Lack of casual teachers contributing to students learning with minimal teacher supervision in merged classes

Last week, classes at Wagga High School were forced to merge for the day after a number of teachers called in sick.

Wagga teacher and Teacher's Federation councillor Cameron Abood said he had seen merged classes become a much more common occurrence, with the number of casual teachers in the area dwindling.

"Merged classes are definitely skyrocketing compared to what it was earlier on in my career," he said.

"There's just no casual teachers available, you talk to different schools and they're all in the same situation."

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Mr Abood said merging classes was a way to provide student supervision when there aren't enough teachers available, and does not provide students with quality learning opportunities.

"In the merged class you've got potentially up to double the students and depending on what teachers are available at the time, they might not even [teach] in the same area directly," he said.

"They might just have to work independently, and just ask questions rather than have that quality face-to-face teaching."

Teachers Federation country organiser Jack O'Brien said teacher shortages had also been more profound in the casual sector of the workforce, but had become "exponentially worse" recently.

"If a school has more vacancies that means there is a short supply of casual teachers," he said.

"That means that teachers internally are putting in overtime, giving up their entitlements to fill those gaps as well as being asked to teach outside their qualified subject area."

Minister for Education and Early Learning Sarah Mitchell said the rise in merged classes was brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and not the teacher shortage.

"Labor and their union bosses are manipulating the impact COVID had on our schools last year, which saw one million staff sick days place unprecedented challenges on our schools," she said.

Independent Education Union secretary for NSW and ACT Mark Northam said many Catholic and independent schools are also resorting to merging classes more often.

"Our members in schools, particularly school administration are reporting aggrieved parents who are simply saying this is not good enough," he said.

"That's the evidence that we've got a crisis."

Ms Mitchell said 49 per cent of public schools currently had vacant staff positions.

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