'Betrayed': Teachers left in distress following surprise cancellation of Fast Stream program 06:54

Now I want to tell you about the Fast Stream program for teachers. Now the Fast Stream program was brought in by the Gladys Berejiklian government and it basically fast-tracked outstanding teachers to become principals. I picked the best and the brightest and said you're pretty good, you can go from being a teacher to a principal and we'll do it in half the time.

But one of the qualifications was you had to work in a country town for a while. So you might have had to ship off to Wagga Wagga or Broken Hill, whatever it may be. So you had to live in one of those country towns for a period and work for a period to qualify to be fast-tracked to becoming a principal. So it was really a win-win. So regional schools who are desperate for teachers to get some of the best in the state teaching their kids...

And then the teachers, they get the training and the experience to become a principal in half the time. Now, why am I telling you about this? Well, on Monday, the men's government and the education minister, Prukar, axed the program with no warning, just axed it. And that means...

There are dozens and dozens, if not a hundred odd teachers, who've jumped at the chance to fast track their careers, move their lives, move their families' lives, hundreds of kilometres for the opportunity, and all of it's been for nothing. The rug's been pulled out from under them. So after years of hard work, not only do they not get the chance to become a principal, they don't get any of the qualifications they were promised when they signed up to the course, even though they've completed a few years already.

Now, I've got James on the line. Now, James was a part of the Fast Stream program. His name's not actually James. He's asked to remain anonymous, but he spent two years living regionally as part of this program, and he joins me live. James, g'day. Hi, Chris. Nice to be here. Thank you for coming on. So you heard about the Fast Stream program. Why did you apply?

I applied because I thought it was a terrific opportunity. My boss at the time suggested that I apply for it. I thought I'd be quite good for the program. And so I just jumped at the chance to accelerate my leadership journey in the Department of Education. And don't tell me where you went because we want to keep you anonymous, but you uprooted your life, your family's life and moved to a country town?

Yes, we did. We moved to a country town, picked everything up, drove out there and started our lives out there. Did that have a big impact on you and your family to make that decision?

Yeah, it was a big impact. We put off doing a lot of things, put off having kids, didn't see a lot of our family for a couple of years except for when we had the chance to get away and spend many hours in the car getting back to see them. So it was a big impact. And then going to a country town, you know nobody and everybody's looking at you, wanting to meet you. So it's a big pressure in the spotlight. So it was a big change for our family.

And you did it knowing, you know what, this will be worth it because there's a cherry at the end. There's an opportunity at the end of this process. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It was a big incentive to be able to accelerate that sort of that leadership journey. So I jumped at the opportunity, thought it would be terrific. Yeah. When do you find out that it's all over? It was all a waste of time.

It was Monday morning in an email. So all of us got an email together, I suppose, and found out that they'd be finishing us up. What did it say, the email?

I think the effect of that, you know, because the government's moving around money, because there's budget difficulties, the program won't be viable anymore. So they've decided to, you know, bring it to a close. So the qualifications you were expecting as you were doing this, what happens to those? What were the qualifications, firstly, and what happens to them?

So as we went through the program, the idea would be that you'd engage with lots of professional learning, certain institutes within the Department of Education, and you'd end up with a credit to half a master's in leadership. And then you could finish that in your own time. You could finish that maybe the following year or during your fast stream time, but there's obviously not that anymore. So there's no prospect of having credit towards that training. And you were banking on that?

Well, yeah, I really do enjoy the study and knowing what I'm doing, if I'm going to be in charge of a school one day, which, you know, maybe I will hopefully one day. But, yeah, it'd be really useful to have that sort of knowledge. But there, it's not there now. Do you feel betrayed?

Yeah, I feel it's very hard to, I guess, rely on promises now. I do feel a bit betrayed. I feel like going forward, it's a matter of how far can I trust what's on offer anymore if I'm going to continue down this path. Does it make you think, oh, well, maybe I'm better off just going into the Catholic system or the private system?

Yeah, I think that conversation's already, you know, across my dining room table and I'm sure lots of others across, you know, among my colleagues. And what about your partner and your family? Are they looking at you? They must feel terrible for you.

Yeah, I don't think I've spoken to anyone about it who hasn't felt really gutted for me and everyone else involved. It was a real surprise for all of us, I think. And no one ever picked the phone up? No one from the department said, look, mate, I'm sorry about this, James, but look, it's out of our control. No one, just an email? No, no, we just had emails. No one's picked up the phone. We've had some big group Zoom meetings later on, but no one's spoken to us. No one picked up the phone to call us.

And so there's teachers all around country New South Wales now and all around, and in Sydney too, because I'm assuming some of them have come back, who are thinking to themselves, well, what now?

Yeah, well, we've been told that what now is really you can take a teaching job somewhere within about an hour of where you live or you can try to apply for a job in the meantime and if you want to have a middle leadership position, apply for it now. They're giving us a bit of time to secure them but it's all up to us really. Otherwise, take a teaching job.

Alright James, I'm very sorry this happened to you. I really am. It's a terrible way to treat our teachers and to treat any human being to be honest. And Murat Dizdar, the Secretary of the Department of Education should be ashamed of himself and so too the Education Minister. James, I appreciate you jumping on. My pleasure. Thanks for having me here. You don't treat human beings like that.