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Editorial: Stakes are too high for skills summit to be another gabfest

The West Australian
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Education Minister Sue Ellery is right when she says we owe it to teachers.
Camera IconEducation Minister Sue Ellery is right when she says we owe it to teachers. Credit: Iain Gillespie/The West Australian

The skills crisis which has hit every segment of the Australian economy is hitting classrooms hard.

And like all other industries, we’re looking overseas to plug the immediate gap.

The dire shortage of teachers has prompted a national action plan, which will see all States and Territories working with international teachers to achieve standards and fast-track visas.

The co-ordinated approach is welcome, and hopefully will be more productive than different States competing for the same limited talent pool.

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Education Minister Sue Ellery is right when she says we owe it to teachers, who have worked under enormous stress during the past two years of the pandemic, to do everything we can to alleviate the pressures they face.

Hon Sue Ellery Minister of Education and Training, announcement for free training for in-demand workers for WA's resources sector
Camera IconEducation Minister Sue Ellery. Credit: Andrew Ritchie/The West Australian

And that will mean getting more teachers into classrooms, through both an international recruitment drive and enticing bright young school-leavers to consider a career in education.

The plan to tackle the teacher shortage comes as the Albanese Government prepares to host its jobs and skills summit in Canberra next month.

Business identities, union leaders, politicians and public servants will spend two days in Canberra trying to come up with solutions to the skills crisis which has the economy in a chokehold.

The temptation to strong to be skeptical of the initiative.

Remember Kevin Rudd’s 2020 summits which were big on rhetoric but delivered nothing?

With 65,000 vacancies across the State and no one to fill them, we can’t afford for this to become 2020 Summit 2.0.

There are examples of talkfests delivering real results. Bob Hawke’s 1983 economic summit set the reform agenda for decades to come. Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the white paper to be prepared following this summit will “help shape the future of Australia’s labour market” and pull us from our economic slump.

We hope he is right. But until them, as restaurants across Perth are forced to close because of understaffing and patients sit for hours in emergency departments due to a lack of doctors, you’d be forgiven a little cynicism.

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