According to a survey by the NSW Upper House Education Committee almost 60 percent of teachers in NSW are planning to leave within the next five years.
This is on top of 10,198 teachers who have already left the profession between 2020 and 2021. Nearly a quarter of school principals also plan to retire in the next three years.
Since the NSW Liberals have been in government, we have seen chronic and severe teacher shortages, with principals and teachers overworked, stressed and under-resourced. A national survey has disclosed that a full-time teacher worked an average of 55 hours a week - much of it unpaid.
It is not a surprise that teachers and principals are looking to leave the profession while the government fails to fix ongoing staff shortages and workload issues.
Of the 3,700 teachers the Liberals and Nationals promised to deliver, only 27 have actually been recruited into classrooms, and their plan to recruit 500 STEM teachers from overseas has failed to produce a single new teacher.
Furthermore, The $125 million "Teacher Supply Strategy" which the NSW Government claims will deliver an extra 3,700 teachers has $63 million of its funding still unallocated - more than half of the total fund.
As a result of the NSW Government's failure to fix chronic teacher shortages, our kids' educational outcomes are going backwards. An increasing number of students are being taught by 'out of field' teachers. Out of field teachers now account for 15 per cent of total teachers.
Despite the difficulties, our teachers do a spectacular job, particularly over the last two years where they have gone above and beyond to adapt to the challenges of the pandemic. We need to do everything we can to support our teachers and attract new, talented people to the profession.
