So they can't get teachers in country schools?

 I was "taught" physics by someone who was, by his own description, "one chapter ahead of (me) in the book". He admitted this to me one day when I had asked a question in class.

Now I need to explain here that I was a student in what is known as an "area" school. These all-age schools are rural schools where most children come in by bus each day. Some of those buses travel long distances with children being picked up on the roadside at the point closest to their homes on remote farms.

There are not as many students in these schools. At the secondary level it means that teachers need to teach in more than one subject area and often take on duties in other subject areas as well.

The Senior Cat was given the task of setting one such area school up before he was moved on to sort out some very serious problems in another. In neither school had the secondary staff been trained to teach the most basic subjects such as maths, sciences or English. They did not even have degrees. They were there because that is where the Education Department sent them - you agreed to teach anywhere in the state back then - and these teachers were considered to be "good enough" for rural schools. 

It infuriated the Senior Cat. Brother Cat and I were old enough to understand some of the problems he faced trying to run these schools. Looking back it surprises me how we never said anything about any of the teachers who went in and out of his office and our house with their problems. I went into the staff room one afternoon and found one sobbing teacher being consoled by another. "Cat won't say anything." I never said a word, not even to my parents. I knew they had problems.

And thus it was with the physics teacher. He had "done" physics at school - to the year ahead of where I was then. He was in no way qualified to teach it. He had not done particularly well in the exam at the end of his year. Here he was trying to teach us. 

I didn't like physics or chemistry or maths. I was no science student. There was no subject choice. The PEB stream (public examination) was aimed at boys and it was assumed they would study science. I might have felt differently if there had been good teachers but I think I would still have enjoyed history more than physics.

And now they are saying they still cannot get well-qualified teachers for these rural schools. They are saying they cannot get them even when they offer "incentives" like an extra $10,000 a year. As most of that would be swallowed up in tax and the extra expenses of teaching in a remote area I am not surprised. There is so much more expected of them "out in the bush".  The Senior Cat was expected to be not just the person who ran the school but one of the teachers (he taught us English) and the local minister of religion, the marriage guidance counsellor, the financial adviser, the justice of the peace and much more. All the additional roles were never there in the job description. They just happened.

While urban teachers were getting mortgages and buying their own homes rural teachers were renting and even living in caravans. In one place we had no running water or electricity until the Senior Cat helped to bring the tiny pipe which ran across the surface of the ground into the house for water and put in a 32v power plant which was barely enough to provide lighting so he and our mother could prepare lessons at night. Teachers went because they had no choice. Now the union is strong enough that there is more choice - although perhaps not enough or too much depending on how you see it.

If they really want good teachers in rural schools - and yes there should be good teachers in rural schools - then they are going to have to do a great deal more than offer some extra money. They are going to want outstanding facilities and, at very least, the same level of support their city counterparts are getting.

It won't happen. Journalists will continue to write small pieces for the media and students won't get the same facilities. 

The odd thing is that some of us have ended up as doctors, teachers, solicitors, researchers and more....I might even have done more science.