‘Terrible’ teacher shortage forces John Paul College to introduce remote learning

A Kalgoorlie-Boulder high school has temporarily moved students to online learning across one day per week as it battles a severe teacher shortage. John Paul College introduced three remote learning days for Year 7 to 10 students during the final weeks of term three. Affected students spent four days on campus and conducted online learning on Wednesdays. Year 11 and 12 students remained unaffected. Principal Keith Nicholas said the college allocated three consecutive Wednesdays for virtual learning, the first being August 28. With schools across the country experiencing teacher workforce shortages, Mr Nicholas said the Goldfields college relied on international staff to fill vacancies. He said delayed visa applications combined with unexpected illnesses meant the college was faced with critically low staff numbers. “We are currently experiencing a terrible teacher shortage and that has had quite a big impact on teachers’ workloads,” Mr Nicholas said. “We’ve had to really look at how we can help teachers better prepare themselves for their own classes, but also how we manage them covering other classes. “We anticipate this is a short-term (solution). “We are grateful to our parent community for their support at this time because things are pretty tough out there.” Mr Nicholas said parents and guardians were notified of the remote learning days via email last month and believed students’ education remained unaffected. “Our biggest focus has been to ensure that there is educational continuity,” he said. John Paul College currently has about 700 students and employs 56 teaching staff. As metropolitan schools attempted to fill vacancies amid a national teacher shortage, Mr Nicholas said new graduates were no longer motivated to relocate to regional WA to gain experience. He said the Federal Government could introduce a HECS relief initiative to attract graduate teachers to regional schools.