Australia encourages retired teachers to return to work

The shortage of teachers is a headache for the education sector in Australia. In the state of New South Wales, the most populous state in the country, the shortage of teachers is so great that the state government has called on retired teachers to return to work.

At the end of last year, the state of New South Wales (Australia) was short of 2,000 teachers, of which 175 high schools lacked teachers to teach two basic subjects: math and English.

The state is also currently short of 500 subject-head teachers and assistant principal positions while the shortage of principals and vice principals is also becoming increasingly alarming.

Due to the difference in salaries, the teacher shortage in public schools is more serious than in private schools.

Faced with this situation, the New South Wales Education Department has just developed a program to encourage retired teachers to return to work. Accordingly, teachers who retired between 2019 and 2021 can return to work part-time and receive a salary. If these people work in rural areas, they will receive an additional bonus of 28,000 AUD/year. In addition, New South Wales is also expanding opportunities to be able to transfer more temporary teachers to official teachers, although this increases the budget burden.

The NSW government has also launched a $20 million plan to improve teachers’ skills to attract more people to the teaching profession. In addition, the NSW government is working with universities to encourage final-year students to teach in schools.

Previously, in China, the Ministry of Education and nine government agencies also announced a plan to encourage the re-employment of retired teachers to meet the increasing demand of schools.

This policy aims to meet the increasing demand for human resources in the education sector in the coming time, as well as to take advantage of a qualified and experienced workforce.

Over the next three years, China's Ministry of Education will rehire about 120,000 retired teachers nationwide, with the requirement that they be under 70 years old. The plan will apply to higher education, vocational education, basic education and private education.

To narrow the skill gap in remote areas, five years ago, the Chinese Ministry of Education rehired tens of thousands of retired teachers.

In addition, the Chinese Ministry of Education also issued an inter-ministerial guideline to launch an action plan to improve the quality of basic education. According to the guideline, by 2027, the enrollment mechanism for primary, secondary and kindergartens will be established in accordance with the country's urbanization trend and demographic changes. Accordingly, the number of kindergartens will increase sharply, with the proportion of public schools accounting for more than 60%.

The policy of re-hiring retired teachers is in line with the goal of improving the quality of education, while reducing the burden on parents, especially young people in urban areas. The cost of education and health care is always the biggest concern of urban people, and that pressure causes many consequences for society, especially the declining birth rate.

Minh Hoa (reported by VOV, VTV)

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