Earn and learn: Radical reform to give teachers a 40% pay rise
Lawyers, engineers and IT experts would be parachuted into classrooms to address crippling staff shortages under radical reforms that include pay rises of up to 40 per cent for the very best teachers.
The federal government’s Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership’s blueprint for fixing the teacher shortage is by recruiting university-educated workers to earn while they learn on the job to teach school students.
The plan includes a short “paid internship’’ for career-changers to earn cash while upgrading their credentials with a two-year masters degree in education.
Edmund Misson, Deputy CEO of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), told Liam Bartlett on 6PR Mornings it had submitted a report to the productivity commission outlining how to attract more teachers to the job.
“We do think higher pay for expert teachers that keeps them in the classroom, they don’t have to go on to be a principal to earn good money,” he told Bartlett.
Meredith Pearce, deputy federal president of the Australian Education Union, told Bartlett she is against the AITSL plan.
“The idea of career changes within our profession is not a new one, they bring a lot of expertise and knowledge and experience with them,” she said.
“Our concern with this proposal is the suggestion it should be a fast-tracked model… because what they don’t have is the teacher training.”
She questioned who determines the best teachers that are getting the 40 per cent pay rise and whether the best students necessarily made better teachers.
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