MEMBER for Murray Helen Dalton has called on the NSW Government to include rural schools in a pilot administration program.
Aiming to free up to 200 teachers from some administration tasks, the pilot was only being rolled out across schools in Sydney, Lithgow and Port Macquarie.
Mrs Dalton said teachers across Murray were being swallowed up by bureaucracy, unnecessary administration and red tape.
“Teachers are leaving schools, burnt out from increased workloads, and it is time to look outside the square for solutions,” Mrs Dalton said.
Mrs Dalton said Griffith’s Murrumbidgee Regional High School had 14 vacancies, five of which had been unfilled for more than six months.
An internal Education Department document stated vacant teacher positions had surged to over 2000 places in 2022, with “stagnant salaries and increasing workloads turning people away from the profession”.
“Schools right across Murray are struggling to fill vacant teaching roles which is impacting on the education of our children,” Mrs Dalton said.
“Additional administration roles will help make teaching more attractive and lighten the workload.”
Mrs Dalton said she would like to see an increase to the point incentive status system implemented across rural areas.
“We need access to the pilot administration program, financial incentives, access to housing and a decrease in red tape,” she said.
“Once we start implementing these initiatives, we will start to get more teachers back into rural areas and the education opportunities for our children will certainly improve, along with the health and welfare of our very important teaching staff.”
