The Department of Education has launched two new pilot programs to help regional schools access casual teachers when they need them.
Minister for Education, Sarah Mitchell said a trial to provide public schools in regional NSW with more casual teachers is to begin in Term One of next year.
“It can be difficult to attract and retain teachers in rural and remote areas for a number of reasons including travel distances, lack of suitable accommodation close to schools and limited opportunities for teachers to access professional learning,” Ms Mitchell said.
“The hub and spoke pilot provides two teachers, employed in a ‘hub’ school, who can also address the needs of nearby ‘spoke’ schools,” she said.
“Through this pilot, up to 12 teachers will be employed and will be able to be deployed quickly to a nearby spoke school to cover classes.”
Ms Mitchell said the pilot program would also provide certainty to casual teachers, with the knowledge that they had a permanent position.
“The program targets schools with the greatest reported shortages and grouping them in travel distance clusters to reduce average commuting times to less than an hour,” she said.
She said another pilot program, the in-built relief model first piloted in 2019, would be extended to a carefully selected number of schools this year.
“One temporary teacher will be embedded in each school to provide relief when permanent teachers are unavailable due to professional development or illness.”
Ms Mitchell said the trials would improve the proposition of teachers working in rural or remote schools by reducing commuting time; offering longer engagements; offering temporary or permanent appointments that included leave and other benefits; providing employment certainty; and investing in professional development and learning for teachers.
