Opinion A teacher surplus is hiding in plain sight
As teacher shortages hit classrooms across the country, the federal education minister, Jason Clare, is meeting his state and territory counterparts on Friday to address the problem. Their challenge is how to find more than 4000 new secondary teachers by 2025.
If Australia’s teachers were more equitably distributed, our teacher-supply problem would be significantly eased. This would be especially so in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia. Public schools and some Catholic schools are being starved of teachers while, in number terms, wealthier independent schools have a surplus.The numbers tell the story. Independent schools in major cities had an overall student-teacher ratio of 11.
Some might say it pays off in better results. But it doesn’t. The evidence shows that schools with similar demographics. Anyone can use the My School website to see the impact of socio-economic status of school enrolments on students’ results. Comparisons of apples with apples show public schools achieve much the same results as independent schools, at a lower cost and with less favourable student/teacher ratios. Imagine what most public schools could achieve with better teacher resourcing.
Their public funding – and results – might be at similar levels, but the regulations around staffing are anything but. The higher up the ICSEA scale, the greater the disparity between the private sector, both independent and Catholic, and the public sector in the number of teachers compared with students.
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