I believe it is largely a retention problem. Major political parties are thoroughly captured by the private school lobby and the religious enterprises that run them. It's almost like they are running the public system down to help out their mates.
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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Governments have largely ignored the key causes of low teacher pay, high workloads, too much administrative work, lack of support and safety at work.
Low teacher pay seems like a bit of a stretch. Most states have teachers paid over 100k within a few years of graduating. I think NSW, ACT and WA all start new grads at 85-90k.
I agree that both
- teachers are underpaid
- pay is not remotely the main reason teachers leave
Higher pay would help attract more teachers and therefore could help reduce workload if public schools were given the funding to employ them. But low pay is not a major reason why people leave the profession.
Be wary of any article talking about shortages as it's a supply demand curve and the demand is the one posting. Also in Vic for people with a degree they can get a 1-year teaching diploma rather than a 4 year education degree, so the supply could quickly scale up if it was an actual attractive option, teaching isn't exactly a occupation where people don't know it exists so it has a lot of visibility.
Be wary of people applying Econ 101 concepts where they aren't applicable.
Education is a public good and the market will never provide adequate supply. It requires public policy to provide it. You're right that if public schools made teaching an attractive option there would be more teachers, but then that's the point of the article.