South-Eastern Metropolitan Region
Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:04): (674) My constituency question is to the Minister for Education. Minister, many schools are short staffed and have struggled to get trained teachers for their subject areas. Meanwhile, the Victorian Institute of Teaching is taking a long time to process simple teaching applications and provide final-year preservice teachers with permission to teach. Applicants are being told it will take four to six weeks to process their applications. Minister, my constituent is a fourth-year bachelor of education student. She has won Monash University awards for her teaching, she was trained in Melbourne, regional Victoria and a top international school and she was given a part-time teaching contract in December 2023 using her teaching area of expertise. She is now waiting, and actually coming into her eighth week of waiting, for permission to teach at a local regional school. Minister, why are these applications taking so long, and what are you going to do to speed up this process so Victorian students can have teachers in their schools?