By Jordan Baker
The NSW Department of Education will promote the joy of teaching, poach teachers from overseas and identify regional students suitable for the profession while they are still in high school as part of a multi-pronged plan to avert a looming teacher shortage.
Pay remains a point of contention, with the NSW Teachers Federation saying shortages will continue without higher salaries. But the department insists its new teacher supply strategy will attract 3700 extra teachers over 10 years without a significant wage rise.
Award negotiations have begun, and the department has offered teachers 2.5 per cent a year - the highest rise possible under the public sector wage cap imposed by this government. However, the federation rejected the offer and is standing by its claim of 5 to 7.5 per cent a year.
The NSW Department of Education’s plan to boost teacher supply includes scholarships, incentives and a campaign about the joy of teaching.
The looming teacher shortage, detailed in internal NSW Department of Education documents, is due to a declining number of people choosing it as a career, a significant proportion of the workforce heading to retirement, and growing enrolment numbers.
The department’s strategy, released this week, involves recruiting teachers from overseas and interstate, improving perceptions of teaching - including with an advertising campaign - and accelerating the careers of high-performing teachers.
The department will also encourage more teachers to train in high-needs areas by providing mid-career pathways in those areas; helping teachers’ assistants become fully qualified; and training teachers in high-demand skills such as maths.
It aims to get teachers to regional and rural schools with a new incentive scheme and scholarships.
The plan for the bush also includes a pilot scheme to identify high school students in regional areas who have the potential to become teachers, and offering them a year’s paid experience in a school before supporting them through university with scholarships.
“There’s a lot of elements to it, and that’s for a reason,” said Education Minister Sarah Mitchell. “There’s a number of issues and complexities in terms of how we manage staffing in our schools, and the challenges are nuanced.
“I’ve been having regular round tables with teachers from all over the state. What has come through is the joy - how much they enjoy their job, how much they feel connected and responsible for the students. They talk about students as if they are their own.”
The department said it used workforce modelling, analysis of teacher supply and demand, and tactics that worked elsewhere to develop the strategy, which it expects will deliver 3700 teachers over 10 years, including 1600 in the first five years.
However, past attempts to boost teacher pipelines show mixed results from strategies such as incentives, scholarships and mid-career pathways. Over 10 years, Victoria’s Teach for Australia program, which fast-tracks people from other professions into teaching, produced just 619 teachers.
Regional incentive schemes have existed for years, and have been tweaked many times, but teacher numbers in the bush are still dropping. There are teacher shortages overseas and interstate, which could also make poaching teachers difficult.
One internal department document also said it was unclear whether there was much demand for teaching assistants to become fully qualified.
The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Angelo Gavrielatos, said the shortage was a direct result of non-competitive salaries and unsustainable workloads. “If we don’t pay teachers what they are worth, we won’t get the teachers we need,” he said.
However, Ms Mitchell said NSW teachers were paid well compared with those interstate and overseas. “There are opportunities for career progression, there are opportunities to teach in rural and regional schools, and it’s also about creating more opportunities,” she said.
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