Repeated shortages of teachers and support staff are increasingly affecting classroom routines across Canberra’s public-school system, with students being moved between classes or placed in larger combined groups when schools cannot secure enough staff.
The issue has become a central point in the continuing dispute between the ACT government and the Australian Education Union (AEU), with the union warning that further industrial action may follow unless negotiations over pay, staffing, and working conditions produce greater progress.
Recent reporting indicates that “splitting” and “collapsing” classes have become a recurring response to teacher absences. Class splitting occurs when students from a class without a teacher are distributed among other classes, while collapsing involves placing an entire class with another available teacher. The practice can mean students encounter unfamiliar teachers, larger groups, and less predictable lesson arrangements.
The disruption has been particularly visible among younger pupils. ABC News reported in September that some Canberra students had experienced regular class combinations because of staff shortages. Parents and education representatives said, repeated changes could interrupt learning and make it harder for teachers to provide consistent attention to individual students.
The AEU has linked the problem to broader workforce pressures. ACT branch president Angela Burroughs said schools were experiencing chronic understaffing and reported instances in which a single teacher had been responsible for enormous numbers of students. The union argues that minimum staffing guarantees should form part of the new enterprise agreement being negotiated with the ACT government.
The ACT Education Directorate has acknowledged the need for better information about staffing shortages. Director-General Jo Wood said an automated system was being developed to give the education system clearer visibility of where schools were being affected by vacancies and staff absences. The directorate has also pointed to factors including a smaller casual workforce and increased use of personal leave.
For families, this problem extends beyond the classrooms themselves. When a school cannot find replacement staff, administrators have to determine how students can be supervised safely while attempting to maintain as much normal teaching as possible. That may place additional responsibilities on teachers who are already managing full workloads.
The dispute has also moved beyond routine negotiations. ACT public-school staff undertook another 2-hour stoppage on Thursday, 24 September, prompting all public schools, including specialist schools and preschools, to close from 8:30am until 10:30am. The ACT government said the temporary closures were necessary because it could not confidently guarantee adequate supervision while a high proportion of staff were eligible to participate in the protected action.
The 24 September action was the third major instance of industrial action by ACT public-school staff during 2026. Earlier action included a 2-hour stoppage in May and a full-day strike in June. ABC reported that the union was considering further measures, potentially including another full-day stoppage later in the year.
Pay remains an important component of the negotiations, but workload and staffing have increasingly become prominent. Education Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said negotiations had made progress on pay and that discussions were now concentrating more heavily on workload, classroom management, and the handling of split and collapsed classes.
At the same time, Canberra schools are preparing for changes to their funding arrangements. A revised funding model is scheduled to take effect in 2027, with the government saying resources will be distributed more closely according to student needs. However, some schools have been warned that their indicative funding allocations may fall, creating additional uncertainty for principals planning staffing and programs.
The government has said the indicative figures are not necessarily final and that additional funding will be available for schools facing particular difficulties under the new model. Nevertheless, the timing has intensified concerns among educators about whether staffing pressures can be eased quickly enough.
The immediate challenge for Canberra schools is therefore twofold: maintaining uninterrupted learning for students while addressing the workforce pressures that are contributing to classroom splitting in the first place.
For teachers, repeated redistribution of students may increase workloads and also complicate lesson planning. It may cause families to wonder if their children will be with their regular teacher and classmates for the day. Frequent changes may cause students to spend valuable classroom time adapting to different arrangements.
The ACT Government and the AEU remain engaged in negotiations, leaving the prospect of further industrial action dependent on the progress of those discussions. Meanwhile, the continuing appearance of split and collapsed classes has placed staffing capacity at the centre of Canberra’s wider debate over the future of public education.
