You are Never Alone

Australian education systems this year will feel the impact of the retirement of many of the baby boomers.
True baby boomers, born from 1946 onwards, turned 60 from the beginning of 2006.
They have begun retiring and that will impact on our schools in particular in many ways.
Schools are going to find that many of these are the glue that has held their schools together. Far from holding their schools back technologically, a myth that the younger generation like to espouse, they have often been the early adopters, in some cases those who kept computer systems running on the smell of an oily rag.

The Hunter and Central coast region lost 270 teachers at the end of last year. The NSW Teachers Federation said the number was expected to double at the end of 2009 after the NSW Education Department finalises its new teacher salary agreement. By the end of 2012 the Hunter could have lost up to 80,000 years of combined experience.

At the end of 2008 South Australia honoured 30 retiring principals and pre-school directors who between them had clocked up 1052 years. And they are just the tip of the iceberg.

The retirements bring with them the real dangers of shortages not only of skilled teachers but shortages in specialised areas, such as maths, science, languages, senior secondary, and TAFE.
The NSW Audit office produced a report in 2008 on this very topic.

By 2020 almost a third of the current ACT teaching workforce will be retired, the ACT Education Department has revealed. The prediction is based on the 28 per cent of existing teachers who will be aged over 65 years in 11 years.

Another concern is the possible shortage of teachers in remote locations and in state schools. While many of the retiring teachers were going from city schools, it will be difficult to replace those who have been teaching in rural locations, mainly because many young recruits simply do not want to go there. Such shortages were predicted 10 years ago by a MCEETYA report.

I blogged earlier too about the tendency of secondary school teachers in particular to retire early, not to wait for the magical 60 or 65, but to go as early as at 55 or even 50, depending on their superannuation options.

This graphic from a West Australian Report shows clearly the impact for the next decade:

There was some evidence at the end of 2008, that some teachers in WA at least were re-assessing their options.

For me though, thinking about the baby boomers, this article published in December 2008 says it all:

Tregeagle Public School teachers Pat Byrne (left) and Jill Brodie have been, between them, teaching at the school for thirty nine years and are now about to retire.

The impact will be seen on the schools where not just one teacher, but 2, 3, 4 or even more, who have worked together in their school for the last 10 or 20 years, have gone. An immeasurable loss.