"Our students deserve better": Staffing crisis leads to thousands of lost teaching hours

Department of Education figures for June show there were 12 vacant positions at the Dubbo College Delroy Campus, the second highest in the state after Chester Hill High School, and seven vacancies at the Dubbo College South Campus.

Three of the job openings at Delroy had gone six months without being filled.

"It's extremely distressing. Every school in the Central West and across the state is impacted by the shortages - and some obviously feel it harder than others," said Tim Danaher, NSW Teachers' Federation Dubbo Organiser.

"Delroy is an area which has a multitude of services and specialists and the fact we can't get teachers to come to Delroy, and not just Delroy but Dubbo, is a sign that the system is broken. There really needs to be some action from the government to address it."

The shortage of teachers in schools across NSW is the subject of an ongoing parliamentary inquiry which was established in June this year.

NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos said there has been a 67 percent increase in teacher vacancies compared to last year and fewer students enrolling into teaching degrees.

Short-staffed schools like Dubbo College's Delroy campus are often forced to merge classes or hold minimally-supervised study sessions outside of classrooms when a teacher phones in sick.

"When you don't have the staff to cover day-to-day classes there are a couple of impacts, one is the narrowing of the curriculum - if you don't have the breadth of teachers you can't offer those subjects. The other is the collapsing of classes," said Mr Danaher.

"If a teacher is away on sick leave that just adds to the problems of an already short-staffed school. There are examples across the state of over 100 students being supervised by one teacher - it's disgraceful."

According to the school's internal records, as reported by the Teacher's Federation in their submission to the parliamentary inquiry, there were no teachers for more than 1,400 periods in Term 1 of this year at the Dubbo College Delroy campus. Taking COVID-19 absences, out of the equation, there were still 1,000 lessons lost at the school.

In Term 2, there were more than 1,200 periods that could not be staffed at Delroy.

Teachers say throughout Term 1 and 2 there were multiple classes "every day" doing periods of minimal supervision on the school's back oval in groups which sometimes exceeded 200 students, with only two teachers to supervise. Teachers also said merged classes of 50 students were also "commonplace".

"There is no way, as a teacher, you can teach that many students, manage their behaviour and keep them engaged. It just doesn't happen. Teachers do the best they can but the failure is on the government," said Mr Danaher.

"It's extremely rich that teachers get blamed for student outcomes when there is a massive crisis facing the profession."

Official Department of Education data shows a total of 2,067 instances of merged classes or minimal supervision periods at Delroy in 2021 and 2022 so far, a total Mr Danaher said is still too high.

"That number was from weeks ago, so I would imagine it would be even higher now. If you think about it, with 30 kids per class, that's a lot of learning which cannot occur due to the government not addressing the issues impacting our teachers," he said.

"Our students deserve better, much better. The situation is quite shameful."

To entice would-be teachers into hard-to-fill positions - roles where at least two consecutive attempts to fill the position have been unsuccessful - the Department of Education offers a recruitment bonus of up to $20,000. Currently there are five positions across the Dubbo College campuses advertised with the $20,000 bonus.

But Mr Danaher said more needed to be done than handing out bonuses to attract applicants to job openings at schools in the region.

"They're still getting very few applicants for each position. In offering those bonuses we still can't attract teachers," said Mr Danaher.

"The whole system needs a reset. The hours that teachers are currently working to pick up the slack from where the government hasn't is absolutely, grossly unfair. This workload isn't attracting teachers into the profession."

"The lack of housing for teachers and services for young families also needs to be addressed to attract teachers to the area. But the main thing is that crippling workload."

Asked about the staffing shortage at Dubbo College Delroy, Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the department's new priority recruitment team is "already delivering results" in hard-to-staff schools.

"Most of the NSW Government's teacher scholarships already completely offset the cost of a teaching degree, and I am committed to ensuring we increase the uptake of these scholarships," she said.

"I would encourage all prospective teachers to visit the NSW Department of Education website to apply for one of the scholarship programs available, from amazing rural teaching opportunities to maths and inclusive education."

The Department of Education say the priority recruitment team have been "hugely successful" with 41 per cent of vacancies at schools in the program filled in the first two months.

As of September 19, there were still 7 permanent vacancies at Delroy.

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