School-age boom combines with retirement-bound teachers to create employment demand
EVERYONE wants to know what the jobs of the future will be. Here is one that research shows will be in great demand and where the positions will be.
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AN influx of children reaching primary school age and secondary educators reaching retirement is setting the country up for a shortage of quality teachers.
About 1761 extra primary school classes will need to be created each year until 2020 to keep up with booming school-age populations, Australian Council for Educational Research report The Teacher Workforce in Australia finds.
Victoria and Queensland are predicted to have the most demand, with a need for 449 and 443 more primary classes each year, respectively.
New South Wales can expect an extra 385 classes, Western Australia an extra 351, South Australia an extra 72, Australian Capital Territory an extra 41, Northern Territory an extra 14 and Tasmania an extra five.
The figures are predicted to have a flow-on effect for secondary schools from 2018.
“There is a structural shortage and it’s going to get worse,” Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Professor Greg Craven says.
“When you get oversupplies of primary teachers, they tend to be highly localised. There might be too many primary school teachers in Brisbane but not in regional areas.
“I would be worried if people thought ‘I won’t be a teacher because there are too many’ — that’s simply not true.”
Almost a million people already work in education and training across Australia, which is dominated by the schools sector.
In the five years to November, 2019, the Department of Employment predicts an increase of 142,700 roles (up 15.6 per cent).
Scotch College Adelaide advancement director Abhra Bhattacharjee, however, says the profession has “lost its shine” among young people.
“We don’t see teaching being a prominent career choice anymore; it’s becoming an afterthought,” he says.
“There is a lot of choice of careers that people can pursue … there is also a real concern people have about the amount of energy and hours teachers work.”
Bhattacharjee says the expectations of teachers have increased in the past two decades to include parent management, IT skills and child protection.
Across Australia, in both primary and secondary education, the strongest demand for teachers is in government schools, Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander schools and schools in rural, remote or low socio-economic status areas.
Craven says there is “huge demand” for secondary teachers in science, technology, mathematics, and languages other than English.
An extra 14,500 primary teachers and 6600 secondary teachers are expected to be hired by the end of 2019, with job vacancies exacerbated by an ageing workforce.
More than a third (36 per cent) of secondary teachers are aged 50 or older, ACER report Staff in Australia’s Schools reveals.
Craven says young people should not be discouraged from the profession because they are worried about prestige.
PayScale data shows primary and secondary teachers earn an average $55,290 and $60,363 a year, respectively.
“You are never going to become a billionaire by becoming a teacher but you may be happier about your place in the world than your average billionaire,” Craven says.
“People who value meaning and — when they come to die — want to be able to say ‘I did something good that mattered’, those are the people who are good teachers.”
For St Aloysius College Adelaide year two teacher Lauren Idema, it was her own school years that encouraged her to choose a career in teaching.
“I was very fortunate to have very inspiring and passionate teachers when I attended St Aloysius College as a student,” she says.
“I wanted to give other students the positive learning experiences I had.
“I knew I wanted to be someone who could help young people feel like they have purpose ... to be confident in their own skin, striving to be the best they can in their own unique way.”
Idema enjoys the fact that no two days are the same in her profession.
“You can never be fully prepared, but that makes it exciting,” she says.
“It is a truly amazing feeling when a student does something they never thought they could do. That sense of pride they have is something so rewarding.”
St Aloysius College is currently seeking a new mathematics teacher.
More employment news in the CareerOne section of Saturday’s News Corp Australia metropolitan newspapers
Originally published as School-age boom combines with retirement-bound teachers to create employment demand
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