The union representing Victoria's teachers is calling for urgent government action, saying the state’s schools are in dire need of more staff. But the government insists schools are well resourced and statistics suggesting otherwise are overblown.
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00:00Victorian students are back at school for the final term.
00:06Normal school day? Yeah.
00:09We're feeling really relaxed.
00:10Finding enough teachers continues to be a problem.
00:13There is still a teacher shortage.
00:15We've got a chronic teacher shortage across the system.
00:17I think we've got a fairly massive shortage.
00:21Data obtained by the Victorian opposition
00:24has revealed the state is spending almost a million dollars a day
00:27on relief staff, backfilling unavailable teachers.
00:31The spend is up over 50% in five years.
00:35And today we know there are 1,000 vacancies across Victoria
00:38when it comes to teachers.
00:40Victorian schools are suffering a teacher crisis.
00:43Where do you work?
00:44The figure is no surprise to Vern Hilditch,
00:47the principal of Wodonga Senior Secondary School,
00:50who's finding recruiting teachers his toughest task.
00:54It is generally very tight and still is very tight,
00:57certainly in rural and regional Victoria.
00:59Whatever you want to call it, and then create.
01:02And he says the school is spending more on bringing in relief teachers.
01:06A lot more, if they're available.
01:08The Education Union says the shortage is being driven
01:11by teachers leaving the industry
01:13due to increased workload and burnout.
01:16But the Education Minister says schools are well resourced
01:19and the increased spend on relief teachers
01:21doesn't necessarily indicate a shortfall.
01:24A lot of this stemmed back to the pandemic,
01:27where our teaching workforce worked incredibly hard right through,
01:30and now some of those teachers, in their right,
01:33they weren't allowed to take annual leave during the pandemic.
01:36They are now taking annual leave
01:38and some of them are taking their long service leave.
01:41We have this ongoing denial that we have a shortage problem.
01:45Tell that to the principals right now who are trying to find teachers.
01:49It's a classroom squabble that's showing no signs of stopping.