Less young people are deciding to become teachers, an Australian Bureau of Statistics study has shown.
According to the ABS, the ratio between students and teachers has been slowly declining since 2015.
Holy Spirit Primary School vice principal, Christopher Raymond says the school is feeling the pressure of the teacher shortage.
“As soon as someone is sick and there is a gap to fill, finding extra teachers to cover that is almost impossible,” he said.
Source: Australian Bureau Statistics
In 2024, over half of Australian principals have reported a teacher shortage.
Source: Australian Education Union (AEU)
In 2024, the Labor government introduced teacher pay rises, greater permanent roles for school support staff and expansion of the education departments recruitment support in an attempt to address the teacher shortage crisis.
Deputy Premier and Minister for Education, Prue Carr said in a NSW Government press release, that teachers were feeling supported.
“The drop in resignations and retirements shows teachers are hearing that we value their work and are supporting them to focus on delivering quality teaching and learning,” she said.
Although, statistics has shown that the teacher shortage is still a live issue that is not only affecting education, but the workload expected of teachers.
Workload remains the most common reason for intending to leave the profession prior to retirement.
Mr Raymond says that the flow on effect of teacher shortages is manifesting itself in student wellbeing.
“There has been an increase in dealing with student wellbeing before education,” he said.
“Young teachers are not prepared with the difficulty in dealing with student wellbeing issues and the extra compliance, paperwork and procedures that come with that.
“Teacher wellbeing then flows on from student wellbeing; it is impacting them”
The teacher shortage comes from a number of factors, Australian Teacher Workforce data shows that there is a decline in young people turning to teaching and an increase in existing teachers leaving the profession.
The biggest reason being the impact of mental health on the profession.
Researcher in the UNSW School of Education, Dr Helena Granziera, says in a UNSW study that teachers suffer from unusual levels of depression, anxiety and stress.
“Our findings show that teachers are experiencing mental health symptoms at rates far above the general population, and that these symptoms are closely linked to their workload and intentions to leave the profession,” she said.
In an attempt to reconcile the lack of inflow of new teachers, Australian Universities have lowered the required ATAR for acceptance into teaching courses.
In 2025, 443 students who achieved an ATAR under 50 were offered places in University teaching courses.
This has raised concerns about the standard and quality expected of our teachers.
Mary Immaculate Primary School teacher, Annabelle Marshall is in her first year out of university and says that university does very little to prepare teachers for their first year on the job.
“Teaching isn’t just standing in front of a classroom, its child behaviour, its dealing with parents, its piles of paperwork. This stuff can’t be found in a uni course,” she said.
A recent study found that nearly 70 per cenbt of teachers say the workload is unmanageable.
Ms Marshall says that she thinks the solution is more about university placements in a real world setting.
“That’s when I learned the most about what it was going to be like once I was on my own in front of a classroom,” she says.
“There were some points this year where I was overwhelmed just because things happened that I was just never taught how to handle.
“If teachers had more exposure to the reality of teaching, I don’t think those first few years would be such a shock, sometimes it feels like I started a completely different job to the one I was studying for.”
University placements have been at the centre of controversy for the last few years, with students voicing the difficulty of unpaid labour amid a cost-of-living crisis.
In July last year, the government’s new ‘prac’ payment scheme kicked off, offering up to $331 a week for some nursing and teaching students completing compulsory professional placements.
Statistics has shown that the number of teachers leaving the profession continues to grow, despite attempts to address the crisis.
Infographic source: Australian Teacher Workforce Data
