More undergraduates signing up for teaching: Labor

The federal government has released new data showing more undergraduates are applying to become school teachers than in previous years, as it works to tackle the nation’s crippling teacher shortage.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare.

The federal government has released new data showing more undergraduates are applying to become school teachers than in previous years, as it works to ­tackle the nation’s crippling teacher shortage.

A statement from the Department of Education linked the increases in applications and offers for education courses to “significant pay increases” for teachers in many states and territories over the past two years, and a national action plan to address the crisis.

Preliminary results from tertiary admission centres for universities across Australia show a 7 per cent increase in applications and a 14 per cent increase in offers for education students compared to 2024.

Data analysis from the Department of Education showed there were 12,659 applications and 9905 offers at January 16, 2025, the highest figures since at least the 2022 academic year. There were 12,082 applications in 2022, with 7816 offers.

The department said the “positive early results” came after the “Albanese Labor government and state and territory governments” worked together to “tackle the teacher workforce shortage through the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan”.

Launched in December 2022, the Action Plan included teaching scholarships worth up to $40,000 for new undergraduate teaching students, a pilot program to help reduce teacher workload, and free online courses for teachers in areas such as classroom management and explicit teaching.

Mid-last year, The Australian reported that nearly 90 per cent of Aus­tralian high school principals had reported that staff short­ages, or “inadequate or poorly trained’’ teachers, were impacting their ability to educate teenagers.

Education Minister Jason Clare said being a teacher was “the most important job in the world” but “we don’t have enough of them”.

“The Liberals ripped the guts out of public school funding and under them, the teacher shortage crisis got worse. We’re now starting to see this turn around.

“I want more young people to leap out of high school and want to become a teacher rather than a lawyer or a banker. That’s why we are tackling the teacher workforce shortage with scholarships, reforms to teacher training and paid prac for teaching students.”

In October last year, NSW public school teachers reached an agreement for a 3 per cent pay rise each year for three years. In 2023, starting salaries for NSW teachers were lifted to $85,000 with a top salary of $122,100.

In Western Australia, public school teachers agreed to a 12 per cent pay rise over three years, with a starting salary of $88,178, a senior teacher’s salary of $132,557 and a top salary for experienced level 3 teachers of $206,662.

Last week, Anthony Albanese used a National Press Club address to unleash a multibillion-dollar education cash splash for Victoria and South Australia, reaching new school funding agreements after months of stalled negotiations. The Prime Minister called education a “defining point of difference” between Labor and its opponents, and said “building Australia’s future through every stage of education will be a defining priority of a re-elected Labor government”.