00:00Victorian students are back at school for the final term.
00:06Normal school day? Yeah.
00:09We're feeling really relaxed.
00:10Finding enough teachers continues to be a problem.
00:13There is still a teacher shortage.
00:15We've got a chronic teacher shortage across the system.
00:17I think we've got a fairly massive shortage.
00:21Data obtained by the Victorian opposition
00:24has revealed the state is spending almost a million dollars a day
00:27on relief staff, backfilling unavailable teachers.
00:31The spend is up over 50% in five years.
00:35And today we know there are 1,000 vacancies across Victoria
00:38when it comes to teachers.
00:40Victorian schools are suffering a teacher crisis.
00:43Where do you work?
00:44The figure is no surprise to Vern Hilditch,
00:47the principal of Wodonga Senior Secondary School,
00:50who's finding recruiting teachers his toughest task.
00:54It is generally very tight and still is very tight,
00:57certainly in rural and regional Victoria.
00:59Whatever you want to call it, and then create.
01:02And he says the school is spending more on bringing in relief teachers.
01:06A lot more, if they're available.
01:08The Education Union says the shortage is being driven
01:11by teachers leaving the industry
01:13due to increased workload and burnout.
01:16But the Education Minister says schools are well resourced
01:19and the increased spend on relief teachers
01:21doesn't necessarily indicate a shortfall.
01:24A lot of this stemmed back to the pandemic,
01:27where our teaching workforce worked incredibly hard right through,
01:30and now some of those teachers, in their right,
01:33they weren't allowed to take annual leave during the pandemic.
01:36They are now taking annual leave
01:38and some of them are taking their long service leave.
01:41We have this ongoing denial that we have a shortage problem.
01:45Tell that to the principals right now who are trying to find teachers.
01:49It's a classroom squabble that's showing no signs of stopping.
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