A former WA school teacher says she experienced such a degree of burnout she was forced to leave the profession. The federal government has predicted by next year, demand for secondary teachers will exceed the supply of new graduate teachers by more than 4,000.
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00:00Hayley Gayle has swapped whiteboards for a fertility clinic in Perth's western suburbs.
00:08After 25 years of teaching, the workload and stress had become overwhelming.
00:13I had actually started to get physical symptoms in terms of stress-related things.
00:19I'd been to the doctor because I'd had heart palpitations and a few things like that, like
00:25breathing issues.
00:26She's now working as a donor coordinator, helping families link up with egg and sperm
00:31donors.
00:33During the COVID pandemic, when workloads exploded, the 53-year-old reached a tipping
00:38point.
00:39She's worked in both public and private systems and says teacher burnout is universal.
00:46It's not a school, it is every sector and the pay is not the issue because there are
00:51other times when I was getting paid more.
00:55It's the work-life balance, it's having basically no life.
00:59Teachers like Mrs Gayle are fed up by classes full to the brim and increased workloads.
01:09And it's driving them to leave sooner.
01:12I noticed quite a significant shift four or five years ago when I first started to work
01:16for the union that we saw teachers in that 60-65 year old bracket preparing for retirement
01:22and then post-COVID suddenly it's now 50-60.
01:25According to Jobs and Skills Australia, early childhood, primary and secondary school teachers
01:30were in shortage across every state and territory in 2022 and 2023.
01:37It also found primary and secondary school teachers were among the most in-demand jobs
01:42last year.
01:44The federal government estimates by 2025 there'll be a shortfall of 4,000 secondary teachers.
01:51It hasn't done similar modelling on primary schools.
01:55Experts believe the problem is far worse than what's been publicly acknowledged.
02:00We have seen teacher shortages in the past, no doubt.
02:02There has been moments of crisis which the media would have called a crisis and policy
02:07makers would have as well.
02:09But the scale and the scope of this particular crisis at the moment is unprecedented.
02:15Dr Karnovsky says the answer lies in more government funding in wraparound support services
02:21to ease the load on teachers, something he says contributes significantly towards burnout.
02:28They don't necessarily have the supports of counsellors, psychologists, social workers,
02:34even have occupational therapists, physiotherapists, people who can come into school and support
02:40teachers in the work that they do.
02:43The federal government says it's working to turn Australia's teacher shortages around
02:47through a range of reforms already in place, including Commonwealth-funded scholarships,
02:52paid practical placements for students and reforms to teacher training.
02:57One, two, three, four.
02:59Supporting teachers in meaningful ways so there are enough of them to inspire the next
03:04generation of learners.