00:00 Principal Dennis Mitchell has spent more than a year trying to fill these classrooms with
00:06 teachers. A wave of staff falling sick this week couldn't have come at a worse time.
00:11 I had to split classrooms to cover them. I had no option but to do that,
00:15 otherwise we didn't have enough teachers for our school children.
00:18 His primary school in Mildura isn't the only school struggling with teacher shortages.
00:23 I was talking to a year nine boy who's had six English teachers for the year so far.
00:29 At Wodonga Senior Secondary College, finding staff has been next to impossible.
00:34 We've been putting up jobs all year and we, you know, like 20 to 24 positions
00:42 constantly and getting no applicants at all.
00:46 New figures from the Education Department show public primary schools in regional Victoria have
00:50 been the worst affected by teacher shortages, with many struggling to get more than two
00:55 applications per job last year. And it's even worse in secondary schools,
01:00 where regions like Ousegippsland and Goulburn received less than one application per vacancy.
01:05 That means that when school starts next year we will have schools and classrooms
01:11 where they don't have the qualified teaching staff that they need.
01:14 This is a crisis that has been years in the making. This hasn't happened overnight.
01:19 This is as a consequence of the COVID years.
01:22 Financial incentives of up to $50,000 are available to encourage teachers to head to the regions.
01:28 More than 400 have been paid by the government in the last two financial years,
01:32 with figures showing more than 90% of those teachers stayed in the public school system.
01:37 Now is a great time to choose a career as a teacher.
01:41 But principals say cash bonuses aren't enough to combat high staff turnover.
01:46 We've inducted 96 teachers into the school this year, so normally it would be about 10.
01:52 This issue is likely to be top of the agenda tomorrow's national meeting of education ministers.
01:58 The Australian Education Union says Victoria must push for more federal investment in public schools.
02:04 No matter what some of the critics say, funding is critical to resolve the many
02:09 issues we have in our public education system.
02:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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