The Greens say the Federal Government’s plan to fast-track interns into classrooms would further entrench education inequality while doing very little to solve the teacher shortage crisis in our public schools.
Greens spokesperson on schools, Senator Penny Allman-Payne said:
“A decades-long bipartisan commitment to the privatisation of education has driven thousands of passionate, experienced teachers out of the public school system.
“Instead of trying to encourage these skilled educators back into the classroom the government is proposing to fast-track non-teachers into schools.
“Not only will this place additional burden on current teachers to support these unprepared trainees, it will lower the overall quality of education in the public system, further entrenching the already-yawning gap between the richest and poorest students.
“There are no shortcuts to saving public education in Australia. The government should be encouraging good teachers back into the classroom by properly funding public education. That means better salaries, lower student-teacher ratios and world-class equipment and infrastructure.
“In a speech today, Education Minister Jason Clare said, ‘I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on who your parents are.’
“I couldn’t agree more. But if Minister Clare’s solution to the crisis in public education is filling classrooms with unprepared teachers and increasing workloads then he’s doing nothing to change that.”