Teachers, what teachers?

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 127 No 3, 14 April 2022, page no.12-13

Last year, the principal of a metropolitan school wrote to their local community to explain that students at their school were not always being taught by teachers with the appropriate subject specialty, thanks to a teacher shortage. 

The honesty of this statement caused ripples throughout the community, as if it was the first time that their school couldn’t attract an appropriately qualified teacher to teach particular subjects. It did more than that, however. This principal’s simple explanation for their community showed that the teacher shortage had reached the south east corner.

I know that there are some who place the blame for the teacher shortage on the pandemic, but while COVID-19 has done many things, it didn’t cause the shortage. It may have contributed to it, by bringing forward people’s retirements and making people unavailable for a week at a time after they either contracted the virus or became a close contact. It may even have exacerbated it, as teachers and school leaders who were declared vulnerable were placed in isolation. But the pandemic didn’t cause the shortage.

The shortage has existed in particular subject areas for quite some time. Bridging and pre-service courses in ITD or maths and science teaching have been underwhelmed with enrolments. But the shortage extends beyond these subjects.

Over the past few years, schools in regional and remote Queensland have been understaffed.
A recent survey of schools reveals that schools are doing all they can to ensure that there are teachers available to their students. They have turned away from the government’s “Smart Jobs” website (which is only used for critical vacancies) and have instead been using social media and professional contacts with other schools and universities to promote their schools.

The TRACER system has proved inadequate in some locations – if there are only six supply teachers in your location and all of them have bookings or are on temporary engagements, calling TRACER to provide a relief teacher would tell you what you already know – there is no one available on that day. So, schools have taken to “doubling up” classes so that there is at least a teacher and a teacher-aide to supervise the students while they work on pre-set learning. If a teacher in a particular year level is absent due to COVID and a relief teacher can’t be employed, the students may be shared among the other teachers of that year level – temporarily increasing class sizes beyond the target because it’s an emergent circumstance.

The definition of what makes a vacancy critical is also vague. Essentially, if over a long term the position hasn’t been filled, it’s viewed as a critical vacancy. This is camouflaged by school leaders, heads of department and HoSESs taking on extra teaching loads. If the school has been able to fill the role, albeit in a temporary way, by taking release time from these roles, it isn’t viewed as critical. However, the impact on the health and wellbeing of these leaders and heads of program becomes critical as they shift the work they would do in their release time to after or before school. 

These approaches are unsustainable, from both an industrial and wellbeing perspective.

Schools have also sought permission to teach for preservice teachers. This too is unsustainable – it impacts on the wellbeing of the preservice teacher who teaches full-time while completing their degree, empties the pipeline of teacher graduates and leaves a gap for the next year. 

Schools are doing everything they can to support the learning of students, but it is not and cannot be the sole responsibility of the school – the system must step up. 

Last year, the QTU wrote to the Director-General of Education, calling out the teacher shortage and seeking to work with the department on short, medium and long-term solutions. The progress of these discussions was slow, as the Union needed to explain that the experience in schools was very different from that suggested by the data relied upon by the department when they told us the situation was not dire. 

This partly motivated the survey we sent to school leaders in March and the qualitative survey we’ve asked Union Reps to work with members to complete. If data doesn’t lie, then it’s important that data tells the whole picture, not just part of it.

It’s also the reason that members in some schools across the state have entered into disputes with the department. One by one, they are acting to make the department provide bespoke solutions to attract and retain teachers in their locations.

These short-term approaches, for example the flying squad of teachers, are just the start.

More needs to be done if we are to address these issues in the long term. Things like:

• accelerated progression through university courses
• incentives to attract and retain teachers to rural, remote and regional locations
• incentives to attract students to teaching 
• priority visas for qualified teachers from overseas who want to live in rural, remote and regional Queensland
• an adjustment to the locality allowances to compensate members for the cost of living away from the south east corner
• support and release enabling the profession to undertake bridging courses in “high demand” subject areas
• support and appreciation for the profession.
   

While our members are doing so much already to try to and address the shortage, one of the most important things we can do is promote our profession.

A few years ago, I pinned a meme on my notice board created from a quote by Australian musician and comedian Tim Minchin. In a graduation address, Tim said: “Be a teacher. Please. Please be a teacher. Teachers are the most admirable and important people in the world. You don’t have to do it forever, but if you’re in doubt about what to do, be an amazing teacher.” 

We all have our reasons for loving our profession, the longest-term solution we have to the teacher shortage is this – to continue to promote, celebrate and encourage others to join our profession (and our Union). 

By Kate Ruttiman, General Secretary