Full list: The outer suburban, regional state schools struggling to get teachers in Victoria
Victorian state high schools are struggling to get staff as teachers shun regional campuses in favor of the city. Check to see if your school is on the list.
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In-demand Victorian state high schools are struggling to get staff, with teachers shunning outer suburban and regional campuses for city positions, new data shows.
There are more than 1100 state educator jobs on offer, with some outer suburban schools advertising more than 20 vacancies. These include some positions advertised repeatedly without any takers.
Elevation Secondary College, which is more than 45 minutes drive from the centre of Melbourne, tops the list with 26 jobs advertised.
The fast-growing school in Craigieburn is seeking teachers in all major subjects including maths, English, media, chemistry, physics and PE.
Second on the list is Yarrabing Secondary College, a new school in Aintree opening in 2026, which is still looking for many permanent full time classroom teachers.
Next highest are schools in Officer, Melton and Hoppers Crossing.
However, there are some inner city schools with job vacancies, including Northcote High, which has 12 advertised positions.
Gary Keet, director of Your Teaching Agency, said it was “hard to get staff to teach in western suburbs schools in and around Werribee, in Berwick and Cranbourne in the south east and Craigieburn in the north”.
“It’s not about paying more money – teachers don’t live that far out and don’t want to drive that far.”
Victoria’s Supply and Demand report 2023 shows a mismatch between where teachers live and where they work. For instance, there are 6000 teaching jobs on the Bayside Peninsula, serviced by 19,000 teachers living there. Conversely, in Melton/Brimbank there is a pool of only 4700 potential teachers for 2800 local jobs.
Principal jobs are also going unfilled, with 33 assistant principals and 11 principal jobs currently advertised. It comes as Victorian state school leaders are going for an eight per cent pay rise each year over four years – 32 per cent in total – as part of the government educators’ agreement now under negotiation.
Principals are also seeking a clear $10,000 gap between assistant principals and teachers, and $10,000 between assistant principals and principals.
Tina King, president of the Australian Principals’ Federation, said many principal jobs were being readvertised a number of times.
“Some schools would be lucky to get four applications, but this is not a good outcome compared to when we’d get 12 to 16 for each job,” she said.
“We are in a leadership crisis. People are not aspiring to be principals and it’s becoming untenable.”
A Department of Education spokesman said: “Our $1.8 billion investment in growing and supporting our education workforce since 2019 is seeing results – Victoria now has about 12,000 more registered teachers than we did in 2020.”
Education opposition spokeswoman Jess Wilson said: “With more than 1,100 teacher vacancies across the state today, Labor’s failure to support staff in the classroom has resulted in a teacher shortage crisis that, even after a claimed $1.8 billion has been spent on workforce initiatives, has no end in sight.”
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