Teaching vacancies have surged to almost 1000, up from about 600 at the beginning of term one, forcing some schools to run “skeleton” programs.
There are about 980 teaching jobs being advertised by the Victorian Department of Education, among the 1601 education jobs that need to be filled.
Schools are still struggling with absences and teacher shortages.Credit: File photo
Victorian Principals Association president Andrew Dalgleish said schools were in a weekly bind trying to plug holes, with principals regularly stepping in to teach.
“The first priority for every school leader is to make sure they have a quality teacher in every classroom. The last thing we need is having to double-up classes or cut the curriculum,” he said.
One teacher, who wished not to be identified, said she thought things had improved since last year, but there were still 13 jobs being advertised at their school as people were “just up and quitting a lot more”. Another said one class had been split across several due to an unforeseen long-term vacancy.
In a recent newsletter, Craigieburn Secondary College principal Kate Morphy told the school community that several classes were without a permanent teacher and that they were working to fill those positions. As of Saturday, there were 30 jobs still being advertised at the school.
“I have been humbled by the staff at our school and their willingness to understand the situation and put in additional time and work to help support our students learning. We are committed to running as full a program and to continue to give our students the best experiences and opportunities as possible,” she said.
Dalgleish said schools were working to minimise the problem by using permission to teach structures, which rely on approved but unregistered teachers. Other initiatives include overseas recruitment, graduate teaching programs and schools offering bonuses – although “not all schools have the capacity to do that”, he said.
Australian Principals Federation president Tina King said many schools were running on a “skeleton program” – under which the core curriculum was prioritised – due to absences and vacancies.
She said programs were being compromised, including extension or intervention programs.
“We are seeing a few more internationals coming in now but nowhere near enough,” she said.
Australian Principals Federation principal Tina King says some schools are still struggling due to workforce shortages.Credit: Jason South
As part of the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan to address nationwide shortages, ministers recently asked the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership to conduct a feasibility study into crunching a two-year master’s degree into one. The number of people gaining a postgraduate qualification in education has declined by 23 per cent since states and territories phased out the one-year diploma in 2014.
Dalgleish said that while Victoria needed to be “courageous”, he worried that more teachers would find themselves unprepared to deal with the realities of the job and did not want teaching quality diluted.
Early findings from the Australian Catholic University’s annual Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey of almost 2500 principals reveal workforce shortages rose from being the 12th-highest form of stress in 2021 to the third-highest last year. The number of school principals wanting to retire early or quit had tripled since 2019.
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) chief executive Mark Grant said nothing would turn the situation around in a year or two.
“It’s not as quick as flicking a light switch ... it’s difficult when you can’t get the right staff to get the best job done,” he said.
The Victorian government has invested millions into stemming the teacher shortage, including recruiting overseas teachers, financial incentives for hard-to-staff positions, fast-tracking pathways to teaching from other professions and retraining teachers as specialists.
In December, more than 1000 inactive teachers expressed an intention to return to work in schools after a push from the department. While vacancies fluctuate throughout the year, the department is supporting a small number of schools to fill vacancies.
Victorian Minister for Education Natalie Hutchins said the government was working to ensure schools had the teachers they needed, with a recruiting campaign resulting in 5000 more teachers being registered in Victoria at the end of 2022 compared with 2020.
“Over the past five years Victoria has seen twice as many teachers enter the classroom than the national average and we’ll continue backing initiatives that attract new teachers, while encouraging inactive teachers to return to classrooms,” she said.
Victoria has experienced the second-highest growth in teacher workforce, second only to the ACT in that period, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The student-to-teacher ratio in government schools has improved significantly from 14.1 in 2015 to 12.7 in 2022, according to the ABS.
Grant said AITSL would deliver its report in June into how they could maintain the rigour of degrees while reducing the timeframe, including the possibility of employment-based pathways.
Berwick Lodge Primary School principal Henry Grossek said he was concerned “we are reverting back to desperate measures to plug holes” but that it didn’t seem like there was much choice.
“I hope this is only a temporary measure and that the importance of specific qualifications to teach in schools isn’t devalued in the future because of what needs to be done today,” he said.
Australian Education Union federal president Correna Haythorpe said Victoria needed both short and long-term measures to stem the shortage, including retention payments for existing staff and funding job placements. She said the AITSL feasibility study was an attack on teaching qualifications and undermined Australia’s teachers.
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