Up again rears the head of the dreaded teacher shortage, nation-wide, but also, more specifically in NSW. The shortage, as it is described, is worse in regional and remote schools; in hard-to-staff schools, in the lower SES outskirts of major metropolitan centres; and, in those hard-to-staff STEM disciplines. This is not a new problem. This looming teacher shortage has been part of the popular media narrative for over a decade. The SMH reported teacher shortages in two 2008 articles: Teacher shortage imminent, union warns and Have we learned our lesson yet?; 2010: NSW teacher shortages ‘to continue’; and, again in 2012: NSW teacher shortages looms as many approach retirement. At the same time, the Australian Productivity Commission (PC) was reporting on an aging teacher workforce and recommended a number of measures to ensure the future of that workforce. Despite all these warnings, under the Piccoli government in NSW, the ‘Great Teaching Inspired Learning Blueprint’ was implemented, which sought to raise the standards for entry into teacher education. I need to emphasise that this was about raising the standard for entry into teacher training; for entry into university courses, not raising the standard for entry into the teaching profession or any particular job. This policy was based on the premise of an overabundance of teachers. Yes, you read that correctly, in the Great Teaching Inspired Learning discussion paper, released in the same year as the PC report on the teacher workforce’s aging population, NSW was instituting measure to reduce the number of teachers entering the profession, due to an ‘overabundance’.
I wrote about this back in 2014, in an article entitled Teacher Attrition, Retention and Mobility: Where Does Australian Stand? where I made these same arguments. However, I came to realise that the NSW government was, in-part, correct. There were enough teachers and I believe there still are enough teachers. The problem is the two-tier system that exists, specifically within the government (public) school system in NSW. Let me explain. I don’t think that schools are being dishonest when they say they can’t find teachers. Many schools, as I stated above, find it hard to find the right teachers: schools on the outskirts of cities in low-SES areas; rural and remote schools; and, in secondary schools there is a shortage of qualified upper-level mathematics teachers and in some disciplines of science, like physics and chemistry. However, I don’t believe this constitutes a teacher shortage, not in the way it is presented.
How’s this for a number: of the national teacher workforce (n=296,516 FTE), there are 88,000 full-time equivalent teachers (FTE) employed in NSW in 2020. Although I don’t have stats for 2020, in 2012, NSW required 2 million, yes 2 MILLION, days of casual employment, requiring 30,000 casual (substitute) teaching staff. According to the PC in 2012, up to 30% of teachers, nationally, were not employed on a permanent/continuing basis! In 2019 the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reported that up to 72% of new teachers, nationally, begin their careers in temporary or casual employment. So, what does all this mean?
It means that there is a two-tier system in teaching, where much of the workforce, and especially those early in their careers, are not being given permanent and/or full-time employment. While the over-casualisation of the workforce has been a trend in recent years, it has not usually been associated with professionals. The ABC reports that 88% of Australians think job security is a problem and 27% are fearful of losing their job in the next year. But these are concerns of hospitality workers and people who work in the gig economy, right?
Well, no! One of the biggest sectors hit by casualisation is actually higher-education – with the SMH calling it a ‘National Disgrace’! According to the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics), the part-time share of employment in May 2021 was 31.7%; 2.1 percentage points higher than the same time last year. I could go on and on about the casualisation of the workforce in general, but this is about teachers and teaching and the looming shortage.
The question is, is there a shortage? As I’ve said before, I don’t doubt that in some regional, remote and hard to staff schools there are shortages of applicants for roles, but no, I don’t think there is a teacher shortage. What there is, is a severe shortsightedness in the way teachers should be treated and employed. Now, I’m not fan of the Teacher’s Federation, not because they are a bad union, but because they are too powerful and are over-protective of mediocre and poor teachers. I’m also disappointed that they have allowed the hiring practices of the government school sector to continue the way it has for so long. In no other profession that I can think of is there no semblance of a meritocracy in hiring. While I’m critical of the union for not doing more, it is the government who decides who and how teachers are employed – not the teacher or the principal.
The problem is that there is an expectation that neophyte teachers will remain in the profession even if there is little chance of gaining permanent employment. Instead of expending those 2 million casual days, it would be preferential, for the teachers, schools and systems to instead hire permanent teachers who fill gaps, rather than relying on an unreliable system of casual day-workers (substitutes). The government has recognised this and has a system in place for permanent teachers to be hired to fill these gaps. In a system that employs 88,000 FTE teachers and educates more than 800,000 students, how many of these teachers are being hired… 12! According the NSWTF it has been almost 20 years since comprehensive workforce planning strategy has been conducted and their solution is to hire 12 teachers to fill the gaps of 2 million casual days of employment. Assuming each casual can work every school day (approx. 190 days per year), that’s 2,280 of the 2 million necessary days or 0.114%.
So, I can be just one more person complaining about the system, but instead how about applying some simple economic strategy to the situation. Some of these will sound outlandish to many and have no chance of being approved, but it’s time to start thinking more rationally about these issues, to ensure the best possible teachers are in front of every classroom.
- Incentives – all state governments in Australia incentivise teachers to work in rural, remote and hard to staff schools, but if it’s not working, simply raise the incentives until you get enough applications to fill vacancies. How do we know how much to raise them – trial and error. The incentives are obviously not high enough if you can’t fill vacancies.
- Mathematics and Science teachers – I know this one will gain criticism, but again, incentivise them. If you can’t get math and science teachers, pay them more. The truth is, those who major in math and science have more employment opportunities than the history and English majors (by the way, I was a history major and taught both English and history), so you have to pay them more to entice them to teaching. This would not only entice new math and science teachers, but might also entice experienced teachers in other disciplines to re-train in those areas.
- I refuse to believe that there are not enough primary school teachers to fill vacancies. I think they just don’t want to continue to work in a profession that continues to casualise the workforce. Depending on the size of a school or area, hire more permanent teachers to work within a network of a s few schools to fill casual and short-term vacancies and promise them a classroom teacher role within a certain time-frame – that’s an incentive that costs next to nothing.
- The problem of beginning teacher attrition is a real problem, I’ve written about it numerous times, but I do think it has a lot to do with not feeling respected as a professional and the extra burden put on early career teachers. Teachers could start their careers in a permanent-casual format, where they are eased into having their own classes. They start filling causal places and observing teachers on days where there might not be enough casual work. Then they could start to fill short-term vacancies and then, after three – five years of success in that role, the time when teachers usually leave the profession due to stress or burnout, they get a permanent full-time class teacher position at top pay. This would be a true induction into the profession through legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and what I call organisational socialisation and solve the problem of the shortfall of casual teachers and induction.
These suggestions are not out-of-line with what has been suggested before. The PC has suggested reducing teacher shortages through pay differentials. They are probably referring to those incentives for rural and remote schools as outlined above, but once you realise that incentives work, why wouldn’t you pay staff more to work in hard-to-staff schools or to teach math and science as opposed to visual arts and PE? With student enrolments to grow by 20% over the next 15yrs and 25% over the next 20, we need to focus on what’s most important – maximising the current workforce through permanent appointments of excellent teachers. Ensuring that we have the right incentives in place for attracting and retaining the best teachers in hard-to-staff positions, whether those be schools or subject areas to maximise the potential of every student.
Maximising Student Potential 