Western Australia’s public school teacher shortage has been confirmed as the worst in the country, according to new national data drawn from the Productivity Commission’s latest report on government services. The figures show WA public primary schools recorded Australia’s worst student-to-teaching-staff ratio in 2025, a finding that has reignited debate over classroom resourcing just as schools prepare for the final term of the year.
According to the data, WA public primary schools recorded a ratio of 15.2 students per teacher, well above the national average of 13.7. WA public high schools fared only slightly better in comparative terms, recording the second-worst ratio in the country at 12.8 students per teacher against a national average of 12. Perhaps more striking than the raw numbers is the trend: the gap between WA primary schools and the rest of the country has more than doubled since 2017, while WA secondary schools have slid from being broadly in line with national averages to among the worst in Australia.
A Workforce Under Sustained Pressure
Education sector figures describe a workforce stretched thin by rising student complexity alongside the numbers gap. Surveys of WA principals have found the overwhelming majority report that student needs have become more complex over the past three years, with virtually all citing rising mental health and wellbeing concerns among students as a key driver. Teachers report similar pressures, with most saying student behaviour has become more complex to manage and a majority reporting an increase in students presenting with learning difficulties.
Academics who study the state’s education workforce describe the current shortage in stark terms, with one Curtin University education researcher characterising the situation as unprecedented. State school union leadership has echoed that assessment, warning that workloads have become undoable and unsustainable for many teachers, a dynamic reflected in shifting retirement patterns: teachers are increasingly retiring in their fifties rather than waiting until their early-to-mid sixties as was previously typical.
Retention as Big a Problem as Recruitment
While national projections point to secondary teacher demand outstripping new graduates by thousands of positions this year alone, education leaders in WA argue that retention, not just recruitment, deserves equal attention. Union survey data has found a large majority of WA teacher members say they have considered leaving the profession within the past year, a warning sign that simply training more graduates will not solve the underlying problem if experienced teachers keep walking out the door faster than they can be replaced.
Secondary school leaders point to a web of contributing factors beyond simple workload, including a lack of affordable rental housing for teachers in sought-after areas such as the state’s south-west, and inadequate or unsafe government-provided housing in some regional postings. For a teacher weighing up a rural placement, unreliable accommodation options can be just as significant a deterrent as the classroom workload itself.
Government Response and Political Reaction
The state government has pushed back on the characterisation of a full-blown crisis, pointing to its record of starting each school year with a teacher assigned to every classroom, while acknowledging workload pressures through the establishment of a dedicated Workload Intensification Taskforce aimed at identifying practical relief measures for teaching staff. Opposition education spokespeople have been considerably more blunt, pointing to a reported 120 per cent surge in teacher resignations over the past six years as evidence that recruitment alone will not fix a retention problem that has been building for the better part of a decade.
What It Means as Term 4 Begins
With WA schools heading into the final term of the school year, the staffing conversation is unlikely to ease anytime soon. Both the teachers’ union and the peak body representing secondary school leaders have called for smaller class sizes, more specialist wellbeing and support staff, and targeted literacy and numeracy programs as priorities for any funding response, rather than recruitment campaigns alone. For parents and students navigating a school system already stretched thin, the debate over how WA responds to its teacher shortage carries very real, day-to-day classroom consequences, and pressure on the state government to act is likely to keep building heading into the next state budget cycle.
What Parents Can Do
Parent groups say clear communication from schools about staffing arrangements, including how relief teaching gaps are being managed, remains one of the most valued forms of support families can receive during periods of workforce strain. School councils and parent associations in several districts have also stepped up advocacy directly to local members of parliament, pushing for greater transparency around vacancy data at the individual school level rather than only aggregated state-wide figures, which some argue can mask more severe localised shortages in particular subject areas or regional locations.
Education researchers note that solutions tested successfully overseas, including staggered career pathways that allow experienced teachers to reduce classroom hours while mentoring early-career colleagues, are increasingly being discussed as potential options for the WA system. Whether such measures make their way into future budget commitments will likely depend on how much political pressure continues to build over the coming school terms, particularly if the resignation trend highlighted in recent union data fails to slow.
