Tuesday, 29 October 2024

Education system

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (22:48): (1226) My adjournment question is for the Minister for Education. Given that VCE English exams started today and there are VCE exams, I thought it would be good to do something on education. This is regarding the critical issue facing our state, and that is the dire shortage of teachers in regional Victoria and the general retention rates for Victorian teachers. The action that I seek is for the minister to provide me with an outline of the government’s plan to address the reasons for the teacher shortage crisis, particularly in regional Victoria and in my region.

The recently tabled Victorian government report, the Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee’s The State Education System in Victoria, predicts a shortfall of over 5000 teachers by 2028. Finding 14 outlines the problem with teachers in the system, and it says:

The expected teacher shortfall is a serious issue for the state education system that warrants significant and sustained attention and intervention.

Our schools continue to flounder to employ teachers in classrooms, but this Labor government continues to take great teachers out of schools to employ them in our overpopulated, ever-increasing regional education departments. Despite the Victorian government’s $244 million program offering financial incentives of up to $50,000 to attract teachers to regional areas, the results are showing that this is simply not enough to encourage our teachers to stay in the system, and my question here is: has the government ever asked itself why?

Evidence indicates that large numbers of teachers in Victoria are leaving teaching after their initial two-year contract period, and it is shocking to note that of the 200 teachers who received $5.2 million in government incentives in 2020 and 2021, almost a quarter no longer work in public schools. At any one time there are anywhere from 1200 to 1500 vacant teaching positions in Victoria right now. This is almost double the 800 vacancies that there were at the beginning of the 2024 school year. Schools in regional Victoria are particularly struggling to hire and retain teachers, even though the government has offered incentive payments of $50,000 to fill up the hard-to-fill classroom roles.

I would like to go through some of the things that the government has actually done, but I am running out of time. So I am going to just go on to the fact that the government paid $6.7 million to 250 teachers – that is $26,800 each on average – to move to schools in rural and remote areas struggling to find staff in 2022. This was because (1) students in regional areas are deprived of a stable learning environment and (2) the shortage puts undue pressure on existing staff, leading to burnout. This is further evidence that the government’s $244 million scheme to grow and improve the workforce is simply not working. More than 20 per cent of the teachers have been paid a decent incentive to move to regional Victoria, but they are leaving.

The PRESIDENT: Mrs Hermans, your time has expired. Can I just check the action.

Ann-Marie HERMANS: The action I seek is that that the minister provide me with an outline of the government’s plan to address the reasons for the teacher shortage crisis, particularly in regional Victoria and in my region.