Education Minister Sarah Mitchell has been caught fudging the figures on NSW teacher shortages on the same day a Parliamentary report revealed the serious impact shortages are having on students’ education.
Minister Mitchell claimed reports of thousands of teacher shortages were “not true”, but the Minister conveniently forgot her own data which shows exactly that.
Data the Minister herself provided to the NSW Parliament only last week shows thousands of vacant teacher positions in NSW schools.
THE FIB:
- “For Labor to use these to claim that there is some kind of shortage of thousands and thousands of teachers is just not true. The data doesn’t stack up.” [ABC TV News, 8 November 2022]
THE FACTS:
- “As at 10 October 2022 (start of Term 4, 2022) there were 2,458.70 FTE vacant teaching positions”
In 2021 Education Minister Sarah Mitchell previously claimed teacher shortages were a “beat-up”, despite being forewarned about increasing teacher shortages.
NSW Labor Deputy Leader and Shadow Minister for Education Prue Car said:
“Dominic Perrottet’s Education Minister is out telling fibs about teacher shortages, instead of admitting her government’s failures and setting about fixing them.”
“Ask any teacher, parent or student and they will tell you about the seriousness of the current teacher shortages.”
“It seems there is no limit to the lengths this 12-year-old Liberal Nationals Government will go to, to try and cover up the teacher shortage crisis they have created.”
PRUE CAR MP
NSW LABOR DEPUTY LEADER
NSW SHADOW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION
