Teacher turnover: Is NSW Education in crisis?

A number of concerning statistics have emerged in recent weeks, raising important questions about the current state of education in Australia.

While more and more parents are turning away from the public and private schools to explore independent options, the most concerning of the recent statistics relates to educators, not the schools that employ them.

Data shows that over the past 10 years, the number of enrolments in teaching courses in Australia has plummeted by 16 percent. Of those who do enrol and go on to complete the course, up to half are deserting the occupation within the first five years on the job.

The demand for teachers is at an all-time high as an ageing workforce retires en masse, new property developments and communities explode and more schools are built.

The fact that overall funding for public schools has risen by billions of dollars in recent years shows that simply spending money on technology and facilities isn’t working. 

Since 2009, nationwide academic performance has dropped by over 20 percent in both mathematical and scientific literacy. 

Something isn’t right. 

Where are we going wrong?

According to the Federal Education Minister Jason Clare, the dropout rate of teachers is a critical issue, and he’s appointed industry experts like Sydney University chief Mark Scott to investigate ways to not only encourage more people to apply for teaching degrees, but to revise and redesign the way teaching is taught. 

The Minister points to the numerous inconsistencies in state-based education systems as an important issue. 

Currently, States and Territory governments oversee primary and secondary education - but there is no standard approach between them, they’re all different, which makes it virtually impossible to develop a standardised approach until the university level. 

While there is a national agreement in place that supposedly aims to harmonise the system, the Minister says the reality is that it's effectively useless. 

“The agreement doesn’t have any targets for what we should be trying to achieve, or a practical framework to get there,” Clare told NewsCorp. 

The current arrangement also extends to funding, with state governments charged with funding government schools, while the Federal government funds the others in varying degrees. This can and does create disparity, not just for students and parents but for teachers as well, in terms of resources and facilities at their disposal. 

But why are teachers leaving? Research shows that of the masses of educators departing in the first five years, many are citing the thanklessness and politics of the modern profession. 

Just last year, here in New South Wales, teachers went on strike in the face of chronic staff shortages, working conditions and a payrise that didn't come anywhere near the rapidly-rising inflation rate. Though they succeeded to some extent with the pay increase and there are hopes for more to come, little has been done about the host of other issues educators are still faced with every day.

A study by Monash University showed that nearly 70 percent of teachers don’t believe their position is respected by the public, while some former teachers have spoken about the difficulties in implementing new approaches against school boards often maintained by those who’ve been in the roles for extended periods and are less willing to make any significant change. 

With so many teachers dropping out of the profession so early, there are fewer than ever currently positioned in the early stage of experience (1-5 years) who can offer relevant guidance to the next wave of graduates in the face of these issues, which can be hugely beneficial in the early stages of a career. 

COVID, Casuals and Conditional Accreditation

The global pandemic had an inarguable effect on teaching and learning, throwing everything ‘normal’ out the window as teachers, students and parents all fought hard to adjust to a new way of doing things. 

While the current statistics about teacher dropout rates only go up until the pandemic, it’s hard to imagine that those numbers didn’t get significantly worse during the challenges of lockdown learning. 

A teacher who had graduated in 2019 after spending years learning a certain way to do things was suddenly forced into a new and unprecedented situation, while still trying to find their feet in the already challenging world of public education and with less available support due to lockdowns. 

Combine all of that with the challenges teachers already face, and it becomes easier to understand the attrition rate.

But COVID also posed unprecedented challenges for established teachers as well, with many educators seeing the pandemic era as a catalyst for career change, likely exacerbating the current shortage. 

Measures have been introduced both during and post-pandemic, with varying degrees of success - but none are without their potential downsides. 

Education departments in New South Wales were able to offer ‘conditional accreditation' to incoming teachers, allowing them to work in schools despite being in the final year of their studies. They also reached back through the ranks of recently-retired teachers, with more than 670 retirees and 4,500 final-year students filling teaching positions in 2022. 

But while these stop-gap measures have offered temporary relief to address the shortage, they’ve also created uncertainty about the future and serious fears about accelerating burnout among the newest members of the teaching profession. 

“Many of these casuals only have interim approval,” says NSW Shadow Education Minister Prue Car. 

“Without a long-term recruitment plan our schools will continue to experience shortages. After the disruption of the past few years, the best thing we can do for student outcomes is ensure they have a permanent teacher in front of their classroom every day.” 

The urgent need to address the issue also creates risks that could have further detrimental effects on the education system. Changing requirements or creating impromptu measures to encourage more workforce participation can compromise standards, and without national co-ordination, the current inconsistencies could become far more complex. 

Independents Day

The continuing difficulties in the public education system have had another effect as well - with a continued drop in public school enrolment numbers over recent years mirroring an increase in private, faith-based and independent school enrolments over that same period. 

Independent schools are the fastest growing sector in education, with a 15 percent increase in enrolments in New South Wales just this year. Though they only receive a percentage of public schools' government funding based on the median income of parents, those parents and communities also contribute significantly to the school. 

Some more conservative corners claim that the reason for a departure from the public system - and a reason for the declining scores - is due to a shift in focus in the  from the traditional pillars of reading, writing and arithmetic to a more social focus, including what has been sometimes branded ‘a woke agenda’ covering matters like gender and sexuality at a primary school level. These suggestions, and any potential impact, are difficult to verify at this point in time. 

While State government-run schools receive grants and funds for building programs from the government, approximately 90 percent of construction funding in Independent schools comes from parents and the community. 

Though plenty of debate has gone on around the value and individual merits of public, private and independent schools and the outcomes they can offer students and families, there is so far little data on whether these establishments create a better environment for teachers. 

Though research has consistently found that there is a negligible difference in academic outcomes for students based on private or public education, little research has been done into how the system is striving to provide teachers with the support they need, both in and out of the classroom. 

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Join RealSydney in the coming weeks as we dive into these issues, speaking with educators and schools to investigate the claims and causes of the current crisis, as well as the possible solutions that can deliver better outcomes for everyone. 

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