THE NSW Upper House’s Education Committee commenced an inquiry into teacher shortages in New South Wales last week.

The Chair of the Committee, Mark Latham said, “The committee will conduct a comprehensive examination of teacher shortages in the NSW school system – both the factors contributing to the shortages and the best ways to address them.

“Teacher shortages are a serious problem impacting on the learning of children across the state in very real ways.”

Mr Latham said the committee will examine the various contributions of long-term teacher shortages, loss of the casual teaching workforce, vaccination mandates, COVID-19 and other factors.

“We will also investigate the use of out of area teaching, merged classes and minimal supervision in schools, future teacher supply and demand, teaching workforce conditions, Initial Teacher Education, and the measures contained in the NSW Teacher Supply Strategy.”

Mr Latham said, “We’ll consider the various challenges that principals face in managing staff that may be contributing to the issue, as well as the impact of casualisation, temporary contracts and job insecurity across teaching, and more broadly, the status of the teaching profession.”

The committee is currently undertaking a separate inquiry into school infrastructure and has previously examined the NSW school curriculum.

Mr Latham said he expects the committee to make important recommendations to build the ranks of high quality teachers in the NSW school system, with the “end goal of a teaching workforce with the size, strength and skill to deliver the excellent education that we all want for our children”.

However, not everyone is enamoured with Mr Latham’s committee.

A representative of the NSW Teachers’ Federation told News Of The Area, “The inquiry is nothing more than political grandstanding.

“Over the past two years, we’ve had Government report after Government report, we’ve had inquiry after inquiry.

”It seems like every month, a new report is released that states that unless we lift salaries and address crippling workloads, we won’t be able to attract people to the teaching profession in the future.”

The spokesperson said action is needed on the teachers shortages and the only way to fix them and recruit the teachers is to invest in teachers through more competitive salaries and manageable workloads.

He said the recent wages policy announcement from the NSW Government will only make the teacher shortages worse, and, with inflation at more than five percent, the Government’s pay offer isn’t even enough to keep up with the cost of everyday living.

He said the Government has not offered any solution to alleviating teachers’ workloads and that teachers are working on average 60 hours a week, and not just in public schools.

A historic joint meeting between the NSW Teachers’ Federation and the Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT was held on June 21 to determine an appropriate course of joint action to approach the Government.

Teaching professionals, parents, other individuals, community groups, and organisations are all welcome to make a submission to the inqury by the closing date of Sunday 31 July 2022.

For information about the inquiry or on how to make a submission, please visit the www.parliament.nsw.gov.au, click on the ‘Committees’ tab, find ‘Portfolio Committee No. 3 – Education’ and follow the links to make a submission.

By Andrew VIVIAN