Queensland Teachers’ Union warns university fee hikes will discourage future teachers

Queensland’s powerful teachers union has slammed the Federal Government’s proposed increase to university fees, saying it will stop people becoming teachers during an already acute shortage.

THE powerful Queensland Teachers’ Union has slammed the federal government’s proposed hike to university fees saying it will only discourage people from pursuing teaching, amid an already acute workforce shortage.

It follows the federal government’s announcement to revamp funding to the tertiary sector, focusing on encouraging students to pursue degrees in areas of high job growth, whereby teaching students would pay 46 per cent less while humanities students would pay 113 per cent more for their studies.

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QTU President Kevin Bates said that the issue with the new scheme was that it would actually increase the cost of teaching degrees because many of them were studied with the humanities.

“There are many teachers like myself whose background is in the humanities … and as a consequence the qualification becomes more expensive,” he said.

QTU President, Kevin Bates said the proposed tertiary fee hike would discourage people from pursuing the teaching profession. Picture: Supplied

“This is another disincentive – government imposed – that will make it harder for schools to recruit the teachers they need if we’re getting fewer teachers coming into education.”

Mr Bates said recent modelling suggested there would need to be significant growth by 2030, with an additional 7,000 to 9,000 teachers by 2030, not including replacing retiring teachers.

There were already large numbers of schools that struggle to find the teachers they need, with hundreds of unfilled full-time equivalent positions, Mr Bates said.

“It’s acute based on geography, there are parts of the state where it’s a bigger issue than for others,” he said.

“There are schools in the south east corner that are experiencing the same problems country and regional schools have been dealing with for several years.”

“Unlike law and science degrees which potentially lead to high-paying jobs, teaching pays well but it doesn’t pay that well, so when people are doing the numbers as they do when they’re making decisions about a career they have to acknowledge that.”

However, federal Education Minister Dan Tehan held firm that degrees in teaching, nursing, clinical psychology, English and languages would cost 46 per cent less, while agriculture and maths students would pay 62 per cent less, and science, health, environmental science, architecture, IT and engineering pupils would pay 20 per cent less.

“We are encouraging students to tailor their studies to learn the skills that will be in demand in areas of future jobs growth,” he said.

“That means breaking down the traditional degree ‘silos’ by choosing units of study across disciplines.

“When the student contribution for maths and sciences was reduced in 2009 the number of students applying to study science grew from 13,795 to 26,272 in 2012.”

Originally published as Queensland Teachers’ Union warns university fee hikes will discourage future teachers