Colin Barnett to target interstate teachers

THE Barnett government is planning a recruitment drive to target interstate and overseas teachers to combat a skills shortage.

THE Barnett government is planning a recruitment drive to target interstate and overseas teachers as Western Australia continues to overcome an across-the-board skills shortage.

With the state's critical dearth of professionals, tradesmen and semi-skilled workers keeping the west's robust economy on a tight rein, Education Minister Liz Constable believes WA schools particularly secondary ones will face major staffing issues come 2015.

While more than 1000 of WA's 22,000 full- and part-time teachers resigned or retired last year, Dr Constable said that number needed to be kept in perspective and was actually below 2005 levels. But she did acknowledge departmental projections showed that two factors an ageing workforce and not enough high school teachers would soon have a detrimental effect on staffing numbers.

The WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry believes there will be a shortfall of 210,000 workers across all professions and trades over the next seven years. Research by Monash University showed that WA industry and businesses were still desperately in need of truck drivers, accountants, office managers, advertising and sales managers, registered nurses, workers for the aged and disabled, storepersons, clerks and even chief executives.

Dr Constable believed her department was well placed to tackle any future teacher shortages and said it was hardly surprising a third of those who resigned last year had done so within the first five years of their careers. "I would expect that many of them may have quit to go travelling or get some other life experiences."

A recruitment campaign would focus on the east coast and Britain, where the government had successfully targeted mainly Irish skilled workers to feed the mining boom.