9/10/03
Western Australia is ahead of the game in attracting and retaining teachers in Government schools, according to Education and Training Minister Alan Carpenter.
Mr Carpenter said while the Review of Teaching and Teacher Education report released by Federal Minister Brendan Nelson this morning showed the situation on a national scale was challenging, teacher numbers in WA remained healthy.
"WA has been preparing for a reduction in teacher numbers due to an ageing workforce and other factors for some time," Mr Carpenter said.
"We are ahead of the game, with a range of strategies and programs to improve numbers in areas of need and we are comfortably filling the positions in Government."
The Minister said the Department of Education and Training had easily been able to fill the 350 new positions created last year with the reduction in class sizes in Years One to Three.
"By February we had appointed 1,413 new teachers to WA Government schools," he said.
"This number includes 520 graduate teachers appointed from a pool of 1,380 who applied to the department for work.
"Though we had to turn away many of those applicants at the start of the year, we have now employed 768 graduates in total to date -158 of these teachers since May."
Mr Carpenter said the department undertook regular research profiling the teaching workforce in WA.
"Recent research indicates that although the number of retirements can be expected to increase over the next four or five years, exits of older teachers will not become significant until the end of the decade," he said.
"The teaching workforce in WA is an increasingly fluid workforce and the portability of teaching qualifications is a positive factor in encouraging young people to enter teacher training programs.
"A number of WA teachers seem to take advantage of the flexibility offered by a career in teaching, with many teachers, and more especially fixed-term teachers, choosing to work only intermittently with the department.
"Although a significant number of beginning teachers exit from the department within the first four or five years following graduation, an increasing number return to teach with the department and, as more time goes by, more of those teachers who had ceased employment return."
Mr Carpenter said the Gallop Government continued to provide incentives for teachers to work at remote and difficult-to-staff schools across the State.
"Our teacher recruitment campaigns are specifically targeted at increasing the pool of teachers able to go to difficult-to-fill country locations and subject areas, such as maths and science and technology and enterprise," he said.
"During the past few years the Government has released a range of scholarships and other programs designed to fill such positions now and into the future."
Minister's office: 9213 6800
