Why the ACT was spared the worst of a nationwide teacher shortage

At a time when the Federal Department of Education says Australia is suffering a shortage of 4100 school teachers – with fewer people choosing teaching degrees and even fewer completing them (about half), and then 20 per cent of those dropping out of the profession within three years – the ACT seems to be bucking a trend.

According to the ACT Education Directorate, for the first time in years, our public schools are starting the year “fully staffed”.

“This year, we start off the year with around 25 vacancies against around 4000 teachers employed, but of those 25 vacancies, we have more than 50 staff members, and we’re in the process of placing them,” CEO David Matthew said.

He added that the rate at which employees were leaving has also “stabilised since the pandemic”.

The directorate attributed this to the fact the ACT now offers teachers the “highest rate of pay” in the country, as well as “good conditions of service” and “reduced teaching hours”.

That’s quite a turnaround.

In a 2021 survey, the ACT Branch of the Australian Education Union (ACT AEU) found more than half of the ACT’s teachers “would not recommend teaching as a career”.

The figures went on to reveal that half of the ACT principals were “unable to fill ongoing or temporary positions at their school”, while 97 per cent of school staff said students were “disadvantaged and their learning outcomes compromised by split or modified classes”.

Almost all teachers reported working unpaid overtime every week, while more than one-third of principals worked between 10 and 15 hours extra per week.

Just like on the national scene, the result was burnout en masse.

In response, the union and the ACT Government agreed to form a task force to develop solutions.

The following year, in 2022, however, the situation reached a crescendo when there were calls for Education Minister Yvette Berry to resign after Worksafe ACT barred Year 7 and 8 students from attending Calwell High School due to staffing issues.

On one occasion, a shortage required one of the school’s teachers to supervise upwards of 75 students.

In response to questions from Region, the ACT AEU explained the good results for 2025 were “proof, if anything, the union strategy is working”.

“We were on the front foot early, raising our serious concerns back in 2021 … and got the government to agree to work with us,” president Angela Burroughs said.

In July 2023, the government signed off on a new enterprise agreement that pegs the starting salary for a teacher by 2026 at $91,396 – the highest in Australia. It also added a 60 per cent casual loading where there was no loading before.

Ms Burroughs said this alone helped attract more staff, but the “other really big thing” is granting teacher registration to university graduates in their last year of study, effectively fast-tracking growth in the workforce.

Other reasons are more straightforward, such as our smaller relative size compared to other jurisdictions in Australia and our “geography”.

“We don’t have rural and remote communities we’re trying to staff”.

Ms Burroughs cautioned that 25 vacancies with 50 staff in the process of placement is “not ‘fully staffed’ – that’s almost fully staffed”.

“You can’t make a direct connection between job vacancies and people you’re still processing because you don’t know whether they’re fit for the jobs that are not yet filled, and typically, they’re not, they’re specialist positions,” she said.

“I’d be nervous making definitive calls at this point – school hasn’t started yet and we know there’s a fair bit of movement in the first few weeks – but I’m cautiously optimistic.”

Over the border, NSW is seeing a smaller improvement, with some of the impetus including the “biggest pay rise in a generation” (now starting at $87,550). Teacher vacancies are the lowest they’ve been in three years, numbering around 1600 across the state’s 2200 schools.

The ACT AEU’s focus this year is on “our experienced teachers and school leaders”.

“Everyone got really good outcomes in the current agreement, but it was definitely the new educators that were the greatest beneficiaries,” Ms Burroughs said.

“We started the process of having conversations with our principal members late last year and, overwhelmingly, their concern is workload. It’s just completely unsustainable, so we need to continue to work with them on solutions.”

The current agreement expires in March 2026. The union will submit its new agreement to the government by July 2025.