After four years teaching at a western Sydney high school, Chandani Dayal can breathe a sigh of relief and maybe even take out a loan.
She is one of more than 5000 temporary and casual staff at 982 public schools across NSW who have accepted offers of a permanent role.
Premier Chris Minns was at Merrylands High on Monday along with Education Minister Prue Car to announce the fulfilment of a core election promise - to tackle the teacher shortage.
The government will offer 16,000 temporary teachers and school-based support staff conversion to permanent contracts by the beginning of term 4.
A record 1854 teachers resigned last year, a year in which resignations outnumbered retirements as more teachers left the profession.
The premier says there has been a 30 per cent decline in the number of school leavers choosing to study education at university and his government is determined to fix that.
"We want you, we need you, we want you to build your career inside NSW public schools, and we're very pleased to announce that positions have been offered and accepted by 5463 teachers so far since the scheme has been rolled out in the last few weeks."
The feedback from principals had been "amazing".
"Hearing one of them say 'now I can go for a car loan' nearly busted me. It's changing lives," he said.
"It says to teachers in the public education system. We want you to build your career."
Ms Dayal has worked at Merrylands High since starting in the profession and says becoming a permanent staff member feels "amazing" and will allow her to plan her life and finances without worrying about the next work contract.
"It's probably the first time that I can actually think about applying for a loan without feeling nervous."
Ms Car said the former coalition government had failed teachers and students.
"We are well on track to have every single one of those permanent teachers and school staff, 16,000 of them on deck, on board, ready to go day one, term one, next year."
"We're already looking at ways we can further extend it," she said.
Staff are eligible for a permanent place if they have been working in their current school for at least three years.
The government is considering expanding eligibility to include teachers moving around schools on contracts, but the immediate focus is on retaining staff.
"We know that there is significant demand because 40 per cent of teachers, when we came to government, were on contracts," Ms Car said.
