The Teachers Are Blowing Their Whistles!

Queensland Teachers Union president Kevin Bates said that Queensland's shortfall of specialised maths and science teachers was a reflection of more than a decade of declining graduate numbers in these subjects, as industries such as mining became more attractive.

"When people look at what can I earn against what am I expected to do for that income, they can find other areas where they can get a much higher return. In recent times we have been competing with the mining industry in particular."

Mr Bates said hundreds of Queensland teachers who were forced to take classes outside their subject area were usually just "a day or two" ahead of their students.

The unqualified teachers had to sacrifice a lot of their own time to 'study-up' these unfamiliar subjects.

Queensland Education will advertise in May 2016 in the UK, Canada and New Zealand, marketing places such as Mount Isa as "the city you haven't seen yet" and "not just another mining town".

Wanted : lots of teachers, call for qualified educators as schools struggle to fill positions, Amy Price, P.9, The Courier-Mail, 2 April 2016

It is extraordinary that many Queensland schools are simply not equipped to deliver the basic building blocks in areas such as maths and science.

(The shortage of maths and science teachers) is not a new problem, but one that is becoming more acute, and does raise serious questions about the efficacy of workplace planning within the Education Department.

How has this situation been allowed to deteriorate to the extent that it has in recent years?

There has been growing concern that our universities are churning out more and more teachers - and with declining entry requirements - but with a heavy skew towards primary teaching, and not in the areas that shortages exist.

Clearly a more co-ordinated approach is required.

We must fix maths and science for our kids and for our future, Insight, P. 60, The Courier-Mail, 2 April 2016

As head of a science faculty in a Queensland government high school, I can tell you that sometimes unqualified teachers are better teachers than the "qualified" teachers.

Over the past 20 years there has been an increasing shortage of locally trained science and maths teachers.

This shortage has been filled by skilled migration programs (largely from the Indian sub-continent).

The great majority of these teachers speak with a very strong accent that Australian kids struggle to understand.

They also come from a school system very different to Australia, theory-based, with very little practical work.

And in their system non-performing students are quickly removed from the schools, so there is little need for classroom management skills.

These teachers struggle with classroom management in Queensland schools.

This is one of the real reasons that kids turn off science and maths in the higher years of secondary school.

Robina Cosser says : So would it be better for everyone if we stopped trying to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear and encouraged non-performing students to exit the education system?

See if there is a survey or data about how many sub-continent background teachers are teaching maths and science in capital city, government high schools in Australia.

I am sure you will be astounded by the results.

Robina Cosser says : the migrant teachers would also struggle to understand the children.

I migrated from England in 1974.

On my first day as a teacher in Sydney I asked my primary class what they had done during the holidays.

The first girl's answer stunned me.

She told me she had "been oop foster".

I had no idea at all what she meant.

I struggled to glean some meaning from what she had said, "So, Foster is a place? You went to Foster?

I remember my shock to this day.

I had expected that Australian children would speak English English.

There is so much to learn when you first arrive, it is not easy for anyone.

Robert, Reader's Comment, Large number of Queensland high school students are learning maths and science from teachers not fully qualified, Lauren Wilson, The Courier-Mail, 1 April 2016 

According to the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) report titled 'Australian teachers and the learning environment' -

 * Almost 38 per cent of Australian teachers of students in years 7-10 said the subjects they were teaching were not included in their training.

 * 36 per cent said they were not properly taught how to teach the classes they were now teaching.

Not the usual subjects, Teachers taking classes they weren't trained for, Brittany Vonow, P.3, The Courier-Mail, 13 November 2014