Overseas teacher drive urged

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/overseas-teacher-drive-urged/2008/05/21/1211182895793.html
David Rood May 22, 2008
VICTORIA will need to immediately recruit teachers from interstate and overseas to avoid a shortage of high school teachers, according to an internal report to the Brumby Government.
Almost half of the state's government secondary schools had problems recruiting staff, the study found, with schools in Melbourne's urban growth fringes and Victoria's north and western regions the worst hit.
The average age of the teaching workforce is expected to continue to rise over the next five years, and a shortfall of almost 500 secondary-trained teachers a year is predicted.
The report on teacher supply, obtained by The Age, says this will require the recruitment of an extra 470 teachers each year "from interstate and overseas, previous years' graduates not working in the profession and from former teachers".
The ageing teacher population will result in increasing demand in areas such as special education, maths, science, physics, information technology and languages.
More than half of government teaching staff are older than 45, with the largest age group of teachers aged between 50 and 54.
Almost half of all state secondary schools reported difficulties filling vacancies, while half of combined primary and secondary schools had problems, up from 38.5% in 2006.
President of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union Mary Bluett said the teacher supply report had consistently forecast the huge shortfall in secondary teachers.
"The depth of the teacher shortage in secondary schools is being masked by teachers having to teach in areas outside of their expertise — particularly in country schools," she said.
Ms Bluett questioned whether overseas recruitment was the best way to tackle the shortfall, saying Asian countries, Britain and New Zealand were already recruiting Victorian teachers.
"The solution doesn't lie with the expensive overseas recruitment of teachers, which is a throwback to the 1970s. We need a significant recruitment campaign to get back those who have left the profession or studied teaching but never went on to work as a teacher."
The Education Department does not run a formal recruitment program for interstate or overseas teachers.
The number of teaching service staff on contracts has increased over the past year to 18.5%, but that remains lower than the 1999 peak of just under one in five staff on contract.
The report also found
that since 1996 enrolments in government schools had risen by 3.8% and Catholic schools by 3.6%, compared with more than one-third at independent schools.