.
Sixty free degrees will be offered from next year as part of a radical push to get better teachers in the bush as the government fights to maintain a political grip on crucial rural electorates.
Under the scheme, the best 60 students will get their HECS debts paid off if they accept a posting at one of 150 schools in rural and remote areas.
The schools span across 10 rural and mostly battleground electorates.
As part of the $140 million sweetener, the students will also get a stipend of $7500 a year while they are at university and an additional $6000 sign-on bonus to help with their relocation when they take up a posting in the bush.
The scheme also targets older more experienced teachers as well, offering them up to $30,000 extra a year on salary, $10,000 when they sign on and a $5000 a year retention benefit.
Bush schools have traditionally struggled to recruit the best and brightest.
Finley High School in the Riverina region approached 12 students for a graduate art teacher position with all declining, and had a head maths teacher vacancy for a full year.
$50M SHAKE-UP AIMED AT SPENDING MORE ON EDUCATION
Principal Helen McRae told The Daily Telegraph students in her area did not score as well as city students in NAPLAN or HSC and that she’d had “incredible difficulty” getting good teachers out there.
“We would benefit from having the newest and brightest — I hope the scheme works because It would bring stability, innovation and the best ideas to teaching.
“We should always strive to have the smartest minds teaching our students.”
A number of incentives have been offered before, but never anything this generous.
Education Minister Rob Stokes told The Daily Telegraph getting the best teachers out into regional areas was a “fundamental issue of justice”.
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“It’s a right for every child to have equal access to quality local schools,” Mr Stokes said.
He said the regional areas faced an ageing workforce, which needed to be supplemented with the best and brightest new recruits.
“It’s crucial to have the right mix,” Mr Stokes said.
“Country schools are the foundation that rural communities are built on.
“This means no matter the town, wherever there are children, it must remain our priority to ensure there are well staffed and well resourced public schools.”