Year 7 Teacher Recruitment Program

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (14:50): My question is to the Minister for Education. Can the minister update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is creating jobs right across South Australia, including in the regions, through the move of year 7 to high school?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (14:50): I thank the member for the question and it is a very important question. It is a good day to be asking it because today teachers right across South Australia, whether new graduates or indeed people on contract, whether people who are primary school teachers interested in a change of scenery or indeed people from other sectors interested in working in public education, can now apply for one of the 1,000 or so new jobs in secondary schools available next year.

Indeed, there is an increase as a result of year 7 going into high school of about 800 teaching jobs in the secondary system and then a couple of hundred more as a result of the increased numbers coming into secondary schools and, of course, natural attrition as well—1,000 opportunities for people to get jobs as teachers in our secondary schools around South Australia. It is a net increase of several hundred, at least 300 extra based on the previous year compared to the increase in high schools as against the fewer teachers required in our primary schools with the year 7s moving into high school.

But the great news for primary school teachers around South Australia, I am very pleased to advise the house and the community, is that there has indeed been such enthusiasm from our primary school teachers in South Australia to change their skills, to change their scenery, that indeed we have already had 100 primary school teachers locked in as moving into high schools next year and we anticipate the interest of hundreds more based on what we have already heard.

Some of the feedback I have had from primary school teachers keen on making the change has been that they have had a passion for a subject area—whether it be history or mathematics or English or art or drama—and teachers in all those fields among those I have spoken to in schools like Wirreanda and John Pirie and Mitcham Girls, where those schools have already made the change, and other schools where teachers have already been identified, now get the opportunity to teach that as a subject specialist teacher in a move to high school.

Often these are teachers who have enjoyed their time as a generalist teacher in primary school, but when they think back to when they were studying they had a passion for a subject area that they can now exploit as part of the next stage of their career. So those who were taken on last year, the 100 primary school teachers who are locked in, are already planning their professional development. As of today, teachers can now apply for those extra hundreds and hundreds of roles next year.

In addition to that, we are opening four new schools, the Aldinga Payinthi College, the Riverbanks R-12, the Goolwa Secondary College and the Whyalla Secondary College are also all recruiting, and primary school teachers are being recruited right now at those two R-12 schools in Aldinga and Angle Vale, as they are on the APY lands. Further primary school vacancies will be advertised in term 3.

So 1,000 jobs in our secondary schools is great news, but it is not just great news for teachers but it is great news for the students because it heralds that from the beginning of next year our year 7 students in South Australia will finally be in a secondary setting, as is designed and anticipated in the national curriculum to which we have signed up. Specialist settings are designed for specialist subject teachers to teach the curriculum in the way that it is done in every other state, in every other territory, in every other sector—the Catholic sector and the independent sector here in South Australia—and that is great news for our students because we want them to be on a pathway to success as much as we can.

It is complemented, of course, by the infrastructure work that is underway right around South Australia. From Renmark to Roxby, from Mount Gambier to Port Lincoln, there are upgrades at more than 100 schools that are going to be happening, more than 70 of those underway and a significant amount of that will be completed by the end of this year. We are very excited about the opportunities for our year 7s going forward as year 7s start in high school from term 1, 2022.