Greater Shepparton Secondary College
Ms RYAN (Euroa) (17:21): (5829) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Education, and the action I am seeking is for the minister to address a dire teacher shortage at the Greater Shepparton Secondary College. As if things were not bad enough at the Shepparton super-school after everything that the students, teachers, families and staff have been through, we now have a teacher shortage. Yesterday morning 13 classes at the Mooroopna campus and 11 classes at the Wanganui campus were without teachers. That is 24 classes across years 9 to 12 that did not have teachers at the start of the day. The school actually put out an email asking for teachers to volunteer to take up extra classes because they could not get enough casual relief teachers to fill the gaps. In the end some classes had to be broken up and divided among other classes, some year 12 classes were left unsupervised and one class was supervised by the school nurse. This is not good enough for Shepparton students, and it is not good enough for the staff and teachers. The pressure that is on existing staff to fill gaps is immense and is creating a difficult, stressful working environment. Why would any new or casual relief teachers want to subject themselves to that? The super-school has now lost 82 teachers, and to make things worse at least at 12 teachers are on stress leave.
Shepparton resident Jenny Houlihan said that the minister assured the Greater Shepparton Voice 4 Choice Public Education group that the super-school would attract and keep teachers and that new staff would be flocking to be part of the new school. That is not the case. The super-school is losing teachers to Notre Dame, Rushworth P–12 and other surrounding schools. It cannot attract new teachers, and it cannot obtain casual relief teachers. What does this mean for Shepparton students and teachers? How can year 12s be expected to learn, be motivated, be inspired and succeed if no-one is there to assist them? And how can teachers be expected to continue working in unsupported, stressful environments? Now is not the time for the minister or the government to just let the days pass by. The forced amalgamation, the uncertainty, the lack of support and the lack of resources are punishing Shepparton students, families, teachers and staff. I ask the minister to step up, to take control and to urgently work with the department to address this teacher shortage in Shepparton.