Teaching Now By Numbers
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday September 28, 1997
First the glut, next the shortfall. Australian teachers are already in hot demand - and soon they'll be in short supply, writes GRAHAM WILLIAMS.
UNIVERSITIES are wooing teachers with a wide array of postgraduate offerings - from diplomas to doctorates - all of which will make them hotter property as a major international shortage of teachers develops.
Australian teachers are winning a global passport to jobs in Britain, New Zealand, the United States and Canada, where shortages are fast developing.
Moreover, a looming shortfall of primary and secondary teachers in Australia has been hastened by a 40 per cent cut in teacher education intakes across the country in the past decade.
Bob Meyenn, professor of education at Charles Sturt University, says it will be only a few years before Australia has a severe shortage of teachers. "We are part of the global market now - and the rising demand overseas for our teachers is about to grow markedly.
"A US commission on teaching predicts a demand for 2 million more teachers in the next decade into a workforce of now 3 million, because of rising school enrolments and teacher retirements, and this will give our teachers good opportunities to teach there. New Zealand is advertising for teachers and there is an insatiable demand for teachers in South-East Asia, especially for native English speakers in Japan, Korea and Malaysia."
In Australia, despite a long waiting list of teachers in NSW, many of whom "want to teach only on the North Shore", Meyenn says teachers are now in short supply in the western suburbs and rural areas to teach technical and applied studies, maths, the sciences and geography.
The output of teachers is being reduced because of a spate of rationalisations, including the University of NSW's opting out of primary teacher education with its decision to close the St George campus.
Teacher education courses are run by several universities, among them the Ku-ring-gai campus of the University of Technology, Western Sydney, Sydney, Wollongong, Southern Cross, Newcastle and Macquarie - and all offer postgraduate studies.
However, while no fees will be charged for basic postgraduate teacher qualifications, teachers who want to acquire specialist qualifications will pay up to $7,600 for a teaching diploma next year.
The one-year diploma of education and two-year master of teaching that has replaced the diploma at some universities are among the few postgraduate courses quarantined from becoming fee-paying, at least for the moment. However, teachers began paying this year for most specialist qualifications, and they will pay more next year. Graduate diplomas in primary music and special education at the University of Technology, Sydney, which are now HECS courses, will cost $7,600 each in fees next year.
Sydney University imposed fees this year for all specialist master's degrees - teaching and learning, special education, technology in education - at a rate of $4,640 for the degree ($580 for each of eight courses). These will rise to $5,600 ($700 a course) next year. "We enrolled slightly more students - all teachers - this year than last year, when this was a HECS course," says the acting dean of education, Professor Ken Sinclair.
The one-year DipEd is being replaced by the two-year master of teaching at some universities, but this is cutting back the throughput of teachers. Sydney and the University of Western Sydney (Nepean) are among those which have taken this option.
But the output of specialist secondary teachers at Sydney is only half that of the DipEd because Sydney has kept the same number of places which are to be spread over two years.
Sinclair argues that the new master's degree is the only way to go. "Trying to train secondary teachers in one year, given the massive knowledge explosion in all curricula and the sophistication in teaching, has been a major problem and is the main reason we went to two years," he says.
"Also, Queensland State schools now will not accept anyone without a two-year teacher qualification and I think other universities will be forced to move to the master of teaching."
He says there is mounting evidence of teacher shortages in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Britain.
CSU's Bob Meyenn says teaching is an area with good prospects because of the shortages now building up.
"While many other universities have cut back intakes, we have maintained our numbers and are expanding the range of programs with new courses to train graduates as primary and technology teachers. We are probably the biggest faculty of education in Australia with 2,500 students, 1,100 of them in undergraduate courses and 300 of them distance education students."
Three teams of British headhunters visited Australian campuses last year to recruit graduating students. "I have a letter from a recruitment agency that recruits specialist relief teachers in the UK asking me to arrange for them to come through again, as they did last year," he says.
Mike King, the recruitment manager of the British agency Capstan Teachers, agrees that a shortage of teachers is emerging in Australia. He says hundreds of newly qualified Australian teachers had gone to teach in Britain because they couldn't get jobs in Australia "but that is changing because they now have more choice of jobs here and prefer to teach first in their own country before travelling".
The average age of Australian teachers going to London is increasing as older teachers enjoy working holidays. "They can earn a minimum of #85 [about $183] a day," he says.
Recruitment of Australian teachers by other countries during the past three years, combined with stringent financial curbs on local education faculties, means Australia may have to import teachers to meet a shortfall, says Professor Michael Dwyer, dean of education at the Australian Catholic University.
While New Zealand and Britain are recruiting Australian teachers, not enough teachers are being trained to meet local needs, Dwyer says.
A national survey shows a shortfall in graduates by 2000. "The deans of education are all worried that the financial pressures on us are forcing us to cut back intakes and that will exacerbate the looming shortage," he says. "My university has not cut back its intake because teacher education is so central to us.
"The big fear is that we will be importing teachers from overseas to meet shortfalls here. We don't have enough for our own needs, let alone to have them siphoned off to other countries."
The University of Wollongong is maintaining its teacher-education numbers at about 1,200 (primary and secondary). The vice-chancellor, Professor Gerard Sutton, says the university will respond over time to the increasing demand in areas such as maths and science teaching. He will push for more teachers to do full science or maths degrees as well as a diploma of education, rather than the integrated bachelor of education.
Teacher education accounts for 40 per cent of student numbers at the Australian Catholic University, which has eight campuses (three in Sydney, three in Victoria, one in Brisbane and one in Canberra), and employment rates are high.
This is because it caters for the large Catholic school system and "because we are very focused on client needs and our programs are very vocationally focused", says the vice-chancellor, Professor Peter Drake. "We rank highly in graduate satisfaction. In a survey of all Australian universities, we have the best graduate employment rate and one of the best graduate salary starting rates."
Dr Paul Whiting, senior lecturer in education at Sydney University, says he hopes students who are about to go to university will be prompted by the pending teacher shortage and recent good salary rises to embark on teacher-education programs.
A great many academics, even those with PhDs, are on short-term contracts of between one and five years, which makes their futures uncertain, Whiting says. "If you appoint academics on even five-year contracts, for the last 12 months they are looking for a job. They have a great deal of angst."
Academics must work increasingly hard, he says. Many work 50 to 60 hours a week and get only two or three weeks' break a year.
© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald