Teacher Permanency

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:59): My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills. Will the government deliver on its election commitment in relation to teacher permanency and, if so, when? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: During the last election the Labor Party released an election commitment that it would 'increase the percentage of permanent teachers by at least 10 per cent'. During budget estimates the minister confirmed, and I quote, 'The percentage of permanency across the preschool, primary and secondary systems is 80 per cent.' Labor's promise, therefore, requires that figures be lifted to at least 90 per cent, and progress has not been reported thus far.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (15:00): I thank the member for Morialta for this very important question, and I can say from the outset that, yes, we will deliver on our election commitment in the area of teacher permanency. I would like to tell the house about why it is so important now, more than ever, that we do that.

Many members of this place would have seen in the last few weeks there has been national coverage around teacher shortages. The numbers, in terms of shortages in some of the eastern states, particularly New South Wales and Victoria, are very high. What I have heard in terms of New South Wales is as many as 3,000 unfilled vacancies and 900 in Victoria. Fortunately, in South Australia, we don't face those kind of numbers, but it is a problem that is certainly coming our way.

I am conscious, as the Minister for Education in this state, that we need to be doing absolutely everything we can to make the teaching profession as attractive to people as it can be, keeping in mind that currently the system is quite inefficient in terms of how many graduates it is putting through. I think we have something in the vicinity of only 60 per cent of people studying their initial teacher education complete it, and then I think as many as 50 per cent of those who do complete it leave the profession in the first five years.

So what we were aiming at here with this election commitment was increasing permanency by at least 10 per cent, and the reason we chose the figure of at least 10 per cent is because there is disagreement across the system in South Australia around what existing levels of permanency are. I believe the union thinks that it is at, from memory, 70 per cent and the department thinks it might be 80 per cent, so instead of choosing a figure we have decided to say 'by at least 10 per cent'.

Now, why is that so important? Well, because we know that we have a lot of teachers who still remain on contracts. They are disproportionately younger teachers, and we know with the issues out there at the moment, particularly in terms of cost of living and housing affordability, that it is very important for these often young teachers to be able to have permanency, not just so they can see a long-term pathway in the profession and stay there, but also so they can actually secure a loan to purchase a house.

I want to make sure that we don't lose those young gun contract teachers in particular who don't have permanency who might instead, in this pretty incredible jobs and labour market that we have in South Australia at the moment where there are so many job opportunities, choose another path and leave the teaching profession. So, because of that, we have made the commitment to increase permanency by at least 10 per cent. We will absolutely deliver on our election commitment.

There are other things that we are doing, too, that I can report back to the house and the member for Morialta, and that includes making the regional allowance for those teachers who choose to go to a regional area to teach, which is currently as much as $5,000 per year, ongoing instead of capping out at the end of five years, which then of course results in that teacher deciding, well, I might return to a metropolitan area.

So these are just two of the things we are doing to make sure that we don't have the kind of workforce pressures and shortages in the teaching profession in South Australia that eastern states like New South Wales and Victoria are currently suffering from.