NSW Teachers Federation has said the NSW Government’s announcement to lift the wages cap policy from 2.5 per cent to three per cent is not good enough.
“Today’s announcement adds insult to injury. It does nothing to address the teacher shortage crisis facing NSW public schools,” said NSW Teachers Federation President Angelo Gavrielatos.
Teachers are already experiencing a real wage cut with inflation running at 5.1 per cent in March 2022. This is despite the Premier’s calls to not have front-line workers’ pay fall behind.
“The Government’s own internal secret briefings show that teacher pay has been falling relative to pay in other professions since the late 1980s, making it harder to attract and retain the teachers we need,” said Mr Gavrielatos.
Together with unsustainable, crippling workloads this has resulted in a teacher shortage the result of which is thousands of students are having their education disrupted every single day.
With fewer people choosing teaching as a career, a dramatic increase in teachers leaving the profession and a significant increase in student enrolment, this crisis will get much worse.
We can’t sit back and watch students being denied their education and their future.
If we don’t pay teachers what they deserve, we won’t attract the teachers we need,” added Mr Gavrielatos.