Tuesday, 18 February 2025

Teacher workforce

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:20): (1419) The action I seek is from the Minister for Education. Term 1 is a most important time of the year. It sets the foundation for students’ learning, establishes routines and allows teachers to build the connections that will help their students succeed. For VCE students these early weeks are critical for managing and setting up their workload for the year ahead. Recently it was revealed that more than 180 schools are still advertising for 568 educator positions, including 311 teaching roles. Among them are vacancies in key subjects such as 40 in maths, 52 in English and 34 in science. In my electorate, one school started the year without any senior maths teacher at all. Instead of receiving expert instruction in this crucial subject, students were told to complete independent study for 2½ weeks. These are students in their final year of schooling, students who need structured lessons, direct teaching and guidance as they prepare for their futures. Leaving our children without a teacher in a First World country is simply unacceptable.

The scale of this problem is clear: more than 1300 teaching jobs remain vacant across Victoria. That number is somewhat massaged by back-plugging with student teachers. One in every 12½ secondary school teachers left the profession last year, and 28 per cent of new teachers are dropping out within five years of registration. This is not just an administrative challenge, it is a failure of workforce planning and recruitment and retention programs. Schools should not be scrambling to fill vacancies after the school year has already begun. Teachers should not be overburdened, picking up extra responsibilities to cover shortages. We need a long-term strategy that produces better results, and the outcomes we are experiencing suggest the government have no such strategy. There are many stakeholders here – there are the teachers, the principals, the families and of course the students themselves, and they all deserve better.

The action I seek from the minister is to confirm: what programs are being run by your department to address the shortfall, what number of new teachers will be recruited per program to address the shortfall and when will the shortfall in total be addressed in full?