More than 180 schools looking for teaching, support and admin staff as term one begins

Senior students at Forest Hill College are starting term one without a maths teacher as Victorian public schools scramble to fill hundreds of vacant positions.

Victorian public schools have started term one with more than 500 unfilled educator and school staff positions.

Victorian public schools have commenced term one with more than 300 unfilled educator positions, leaving some students to start the year without a permanent teacher.

As of Wednesday, more than 180 schools were searching to fill 568 teacher, principal, support, wellbeing, learning specialist and administrator roles, with 100 campuses listing at least one advertisement in the past week.

Among these vacancies, 311 roles were teaching positions, including 40 unfilled maths teacher positions, 52 English roles, 34 science and 23 humanities educator vacancies, with the remaining roles scattered across primary teaching, teachers aide, admin and classroom support.

The number of vacancies has raised concerns some students have started the school year without a teacher, as educator shortages continue to put a strain on the teaching workforce.

This was the case for senior maths students at Forest Hill College, who were instructed to complete independent study for two and a half weeks due to their teacher being absent.

In a letter sent to parents, the school advised the teacher’s year 7 maths classes would be “covered by an experienced maths teacher”, while the senior classes could access “work left for them” online and study in the school’s study hall.

Senior maths students at Forest Hill College have been instructed to complete independent study for two and a half weeks due to their teacher being absent.

The decision to leave senior students without an experienced maths teacher to lead the class during their usual teacher’s absence had parents concerned they would fall behind during their most crucial years.

A Department of Education spokeswoman said the school has since organised a replacement classroom teacher for that period.

“We are working with schools to fill the small number of vacancies across the system so that our students are supported in the classroom,” she said.

“Teacher vacancies are down compared to the previous two years thanks to initiatives such as secondary teaching scholarships, paid placements for pre-service teachers, employment-based teaching degree programs for undergraduates, targeted financial incentives for hard-to-staff roles and the expansion of supports for early-career teachers.”

Despite there still being hundreds of teacher vacancies across the state, it’s an improvement from last year when more than 1200 positions were unfilled during the first week of term one.

Education Minister Ben Carroll described this year’s vacancy rate as a “smallish number” and said it was one of the lowest the state has seen in years.

“We’ve got just over 200 vacancies at the moment, but that’s across a whole state of literally thousands of schools,” he said on Wednesday.

“It’s wonderful to see people wanting to become a school teacher … (there’s a) smallish number of vacancies that we have advertised on our website, but we are really happy to see more and more people wanting to become a school teacher.”

But for those students starting school without a permanent teacher, opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said: “what chance do students have of achieving their best without a teacher?”.

“Last year Labor’s teacher shortage crisis saw classes being cancelled or doubled-up and students sent home at lunch and this year appears to be no different,” she said.

Originally published as More than 180 schools looking for teaching, support and admin staff as term one begins