Teacher shortages across parts of regional Queensland are reaching "crisis point", turning classrooms into little more than child-minding centres, parent advocates say.
And they warn worse is to come, with almost 270 regional state teaching positions remaining unfilled at the end of term one, a third more than at the same time last year.
In central Queensland, Moranbah State High School is still trying to fill 11 full-time jobs, almost a quarter of its teaching staff, including the head of the English department.
"It's been an ongoing problem, but it's certainly reaching crisis point," the school's P&C president Matthew Huggett said.
"The teachers that are there are working extra hard, they are taking above and beyond their allocated workload."
Mr Huggett said resources were so stretched that if teachers were away sick, students missed out on learning.
"We're being forced to combine classes in the hall pretty much for supervision purposes, rather than teaching purposes," he said.
But with a 16,000-strong workforce outside the south-east, Queensland's Education Minister Grace Grace said there would always be vacancies.
"There are pockets where we are struggling to get teachers," Ms Grace said.
Staff under pressure
The situation in Moranbah could be a sign of things to come elsewhere as the struggle to attract teachers coincides with growing student enrolments.
On top of all this, COVID-19 has also ramped up the pressure on schools, as the virus rips through staff and students, leaving critical staff shortages.
A report from the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, which surveyed almost 18,000 teachers, found a quarter of respondents intended to leave the profession before they retired and more than half of those planned to leave in fewer than 10 years.
"In particular on the back of the Australian Bureau of Statistics flagging that in 2030 there will be 21 per cent more students starting school than started in 2021."
Data from Queensland's Department of Education shows more than 1,900 permanent (full-time equivalent) teachers left in 2021, offset by the addition of over 3,000 new hires.
The department said its 2021–25 modelling showed there would be "more than enough" teachers to meet the projected enrolment growth.
'Worldwide problem'
The Independent Education Union Queensland and Northern Territory Branch identified workload as the biggest issue in retaining staff in schools, a problem made much worse during the pandemic.
"What they are finding is that the workload is all-consuming," branch secretary Terry Burke said.
"It's not just a Queensland phenomenon, it's not a private school phenomena, it's not even a national problem.
Student teachers filling gaps
There has been a steady rise in schools turning to pre-service teachers, usually students in their final stages of education study, to plug holes under the Permission To Teach (PTT) scheme.
There are 164 approved PTT arrangements in state schools across Queensland so far this year, according to the education department.
There were 320 for the whole of 2021, 211 in 2020 and 178 in 2019.
The Education Minister said the state government was also considering rolling back the requirement for a two-year Master of Education to one year.
"I was never a big supporter of that move and I think there's quite a few now that are suggesting that maybe it wasn't the best thing to do," Ms Grace said.
Overseas assistance
A national meeting of education ministers this month will discuss strategies to address the national need.
The Queensland Teachers' Union (QTU) is calling for immediate solutions, particularly in rural and remote areas where the gap is widening.
"You don't produce a teacher overnight," QTU president Creta Richardson said.
It's an idea backed by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership.
"It needs an absolute accelerated focus from all associated with education across Australia," Mr Grant said.
"Bringing in stem teachers from Canada, which at the moment are just one-off initiatives being announced across Australia, when it could well be that it's a national response required."
Mr Huggett said he just wanted country kids to be given the same opportunities as their city counterparts.
"I just can't see schools in Brisbane operating under the same conditions that our teachers and staff are being forced to at the moment."
