There is a shortage of specialist science and maths teachers across secondary schools in Australia.

These subjects include physics, chemistry, biology, environment science, and mathematics.  

Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham said that the government aims to have a specialist science and maths teacher in every high school. 

“It’s unacceptable secondary school students are taught science or maths subjects by people without specialist skills in those areas,” Mr Birmingham said. 

According to the Australian Council for Educational Research, 40 per cent of physic teachers will retire in the next 10 years. However, only 10 per cent of all trainee science teachers are specialising in physics.

This has also impacted the students as Australia experienced a significant decline in scientific literacy performance between 2006 and 2015. 

Even though the numbers of trainee teachers are decreasing, NSW aims to increase the quality of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education.

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes said that there will be a higher standard for teachers to show a solid foundation in their core subjects, as well as the HSC curriculum. 

This will be achieved through universities teaching specialist subjects during teacher training. 

“These new standards mean the community can continue to have confidence that NSW teachers have deep discipline knowledge,” Mr Stokes said. 

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