Teacher shortage: Education Minister Sue Ellery reveals plan to boost numbers in WA public schools

Teachers will be allowed to work in public schools with just three years of training instead of four and more jobs will be offered to untrained students yet to finish their teaching degrees under a desperate plan to tackle WA’s teacher shortage.

The initiatives are part of the McGowan Government’s new $9.8 million package aimed at getting enough teachers in front of classrooms next year and preventing private schools from poaching them.

Three-year teaching degrees were phased out of Australian universities in the 1990s and even though WA’s Teacher Registration Board can register three-year trained teachers on a case-by-case basis, the Education Department previously insisted all its teachers had to have spent at least four years at university.

But now it says removing the four-year barrier for otherwise qualified local and international teachers acknowledges that experienced teachers had been shut out of the system and brings public schools into line with private schools.

The establishment of a new “pre-service teacher recruitment pool” will allow more trainee teachers in their final year of study to be employed in public schools, with extra professional learning, networking and potentially a job offer on graduation.

“We must continue to attract teachers to public schools and keep them in our classrooms,” Education Minister Sue Ellery said.

“We want WA’s next generation of teachers to have a range of professional development opportunities as they launch their careers, setting them up for a successful working life in the public education system.”

“We also need to have the right incentives in place to help staff the WA public schools that need teachers the most.”

Other new incentives include $5000 payments to attract and keep teachers in education support centres for students with special needs and offering “highly-accomplished lead teacher” positions in regional hard-to-staff schools to encourage aspirational teachers to move to the bush.

Trainee teachers working in science, technology or maths in a regional school will get stipends of up to $700 a week while those in metropolitan schools will get $250 a week to encourage more STEM teachers into public secondary schools.

The department will also provide support to schools to deliver extra training for teachers with three-year degrees.

It comes after The Sunday Times revealed last month a one-off $12.4 million initiative offering cash incentives of up to $17,000 to lure teachers to nearly 50 remote schools next year.

Ms Ellery conceded it was getting harder to find enough teachers to staff schools.

“Every year, school leaders work to identify and fill vacancies ready for day 1 of the new school year,” she said. “The filling of a teaching position at one school often creates a vacancy at another, so this is very much a rolling process.

“Thanks to existing programs, up until now we have been able to guarantee a teacher in front of every classroom. For example, at the start of 2022 the department was looking to fill approximately 2,500 teaching vacancies, and we ended up with around 3,000 teachers available to fill those positions.

“The numbers have been getting tighter, and that’s why we are investing in additional strategies to encourage teachers to apply for work in WA public schools ahead of the 2023 school year.”