By Alex Crowe
Regional teachers are moving interstate in pursuit of better pay, as Victorian schools warn NSW has the upper hand in a border war for staff.
Victorian graduate teachers are the worst paid in the country, earning more than $13,000 less than the country’s best-paid graduates in the Northern Territory and more than $8700 less than those in NSW.
Wodonga Senior Secondary College principal Vern Hilditch says he has lost teachers across the border.Credit: Joe Armao
That gap will widen to $10,588 from October next year, after NSW’s historic 10 per cent increase signed last month, sparking fears the new deal will worsen Victoria’s teacher shortage.
“If you can go across the border now and get about a 15 per cent pay rise for the same job without moving your house – we’re talking about six kilometres away – why wouldn’t you?” principal Vern Hilditch said.
The head of Wodonga Senior Secondary College began losing staff to Albury when NSW teachers got a pay boost of 8 to 12 per cent last year, which saw graduate salaries rise almost $10,000 and leadership salaries jump about $9000.
He said an assistant principal left after being offered equal money to teach in NSW.
Hilditch has 17 vacancies to fill for next year across the three Wodonga schools he runs. He is reliant on people moving from the suburbs to regional towns or interstate because Wodonga, unlike Albury, is not fast-tracked for overseas migration.
“We will take anyone, basically,” he said. “I can build a timetable around anyone who I get through the door who has teacher qualifications.”
The NSW government reported a 20 per cent drop in vacancies at the start of 2024. A Victorian government report from 2022 forecast a shortfall of more than 5000 teachers by 2028.
While neither Victoria’s Education Department nor the relevant federal agency publishes current data on teacher shortages, the government is currently advertising to fill 2285 school staff positions.
Teacher registrations grew by 1.3 per cent from 2023 to 2024, while record migration saw the state’s population swell 2.7 per cent in the 12 months to March.
An Education Department spokesperson said the growth in teaching staff was exceptional, with almost 1700 joining Victorian schools.
“More than 1600 teachers moved to Victoria from interstate or New Zealand in 2024 and they’re choosing Victoria thanks to the low student-teacher ratios compared to other states and the support provided in Victorian government schools,” the spokesperson said.
“We’re continuing to attract teachers with free teaching degrees, financial incentives for hard-to-staff roles, paid placements for students training to be teachers and employment-based degrees.”
However, schools say those policies aren’t working.
“People are very reluctant to move out of Melbourne to go to a job in Wodonga, and that’s the problem we’re running into,” Hilditch said.
Teacher salaries in all Victorian school sectors are lower than most states, partly due to public school salaries.
Most Catholic schools agreed to align their wages with Victorian teachers after protracted negotiations in 2022. Both get a 1 per cent bump in January and July and are due to negotiate pay next year.
The average salary for independent school graduate teachers is $80,000, compared with $78,021 at public schools.
Independent Schools Victoria chief executive Rachel Holthouse said smaller schools might be slightly less, while more established schools paid more.
Australian Principals Federation Victorian president Tina King said the NSW teachers’ pay hike had been similar to that of Victorian nurses, and the state’s teachers’ wages should follow.
The principals’ peak body raised the alarm over teachers crossing the border to NSW in its submission to the Victorian government’s inquiry into the state school system tabled last month.
King said Moama and Echuca had also lost teachers to NSW and that schools were facing a leadership shortage.
“The messaging that NSW government has given to the teaching workforce is: we value you, we respect you, and we will pay you accordingly,” King said.
“Pay is not the complete solution, but when you’re in a cost-of-living crisis, extra dollars certainly help pay the mortgage, and for that reason, there were teachers that decided to cross the border.”
More than half of the 2000 principals surveyed in 2022 indicated they intended to quit the industry, causing researchers to warn of a looming crisis.
King said a principal’s job was comparable with a chief executive officer’s, but the pay and bonuses did not stack up.
“This is not just about teachers,” she said. “We’ve got a crisis in leadership as well.”
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