THE state’s education system has been rated with an ‘F grade’ by Kim O’Keeffe, the Nationals Member for Shepparton. Ms O’Keeffe’s assessment came after recent reports revealing that the state is grappling with a chronic shortage of teachers, which is impacting education quality in the state.
In a statement, Ms O’Keeffe said, “these results and figures that have been recently published, show the Andrews Government hasn’t tackled these shortages adequately and with the Government failing to get a pass mark running the education system, we are only risking losing more teachers.”
Ms O’Keeffe cited a recent survey, which found that 76 percent of the 430 teachers and principals across the state who were surveyed, said the additional workloads caused by staff shortages were unsustainable.
“More than 73 percent indicated these shortages were leading to burnout, and 63 percent believe increased workloads are likely to cause colleagues to leave their profession early,” Ms O’Keeffe said. She added that more than half of all public schools in Victoria currently have classroom teacher vacancies, indicating that, “our children’s education is being disadvantaged and they are being left behind because of these chronic shortages.”
Ms O’Keeffe also highlighted that teachers, staff and school communities in the Shepparton District are facing ongoing challenges in trying to offset the chronic shortages without wrecking their own careers. The stress and unsustainable workloads are having an alarming impact on principals, teachers and staff, who are all experiencing extreme performance pressure and burnout, which, in some cases, is seeing many resign from their employment or take leave to escape the overload.
