Recruitment of additional teachers for the Tasmanian education system is welcome, but an opportunity has been missed to secure the subject specialisations needed to improve the system.
Shadow Minister for Education Josh Willie said without a workforce audit for Tasmania’s education system, the government is flying blind.
“The Liberals have spent several years undertaking a workforce audit, but have failed to specifically target system specialisation gaps.
“In order to know how many science teachers are needed in Burnie, or what gaps there are for specialist maths teachers across the state, they need to know who’s on the books now. But they don’t.
“Labor sought information under Right to Information laws, after Jeremy Rockliff was unable to answer questions about the teaching workforce in State Parliament. The response to the RTI request noted that there is not a system that allows information to be captured about specialist teachers*.
“The result of that is the government doesn’t know what specialisations it has or what it needs, and teachers end up teaching outside their area of expertise.
“It’s a missed opportunity to strategically develop the workforce to ensure we have the right teaching skills into the future.
“If Jeremy Rockliff has finally done his homework, he should release the workforce audit.”
Josh Willie
Shadow Minister for Education
