Scholarships for rural teachers

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HIGH-QUALITY teachers are being offered up to $50,000 to work in hard-to-staff country schools.

Design and technology teachers are the latest to be targeted under the Education Department's scholarship program to ensure the state's public school students have access to the best teachers.

Five $50,000 country teaching scholarships targeting high-quality final-year design and technology teacher education students were advertised this week.

Three more $40,000 scholarships were also offered to university students in their final year of maths and science teaching to meet the demand in country areas.

A department spokeswoman said there was a shortage of design and technology teachers, who were needed in middle school for classes such as woodwork and metalwork and in the senior years for vocational education and training qualifications that led to trades.

"Incentives for all targeted recruits include scholarship money, permanent employment and ongoing support in their first years of teaching," the spokeswoman said.

"The department is keen to recruit high-quality design and technology teachers and for this reason does not have a specific target (capping the number of scholarships to be offered).

"Yearly targets are set to ensure that there is sufficient demand and scholarship numbers are determined based on this information."

The spokeswoman said future scholarship and incentive programs would ensure schools had a maths, science and design and technology teaching workforce that was highly skilled.

This workforce would support the state's science, technology, engineering and maths skills strategy.

Since 2010 under the Teach SA program, the department has provided 13 scholarships to high-quality final-year maths and science teacher education students and 20 career-change maths and science professionals.

Four architecture and industrial design professionals have been recruited to train as technology teachers.

More than 120 teachers have been retrained in maths and science.

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Teachers' union demands Pisoni apology

THE Australian Education Union has demanded an apology from Opposition education spokesman David Pisoni over what it considers repeated and offensive criticism of teachers.

' The union said that if Mr Pisoni would not  back away from his remarks, he should resign.

It claimed his comments about teachers were undermining parents' confidence in public schools.

The Australian Education Union SA Branch State Council asked Opposition Leader Stephen Marshall to urgently intervene.

Branch President Correna Haythorpe said teachers had endured enough of Mr Pisoni's constant criticism and negative commentary about schools in SA.

"If there are valid concerns to be raised about educational issues then they must be done in a way which does not criticise our schools," she said.

"The barrage of negativity over recent months can only serve to undermine parent's confidence in our schools and teachers."

Ms Haythorpe said the issue had come to a head on Friday when Mr Pisoni claimed  "chronically underperforming teachers remain in classrooms right across the state".

"Our schools are full of outstanding teachers and principals who work hard to deliver a very high quality of education for their students," Ms Haythorpe said in response.

The union said allegations of under-performance should be dealt with in a fair way which allowed the teacher to work on areas of concern.

Ms Haythorpe said allegations of misconduct were a separate issue which required an investigative process.

More serious matters, such as those of a sexual nature, must be dealt with by the police, she said.

Mr Pisoni rejected claims he was overly critical of teachers or schools.

"This appears to be more of a political statement by the AEU than a motion made with the education at its heart," he said.

"I note that the union has made little or no comment with regard to serious problems with the management of sexual abuse in our schools highlighted by the Opposition or the fact that our NAPLAN results have been deteriorating on a yearly basis under this state Labor Government."

Mr Pisoni said the "valid" concerns he had raised were a direct result of issues raised with him by parents, teachers and education department employees and were usually directed at the way the public education system was being run by the government and its revolving door of ministers.

"(I speak) as a parent who chose the public system for my two children and who has been involved on school governing councils for over a decade before and after entering politics," he said.

"As a Liberal shadow minister I will continue to support SA's hard working teachers and principals.

"However, if problems need to be highlighted in the interests of system improvement I will continue to do so in the best interests of students, parents and educators."

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