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Speaker 1: Now are reports this morning, and we've spoken about this

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Speaker 1: a little earlier, that parents have taken aim at the

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Speaker 1: Education Department of a critical teacher shortages at a public

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Speaker 1: primary school in Catherine South Now. The ABC was reporting

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Speaker 1: earlier this morning that at least three staff from the department,

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Speaker 1: two of which are former principals, have been deployed to

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Speaker 1: the school to help fill the shortage in the short term.

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Speaker 1: Michelle Air is the branch president of the Australian Education

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Speaker 1: Union here in the Northern Territory, joins me on the line.

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Speaker 1: Good morning to you, Michelle, Good morning Katie, Thanks so

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Speaker 1: much for your time this morning. Now, Michelle, what is

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Speaker 1: the situation from your understanding in Catherine.

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Speaker 2: So there's a situation in Catherine is a similar one

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Speaker 2: really to what we're facing across the territory and there's

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Speaker 2: been a bit of meeting attention around this lately, so

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Speaker 2: I'm sure people will have been made aware of the

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Speaker 2: fact that we are currently facing a teacher shortage. That

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Speaker 2: has meant that we've started this school year with probably

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Speaker 2: a high end number of vacancies than we would have previously.

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Speaker 2: This is something the Union has been warning on for

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Speaker 2: a while in Catherine. They've got a particular situation where,

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Speaker 2: on top of some of the other issues that are

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Speaker 2: going on in the territory, Catherine teachers have been in

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Speaker 2: this battle for the last since twenty nineteen to be

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Speaker 2: recognized as a remote area and have a condition specific

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Speaker 2: to Catherine. And so yeah, it's particularly acute there at

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Speaker 2: the moment.

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Speaker 1: Now, how many teachers short are we as of the

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Speaker 1: first day yesterday.

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Speaker 2: The union aren't given specific numbers on this, so we

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Speaker 2: get the same publicly available data as everyone. We do

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Speaker 2: know there were more than one hundred positions advertised on

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Speaker 2: teaching the territory website, which is where the department posts

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Speaker 2: their teacher vacancy.

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Speaker 1: And that is higher than what we've seen in previews years.

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Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, it would be maybe regular to go into

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Speaker 2: a school seeing maybe twenty to thirty vacancies that have

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Speaker 2: been filled. And the Department's been clear with us that

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Speaker 2: they've kept a vacancy posted even if there's a temporary

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Speaker 2: like fill solution. Yeah, like the ones who are just

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Speaker 2: speaking of a redeployment or are relief teacher, they'll keep

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Speaker 2: the vacancy posted for a long term option.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so what we're seeing now particularly well. What I've

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Speaker 1: you know, what I've seen in Catherine is that then

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Speaker 1: some of those departmental staff or retired principles by the

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Speaker 1: look of it in some cases as well, are then

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Speaker 1: filling some of those positions that are currently vacant. Is

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Speaker 1: that right?

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Speaker 2: That is our understanding. So yeah, there's there's staff who've

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Speaker 2: come from the Department of Education offices in Darwin and

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Speaker 2: the regional office in Catherine, I believe to fill those positions.

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Speaker 2: Our concern there is that those staff have jobs to

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Speaker 2: do as well, but are extremely critical at the start

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Speaker 2: of the year around curriculum and student wellbeing, special needs,

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Speaker 2: student engagement, all of the things that teachers need support,

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Speaker 2: whether the schools need support was at the start of

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Speaker 2: the year. Those people are then taken out of those

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Speaker 2: jobs and put in front of students, which obviously we

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Speaker 2: need people in front of students. So it's just deciding

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Speaker 2: where are we going to put that energy.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like it's a tough juggle right now, Michelle,

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Speaker 1: And we know that there is that teacher shortage right

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Speaker 1: around the nation, but do you think that it's more

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Speaker 1: prevalent here in the territory or are we sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, on par with other states.

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Speaker 2: It's definitely more prevalent here in the territories. Numbers maybe

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Speaker 2: don't sound as shocking because we are working on a

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Speaker 2: smaller scale, but percentage wise we are struggling. And one

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Speaker 2: of the reasons that is it's so much harder to

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Speaker 2: attract teachers here and then keep them here and those

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Speaker 2: like we've talked about attraction and retention incentives, but also

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Speaker 2: at the moment, the workloads have spiraled out of control.

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Speaker 2: Burnout as just at an all time high, and so

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Speaker 2: it's for keeping people here that I'm especially focused on

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Speaker 2: at the moment, because teachers are geting to the point

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Speaker 2: going if I can get paid better elsewhere, why am

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Speaker 2: I staying under these workloads?

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Speaker 1: And correct me if I'm wrong. But we got a

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Speaker 1: call yesterday from one of our listeners signing Katie. You

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Speaker 1: know in some of the other states, they're actually offering

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Speaker 1: quite large incentives New South Wales, I believe, to try

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Speaker 1: to attract teachers to fill those jobs.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I have had similar reports, generally on a fairly

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Speaker 2: anecdotal basis, but the places that would be considered probably

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Speaker 2: rural at best, especially considering some of the extreme remoteness

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Speaker 2: of the territory. And I mean even with Catherine, you're

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Speaker 2: talking about really a quite remote place. Darwin has its

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Speaker 2: own remoteness to it, So we don't offer any of

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Speaker 2: those kind of bonuses to attract people to dar at all.

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Speaker 2: And then in Catherine and recently only in the last

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Speaker 2: week and Alice Springs, we've introduced some very minor attraction benefits,

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Speaker 2: especially consider ring. You know, we're talking in the tens

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Speaker 2: of thousands of dollars elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: It frustrates the heck out of me that we can't

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Speaker 1: do more to try to attract people to places like

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Speaker 1: the Northern Territory, Northern Australia, Regional Australia more generally. And

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Speaker 1: you know, then you've got these incentives in other major

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Speaker 1: states that are pretty close to capital cities where they

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Speaker 1: are able to, you know, to do so I mean,

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Speaker 1: what could we be doing differently, do you think, Michelle,

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Speaker 1: to try to fill those more than one hundred one

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Speaker 1: hundred teacher vacancies we've got.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a see there. I become very wary very

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Speaker 2: quickly of any solution that's proposed that is immediate, a

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Speaker 2: quick fix, and anything like that. Will you know, maybe

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Speaker 2: address the problem now, but for a sustainable solution, it's

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Speaker 2: going to take hard work, and that isn't an easy answer.

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Speaker 2: It's going to be a combination of things. So we

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Speaker 2: definitely need to be looking at that attraction and retention,

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Speaker 2: at how we're seated in the salary range, considering the

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Speaker 2: cost of living pressures on our teachers, but also hand

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Speaker 2: in hand with how are we relieving those workload pressures.

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Speaker 2: What can we do to make changes that will make

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Speaker 2: teaching a sustainable profession that people will stay in so

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Speaker 2: we're not losing so many people out the door. If

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Speaker 2: one of those fixing one of those solutions and not

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Speaker 2: the other, I don't think will work. We have to

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Speaker 2: do both of them together.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, the pressures on teachers these days

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Speaker 1: seem to be quite different to what they were in

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Speaker 1: years gone by, in the sense that you know, some

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Speaker 1: people are expecting our teachers to, you know, to teach

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Speaker 1: our children things that I really believe should be the

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Speaker 1: parent's job. But you know, I guess that's a whole

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Speaker 1: other discussion, and we want to make sure that our

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Speaker 1: teachers do have the opportunity to really do the job

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Speaker 1: that is in front of them, and that is to

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Speaker 1: educate our children, which they do a phenomenal job at,

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Speaker 1: but some of those outside pressures and some of those

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Speaker 1: extra workloads will be making it more and more difficult

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Speaker 1: to do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And what I will say is, when it comes

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Speaker 2: to teaching children, teachers know how to do it. It's

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Speaker 2: what they're good at, it's what they've taken time to study,

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Speaker 2: they've got experience doing. And what we're trying to do

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Speaker 2: is just get the government to get out of the way,

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Speaker 2: the Department of Education, et cetera. Get them to invest

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Speaker 2: in teachers, give them good opportunities for you know, learning

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Speaker 2: and growth so that they've got the best practice possible.

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Speaker 2: But then also just acknowledge, Hey, these teachers actually know

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Speaker 2: what they're doing. We don't need seven thousand forms to

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Speaker 2: prove that they're doing it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Hey, Michelle, you know we've spoken obviously about the

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Speaker 1: impact that this is having on teachers and those vacancies,

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Speaker 1: but what does it mean for the kids as well,

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Speaker 1: which is you know, such a huge, huge part of this.

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Speaker 2: That's I mean, that's a brilliant question because at the

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Speaker 2: end of the day, that's really what it's what it's about.

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Speaker 2: The Education Department, the EDU teaching is about students' futures.

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Speaker 2: It's about the future of the Northern Territory, and that

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Speaker 2: is that's what that's what's at stake here. So I

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Speaker 2: think I would be very surprised if students going back

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Speaker 2: aren't recognizing that there's a difference in the fact that

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Speaker 2: we're scrambling to fill these vacancies. It means that, you know,

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Speaker 2: it's slightly less safe or slightly less A better way

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Speaker 2: of putting out is it's less easy to create this

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Speaker 2: kind of conditions that are like a safe learning environment

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Speaker 2: when you've got routine changes because teachers are being called

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Speaker 2: and switched to make sure we've got a teacher in

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Speaker 2: front of every child. There's a difference between having a

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Speaker 2: body in front of every child and having someone who

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Speaker 2: knows how to craft and create the kind of circumstances

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Speaker 2: that each of those children needs to learn very well

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Speaker 2: and then also to you know, to craft the learning

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Speaker 2: that those children need. Teaching is not it's not babysitting,

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Speaker 2: and it's not something that can be done by our computer,

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Speaker 2: or we'd all have a computer, you know, teaching our kids.

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Speaker 2: It's a highly qualified, you know, profession that takes. We're

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Speaker 2: working with small humans here, and I know i'm speaking

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Speaker 2: to you as another from humans. Every single one of

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Speaker 2: them is different and it takes a professional to know

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Speaker 2: how to address their needs. And that's what we're really

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Speaker 2: getting at here. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Look, I cannot speak highly enough of teachers. I think

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Speaker 1: it is such a tough job, and it is. It

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Speaker 1: must be such a rewarding job when you're able to

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Speaker 1: be left to teach and not have to worry about

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Speaker 1: some of the other you know, some of the other

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Speaker 1: stuff that I know so many of our teachers have

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Speaker 1: to deal with these days. But it is, it's such

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Speaker 1: a tough job, and you're truly helping to shape the

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Speaker 1: minds of our young people and to educate them to

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Speaker 1: open their minds up to the world. And it's so

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Speaker 1: important to do and it's so important that we've got

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Speaker 1: great people doing that job, particularly here in the Northern Territory.

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Speaker 2: And I'd say you've hit on something really important there, Katie,

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Speaker 2: and that is that it is a really rewarding job

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Speaker 2: when you have the capacity to do it. And that

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Speaker 2: is some of what we're losing in this when we're

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Speaker 2: talking about the workload's getting out of control. We're talking

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Speaker 2: about burnout, people being shifted around. We're losing those opportunities

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Speaker 2: for teachers to you know, have that as a rewarding job.

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Speaker 2: It just becomes, you know, you're the soldier going to

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Speaker 2: work every day to get done the tasks in front

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Speaker 2: of you and then go home. We have to acknowledge

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Speaker 2: that a teaching there is an emotional component to it,

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Speaker 2: and yeah, absolutely we need to invest in our schools,

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Speaker 2: our teaching staff and make sure that well being as

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Speaker 2: high for both students and teachers and that everyone can

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Speaker 2: just do the best job to give this territory the

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Speaker 2: best future it can help.

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Speaker 1: Spot On, Michelle Airs, it is great to speak with

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Speaker 1: you this morning before I let you go. I know

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Speaker 1: there's lots of you know, there is obviously a lot

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Speaker 1: of concern about those teacher vacancies, But how did the

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Speaker 1: first day go for all of our wonderful teachers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm getting I'm getting some good reports honestly from

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Speaker 2: some of our teachers in schools. I know that it

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Speaker 2: hasn't been the easiest start to the term with the

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Speaker 2: things we've already discussed today, but you know, everyone for

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Speaker 2: the most part, is back. The kids are back, the

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Speaker 2: teachers are back and wanting to get on with the job.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, people are generally interested and intrigued to see

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Speaker 2: how the year plays out. And hopeful, I think might

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Speaker 2: be the word I'm looking for. There is so we

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Speaker 2: haven't necessarily had the best start, but there is hope.

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Speaker 1: Michelle, lovely to speak with you this morning. Always good

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Speaker 1: to catch up. Thank you for your time.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Pepe, Katie, thank you