Thousands are getting ready to graduate university. But for those wanting to return to school as teachers, prospects for a life at the front of a classroom remain decidedly bleak. Almost half of Victoria's existing recent graduates are on short-term contracts and many more are struggling to find work – in a similar job market Australia-wide. mojo reports and speaks to a would-be teacher about his year-long search for full-time work.

By MELANIE BARRIE

ALMOST half of Victoria’s recent teaching graduates are on short-term contracts with many more failing to find work at all, the Australian Education Union has said.

As a new crop of newly qualified teachers prepares to leave university, the AEU has raised concerns that the use of short-term contracts in the state was “discouraging” good young teachers from entering and staying in the profession.

And government figures have revealed that a lack of full-time roles was an Australia-wide problem – especially for those qualifying as primary school teachers.

President of the Victorian branch of the AEU Mary Bluett said 47 per cent of first-time teachers were on short-term contracts, compared with 18 per cent in the profession as a whole.

“This is particularly discouraging for those looking to enter and stay in the profession,” Ms Bluett said.

"Fixed-term contracts are meant to be used when replacing teachers on maternity, long service leave, those seconded to other roles or to fill positions in schools with declining enrolments.”

But she said a surplus of graduates had led to contract employment being “over-used”.

The problem, she added, was particularly marked in the primary sector.

A report by the Australian Government’s Productivity Commission, released earlier this year, found that of around 16,000 students completing undergraduate teaching degrees each year, around half were expected to graduate with a degree in primary education.

Of 5500 teachers graduating from university in New South Wales each year, the Department of Education and Communities employs between 300 and 500 in permanent positions. Overall, there are 33,000 teachers on waiting lists for permanent positions in the state. 19,000 of them are qualified primary teachers.

In Queensland around three quarters of the 16,000 new teachers on the waiting list for permanent jobs were seeking work in primary education.

According to the report, a contributing factor to the surplus of graduates is that students are enrolling in courses without a reasonable understanding of their employment prospects.

A teaching graduate's story

Waiting.

That’s how graduate teacher Chris Barrie spends much of his day. Waiting, and hoping, to get a job.

Casting an athletically-shaped shadow across the paved patio in his backyard in suburban Adelaide, Chris should be sitting at the precipice of an exciting career as a high school physical education and mathematics teacher, having graduated from UniSA in May 2011 with a Masters in Education.

Instead, he is at home – yet again – on a Wednesday afternoon, detailing an increasingly disillusioned view of his profession.

Looking dejected, with shoulders visibly slumped underneath his Pulteney Football Club shirt, green eyes glinting in the early afternoon sunlight, Chris describes the hunt for a seemingly elusive job, a relentless search that has spanned the past year.

“I’ve applied for about 50 positions. I’ve had four interviews, at two schools. I’ve applied for jobs interstate, in Canberra and New South Wales. I haven’t heard back,” he says despondently.

Chris says when he began his journey to become a teacher he had no idea that finding a job would prove to be so difficult. After six years at university, gaining a degree in Human Movement and post-graduate qualification in Education, he is already considering his next career move.

“I’m actually thinking about going to TAFE and doing surveying. There’s a shortage of surveyors, and the money is probably twice as good.”

Chris is one of many young and enthusiastic graduate teachers across the nation who are struggling to find stable and long-term employment in a tough job market.

A survey conducted by the Australian Education Union last year found that more than half of new teachers in the public system in Victoria are employed on short-term contracts, and, of those, 70 per cent said having to continually reapply for jobs had a negative impact on their students’ educational outcomes.

The survey also showed that more than 50 per cent of graduate teachers intend to leave the public system within 10 years, and a third of those said they would seek employment in other fields. Currently 18 per cent of Victorian teachers are on fixed-term contracts, and the high rate of short-term contract teaching leads to uncertainty that makes life for graduates difficult – both personally and financially – with issues including job insecurity, the loss of potential holiday pay, and difficulty being approved for loans, cited in the survey.

Chris fears the situation may be similar nationwide.

When asked about the fate of his fellow teaching graduates, Chris says: “No one has permanency, basically. Most of it is contracts, short-term contracts. The majority are relief teaching. Some [graduates] have been lucky and gone to the country to get longer contracts. With relief teaching you can’t get a loan or anything though, so it definitely makes things harder.”

Finally, Chris recounts an anecdote. He went to buy a pair of thongs in a local surf shop the other day. The woman who served him was none other than one of his former university compatriots.

“That says it all, really.”