The Greens have called on the nation’s education ministers to tackle the root causes of the teacher shortage crisis, after today’s roundtable failed to produce a credible plan for real reform.

Comments attributable to Greens spokesperson on schools, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“It’s great that teachers had a seat at the table at today’s Education Ministers Meeting. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that the ministers were really paying attention. 

The Greens say a proposal by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership to parachute inexperienced staff into classrooms and give pay rises to a mere handful of teachers is an insult to hard-working educators across the country and will do very little to address teacher shortages.

Comments attributable to Greens spokesperson on schools, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“Targeted incentive schemes are just technocratic tinkering that does nothing to fix the underlying problem with our public schools.

Australian Greens Education Spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi,has said that need and equity, not desperate electoral strategies, should guide schools funding in Australia and has called on the Federal Government to reverse its Gonski 2.0 education cuts.

Senator Faruqi said:

"Equity and need, not marginal seats, should determine our education policy.

"Funding of our schools should be based on what is needed for our kids to have a world class education, not based on desperate political and electoral strategies. Our schools are not political footballs.