Schools use $20k bonuses, inbuilt relief to plug teacher vacancies in Canberra and Queanbeyan

Education Minister Yvette Berry said there were currently 22 vacant full time, permanent positions in ACT public schools as the Education Directorate was starting to recruit for temporary and specialist positions.

"Four hundred new or existing teachers have been recruited for the start of this year. All our schools are operational," Ms Berry said.

"Those 22 vacancies, doesn't mean that schools aren't operating fully... that just means that there are some positions that are vacant within our schools that we still need to fill."

Ms Berry said schools were able to draw on a central pool of relief teachers. However an Education Directorate spokesperson said this pool was no longer in place and schools were using inbuilt relief staff.

Meanwhile, the NSW government offered a $20,000 recruitment bonus for the recently-advertised role of assistant principal of special education at Queanbeyan Public School.

The role attracts a total remuneration package of $145,499 and requires experience in teaching children with autism, behaviour difficulties, intellectual disabilities and complex additional needs.

NSW deputy premier Paul Toole said the bonuses were part of a strategy to attract teachers to the regions.

"I think regional New South Wales is the best place to live and raise a family and if we're actually encouraging more people to move into the regions and encouraging those people with professions and that's got to be a good outcome," he said.

Catholic Education Canberra Goulburn director Ross Fox said there were around five vacancies in ACT Catholic primary schools while some secondary school subject areas, including maths, science and religious education, were more difficult to staff.

"We've been very successful, but we've still got some vacancies and as everyone knows, it's very hard to find teachers and so we've got to face that reality," Mr Fox said.

He said more than 60 beginning teachers joined the Catholic system this year, which was the largest cohort he was aware of. Relief teachers are extremely hard to find so Catholic schools are adjusting their staffing levels.

"In a number of instances, we've increased the staffing available to an individual school on a permanent or contract basis so that there's less need to get casual relief.

"And the reality is that there are very few if you put an ad in the paper, if you call around, there's very few people available to do casual relief."

Australian Education Union ACT branch president Angela Burroughs said the school staffing situation remained critical in the ACT.

"It's not good enough to say that the problem is only of the size of 20 or 30 [vacancies]," Ms Burroughs said.

"In high school, those teachers might have 150 students in the classes that they're responsible for. So it quickly adds up to a large number of students that are going without a dedicated teacher."

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Ms Burroughs said she did not consider maths and science teachers to be specialist teachers as these subjects were core curriculum subjects.

She said improving the working conditions of teachers was key to keeping them in the profession for the long term.

"There's no point only focusing on the attraction incentive. We have to focus on the retention incentives and in our view, that's about workload."

The ACT public school union members will be considering a proposal next week to help manage teachers' workloads and put a price on unpaid work that teachers do.

Ms Berry said workload reduction measures, including extra pupil-free days, would be considered this term.

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