Ahead of tomorrow’s Education Ministers meeting, the Greens have called on federal, state and territory governments to address teacher shortages once and for all by properly funding public schools and giving all teachers a long overdue pay rise.
As stated by Greens spokesperson on schools Senator Penny Allman-Payne:
“It’s not very complicated: to attract more teachers to public schools and provide a world-class education for our kids, governments must properly fund all public schools and pay all public school teachers more.
“Teachers, unions, parents, carers and experts have been telling governments for years that this is the solution to teacher shortages, yet they continue to fiddle at the margins, hoping that the latest incentive scheme will magically do the job.
“There’s no point in trying to cajole more teachers into the profession when public schools are underfunded, pay and conditions are going backwards and morale is low.
“And it’s frankly insulting to hard-working teachers everywhere to talk about new programs to attract the ‘best and brightest’ and reward ‘outstanding teachers’ when existing teachers are so undervalued and underpaid.
“The government’s own numbers show that by 2025 the shortfall for secondary teachers will be over 4,000.
“If governments don’t work together to address the underlying issues of low pay across the board, chronic under-resourcing for public schools and low morale, we are going to see even more hard working teachers leaving the profession.
“Labor must come to the table with a plan that lifts resourcing for public schools to meet the minimum School Resource Standard and raises the pay for all public teachers significantly.”
