A Minns Labor Government will end the NSW Government’s failed $13.5 million Recruitment Beyond NSW program and redirect resources towards actually recruiting New South Wales teaching students into schools.
The Perrottet Government’s signature Recruitment Beyond NSW scheme that promised 460 overseas teachers has yielded only three new teachers.
Meanwhile, figures from the NSW Department of Education reveal 7,174 people received Initial Teacher Education (ITE) qualifications in 2021, but an alarming 1,418 (or 1 in 5) chose not to become teachers.
This is worsened by the fact that the number of people taking up teaching degrees declined by 29 per cent over the period of 2014 to 2019.
After 12 years, the NSW Liberals just don’t get it. They have presided over a chronic teacher shortage, which has meant merged and cancelled classes, and students falling behind in national and international rankings when it comes to literacy, numeracy and science.
NSW Labor has a plan for a better NSW education system for a better future for our kids.
To get more teaching graduates into schools, a Minns Labor Government will:
• Match NSW teaching graduates directly with vacant teaching positions, ensuring new graduates aren’t lost to the school system.
• Provide permanent teaching job offers earlier to ensure high-achieving teacher education students have guaranteed teaching roles upon graduation.
• Expand the Hub Schools program to provide more partnerships between schools and teacher education providers.
• Create a state-wide teacher placements system to match specialist teachers with schools’ subject needs.
And to get more people to take on a teaching degree in the first place, a Minns Labor Government will:
• Create a $20 million Innovative Teacher Training Fund, to support innovative pathways into teaching such as the Clinical Teaching School Hubs model developed by Alphacrucis University College.
• Expand evening and weekend Master of Teaching courses for career-changers, by partnering with teacher education providers so career-changers can earn an income whilst retraining as a teacher.
NSW Labor will redirect unallocated funding from the Teacher Supply Strategy and the failed Recruitment Beyond NSW strategy towards these new initiatives.
Today’s measures build on Labor’s already announced policies to fix the long term problems in our education system and to make a teaching career in New South Wales more attractive, including:
• Cutting 5 hours of admin work per week.
• Creating 10,000 new permanent positions to end the casualization of the teaching profession.
• Removing the Perrottet Government’s wages cap to make the profession competitive again.
Labor is commitmed to valuing the teaching profession, putting a stop to increasing attrition from the profession and bringing teachers back into NSW schools.
NSW Labor Leader Chris Minns:
“The Perrottet Government spent years and millions of dollars coming up with a scheme that gave us only 3 new teachers, while 1,400 NSW teaching graduates chose alternative careers right under their noses.”
“Why should New South Wales continue spending millions on recruiting teachers from overseas when there are thousands who spend years training to become teachers locally, but never end up in schools?”
This is a common-sense, back-to-basics approach to fixing the teacher shortage in NSW.”
“My dad was a public school teacher. He worked in the public school system of New South Wales for nearly 40 years.
“Teaching was his life’s work , and I want to ensure we attract and retain the next generation of career teachers, who want to work and teach right here in New South Wales.
NSW Deputy Labor Leader and Shadow Minister for Education Prue Car:
“Every qualified teaching graduate should be contacted directly and told that there is a job waiting for them in our schools. I will call them myself if I have to – it’s a travesty these teaching graduates aren’t going into our schools.”
“Labor’s plans will make the teaching profession a more attractive career choice, get more teachers into classrooms and ensure they can make teaching their life’s work.”