RETAINING teachers already working in classrooms needs to be prioritised above recruiting new ones, an inquiry into staff shortages has been told.
Monash University lecturer in educational leadership Dr Fiona Longmuir told the first hearing of the parliamentary inquiry last week that her and her colleagues' research into perceptions of the profession led them to believe that excessive workloads and the resulting burnout were the most significant contributing factors to shortages.
"Our research has shown that the working conditions in many schools are driving passionate and highly effective teachers to leave their careers at great cost to students, communities and governments," Dr Longmuir said.
"Given this, we feel that the current and future crisis in the teaching workforce is unlikely to be solved unless the primary focus of response is on retention strategies.
"Any focus on attracting new entrants to the teaching profession will not be sufficient until it is a sustainable and attractive career."
Dr Longmuir told the inquiry that putting new teachers into environments that were untenable and unsustainable was "going to keep the flow going rather than stopping it".
"Someone recently talked about it as keeping filling up a leaky bucket with scarce water supplies," she said.
"You need to plug the holes in the bucket, otherwise it is just never going to work."
Director of the UON Teachers and Teaching Research Centre Laureate Professor Jenny Gore echoed this.
"New graduates, fast-track graduates or international teachers will not thrive in a broken system where too many teachers are burnt out, exhausted, overwhelmed and demoralised," she said.
The inquiry was told enrolments in NSW initial teacher education courses had dropped by almost 30 per cent from 2014 to 2019.
Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT branch secretary Mark Northam said high school students were no longer asking their teachers if they should enter the profession.
"Somehow we've got to turn the perception of teachers around in the community and have those really valuable conversations in the classroom or after class or in the yard, wherever they might be, encouraging those good students who you believe would make great teachers to go into training," he said.
"Whilst it's not a state lever - it's a federal lever- I think [reducing tuition fees] would be fantastic.
"For maths and science, it's about $70,000 for HECS fees. A bachelor of arts is around $100,000 or $110,000.
"There is a lever there that could be pulled to simply make it easier for students to consider teaching and not be as financially burdened."
UON Head of School and Dean of Education Professor Susan Ledger said some students withdrew from their degrees partway through.
"Some of our students, when they go out on placements, see the burden of teachers in schools and many will opt not to continue," she said.
Mr Northam said there was very little release time given to teachers to support student teachers doing their placements.
"To put it more simply, you're doing that before school, lunchtime and after school," he said.
Teachers are given $34 a day to support these student teachers, he said.
"There is another figure that goes beyond the $34 a day, which I can barely utter, but if you coordinate a group of prac students in your schools - which is a pretty significant task and role in a school - it's $1.73 additional to the $34 a day.
"Now, that is not a way to attract or get trainee teachers into classes and into schools and glue them in."
Professor Ledger described an apprenticeship model, where students are placed in paid positions within schools, as "great".
"Many states use it for 12 months in their final year working along somebody else... the trouble at the moment is that once you put them in as a teacher, they're not provided with support to do it.
"They're unqualified... and that compounds their situation. We'll probably see more teachers leave because of the additional stress.
"If they went in as paraprofessionals and just supported and transitioned into the workforce, that's a different story.
"But paying them and having the full responsibility of teaching before they are ready is a very short-sighted approach to things."
WHAT DO YOU THINK? We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on the Newcastle Herald website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. Sign up for a subscription here.
