First batch of 'early offer' teachers hit the blackboards

Sydney
9 February 2003

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First batch of 'early offer' teachers hit the blackboards

Marcia Mediati (centre), 21, with fellow teachers Melissa Cohen, 23, and Chris Persian, 27

By Marilyn Rodrigues

"The kids are great - most of the time," says Br Kelvin Canavan, executive director of schools in the Archdiocese of Sydney, to a group of freshly turned-out teachers at the Sydney Catholic Education Office.

They need great teachers to help them see the purpose of life and the "bigger picture", with an eye to the example of Christ, he added.

His listeners were recipients of early employment offers made last year to final year education students at universities across Sydney and Wollongong.

The aim of the Early Employment Offer program is to headhunt outstanding final year students for Sydney's Catholic schools.

Seventy students applied; 25 took up offers of a teaching position at a Catholic school of their choice (or close to) plus the choice of a laptop computer or $2200 cheque.

"It was an incentive program to see who was interested in working with us," says Peter Donnan, senior education officer at the Catholic Education Office. "And we got a fantastic response."

It is the first time, he said, that the scholarship program has been extended beyond the Australian Catholic University (ACU) to students at other universities.

Mark Rix, university and schools liaison officer, says many Catholic students go on to study education at secular universities.

His position at the Education Office was created last year to redress the balance by promoting Catholic schools to education students in secular universities and the ACU.

Mark says the program is fuelled by a teacher shortage, especially in the high school subjects of maths, science, computing and technical and applied studies.

"It is becoming more and more common that teachers are teaching subjects out of their area," he says. "But this year the teachers were offered a position on merit, regardless of the subject they taught, because our main priority was not only to get any teachers, but quality teachers."

Marcia Mediati, 21, an early employment scholarship winner, will teach a kindergarten class at St John the Baptist primary school, Bonnyrigg.

Marcia studied at the University of Sydney but, being Catholic, she preferred to teach in a Catholic school.

"I was over the moon when I found out I'd got the offer," she says. To round off her qualification to teach at the school, she needs to complete a graduate certificate in religious education at the ACU.

How will she prepare for her first day?

"I'll be getting to bed early," she says. "I'll need lots of energy and enthusiasm.

"It's their first year and my first year, so it'll be something special for us to share."