The Department of Education is to appoint hundreds of extra specialist support staff members, allowing teachers more time in the classroom and avoiding workplace stress and burnout.
The Minister for Education and Early Learning, Prue Car announced the additional roles at a stakeholder roundtable meeting seeking to address the urgent challenges facing public education.
“From Term Three, another 284 public schools will be able to employ the equivalent of 400 full-time extra administration staff or offer more hours to existing staff, to relieve the red tape burden on teachers,” Ms Car said.
“The new staff will join the 203 administration roles already in 128 schools as part of the School Administration Improvement Program since Term Three last year.”
She said the School Administration Improvement Program was part of a broader suite of initiatives the being introduced into NSW schools over the next two years to reduce the workload of teachers and principals.
“Teachers signed up to teach our children not to fill out paperwork,” Ms Car said.
“More time to teach frees up teachers to focus on better outcomes in the classroom,” she said.
“We can’t afford to see more teachers leave the profession at a time when we are already dealing with a teacher shortage crisis.”
The Minister said the initiative meant “there will be more of our dedicated support staff to help our teachers and students every day”.
“The schools administration and support staff are often the friendly face you see first when you visit a school. Now we will be seeing more of them supporting our teachers,” Ms Car said.
