Teacher shortage: what is needed
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 129 No 3, 3 May 2024, page 7.
We face a critical turning point in the nationwide teacher shortage – the state government must commit to world-class salaries that will not only attract new entrants to teach in Queensland, but also retain the existing workforce.
The teacher shortage crisis continues to impact upon every aspect of the profession. The decade-long failure to develop proactive teacher recruitment and retention strategies has led to catastrophic teacher shortages across the state. This stems from a general lack of respect for the profession, more broadly and within the political realm.
An inability to look beyond the current employment practices and teaching conditions and develop innovative ways to reward and remunerate teachers and school leaders for their service to the public education system is exacerbating the issue. In addition, the failure to resource schools effectively and equitably has created immense and ever-increasing workloads for teachers and education leaders.
A lack of teachers results in fewer subjects on offer to students, oversized classes, and many teachers teaching out of their subject area. It results in an inability for teachers to access leave, as there are not enough relief teachers to cover leave arrangements, and leaves principals, deputy principals and heads of department unable to undertake their normal duties, as they are required to manage day-to-day teaching for classes that do not have a teacher.
Teacher burnout is at an all-time high, and many teachers and school leaders are choosing to leave the profession “before their time” as they no longer wish to remain in a pressured and under-staffed work environment.
New teachers enter this environment without adequate support, and without a systemic mentoring program available to them. Many leave the profession too early in their careers due to a lack of support and guidance.
What is needed is:
- appropriately targeted resourcing to meet the needs of the many and varied types of schools across the state
- a differentiated and significantly increased staffing model that addresses the complex needs of many school communities
- remuneration strategies that recognise that incentives are needed to keep educators teaching across this diverse state.
The QTU’s 2022 Teacher Shortage Survey showed 65.5 per cent of school leaders were experiencing difficulty staffing year levels or subjects.
The QTU Teacher Shortage Survey 2024 additionally identified that the most common measures used to address understaffing have been: teachers working outside their area of speciality; leaders being unable to access time for their own professional development; and increased class sizes.
Members identified cash incentives and the relief of higher education loan program (HELP) debt as the best options to retain teachers in our state schools.
The QTU believes that the attraction and retention of high-quality teachers can best be achieved through a short, medium, and long-term solutions-based approach. In addition, we continue to advocate to ensure that a range of incentives is urgently considered in the 2024/2025 State Budget, to stem the flow of teachers from our state schools (for more information on what the QTU wants to see in June's State Budget, see the Union's State Budget Submission at https://www.qtu.asn.au/state-budget-submission-2024-25)