Catholic teacher numbers in a 'better place', but govt incentives a hurdle

With the start of the 2024 school year looming, 16 teachers from Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand have bolstered the region's staffing levels, according to retiring Catholic Education Sandhurst director Paul Desmond.

"We have been proactive in our planning for 2024," Mr Desmond said.

"And we have done a lot of work by way of, getting any vacancies that we have known in the community. So our recruitment campaigns appear to have been successful."

Amid the shortage, Mr Desmond said it had been common in Bendigo schools for principals to stand in and teach classes.

Catholic Education Sandhurst had brought in the international recruits for the 2024 school year, the majority from Ireland.

The Australian positions were incentivized with flight assistance and aid to set up a home, which included assistance to find rental properties and a refrigerator full of food.

Despite the success of the recruitment blitz, Mr Desmond said the Catholic sector still struggled to meet incentives offered by the Victorian government for people to teach in public schools.

To attract qualified teachers to relocate to hard-to-staff positions in state schools schools, the state government provided recipients with a commencement incentive payment of up to $50,000.

"The provision of tens of thousands of dollars by way of scholarships only to one sector, that bothers us," Mr Desmond said.

In the face of the state scholarships Mr Desmond said his sector would continue to recruit "robustly" to fill teacher vacancies.

"It would be much easier if we didn't have to concentrate on that, but the government has created an uneven playing field," he said.

At the same time 12 months ago, almost 50 per cent of public school principals surveyed across Victoria said they were 'greatly concerned' about their ability to fill teacher vacancies for the start of the 2023 school year.

"I am aware that the government sector union is very concerned that the numbers are tight," Mr Desmond said.

"[All schools] deserve support from government, but we weren't getting it ... so we went off on our own and developed our own recruitment program, which to date has been very successful."

"But the further you get away from Bendigo, the more you would notice [staffing issues]".

South African and New Zealand teachers would also be among teachers to join the region's Catholic schools in 2024, Mr Desmond said.

Mr Desmond said there were around another 100 international teachers on "a list" to join central Victoria's Catholic education system, but stressed that international recruits only took the place of "homegrown" teachers when positions were hard to fill.