A national recruitment advertising campaign was launched today to attract new teachers for Term 1, 2021.
Jeremy Rockliff, Minister for Education and Training, said this was part of the state government’s commitment to “continue employing more staff in our schools, with an additional 250 teachers and 80 teacher assistants to be employed over six years.”
The campaign highlights the opportunities and advantages a teaching career in Tasmania offers, primarily targeting employment in regional, rural and high-priority locations throughout our state.
“We know that teachers are vitally important in improving educational outcomes for our students, and it’s our strong commitment to ensure Tasmania has a job ready generation of young people with the skills to succeed in life,” said Rockliff.
He said the campaign also aligns to the More Teachers Quality Teaching Action Plan, which is a key output of the Minister’s Education Workforce Round Table.
Shadow Minister for Education Josh Willie welcomed the recruitment of additional teachers for the Tasmanian education system is welcome, but believed an opportunity has been missed to secure the subject specialisations needed to improve the system.
Without a workforce audit for Tasmania’s education system the government is flying blind, he claimed.
“The Liberals have spent several years undertaking a workforce audit, but have failed to specifically target system specialisation gaps,” he said.
“In order to know how many science teachers are needed in Burnie, or what gaps there are for specialist maths teachers across the state, they need to know who’s on the books now. But they don’t.”
Willie, himself a former teacher, noted that Labor sought information under Right to Information laws after Jeremy Rockliff was unable to answer questions about the teaching workforce in Parliament. “The response to the RTI request – see below – noted that there is not a system that allows information to be captured about specialist teachers,” he said.
“The result of that is the government doesn’t know what specialisations it has or what it needs, and teachers end up teaching outside their area of expertise. It’s a missed opportunity to strategically develop the workforce to ensure we have the right teaching skills into the future. If Jeremy Rockliff has finally done his homework, he should release the workforce audit.”
Information about teaching opportunities in Tasmania can be found here.
