If you want to work for the South Australian Department for Education, you are going to need something called an Authority to Teach.
This document is something that you are going to need to apply for and receive before you can do any work as a teacher in a public school in Adelaide or South Australia; it is not enough to just have your Teacher’s Registration and your Working with Children Check.
Sometimes, it can take an awfully long time for your Authority to Teach letter to come through. It can be very hard to sit at home waiting for the email that tells you that you can finally start teaching in South Australian public schools, especially when you’ve already had to wait for all of your other paperwork.
Here is the key reason why your Authority to Teach might be taking so long, as well as a few things that you can do about it:
- You’ve applied for your Authority to Teach at the same time as a lot of other teachers.
- You’re not a top priority right now.
- This is your first time applying for your Authority to Teach.
You’ve applied for your Authority to Teach at the same time as a lot of other teachers.
This is the main reason why your Authority to Teach letter might be taking so long. At the end of the school year when every pre-service teacher is applying for their Authority to Teach letter at the same time, it is going to take a longer time for your Authority to Teach to get approved and your letter to come through.
The main thing that you can do if you are a pre-service teacher who is worried about how long your Authority to Teach is going to take is to submit most of your details early. The earlier that you can submit all of your details, the more likely it is that you will only be joining a very short list of lodged applications and the less time it is likely to take to get approved.
You’re not a top priority right now.
As much as this might hurt to hear, if you’re a pre-service teacher who is just starting to look for work with the Department for Education, you may not be on their top list of priorities.
Every teacher who works as a casual or short-term contract teacher needs to have an Authority to Teach. If any of them need to update any of their details, they are going to need a new Authority to Teach. The Department is likely to prioritise the teachers that are already working for them to make sure that their paperwork is up-to-date so that they can continue working.
I was shocked as a contract teacher that every time I applied for a job and uploaded my paperwork again, a new Authority to Teach letter would appear in my email inbox within a week. I am sure that I am not alone, and that this process would greatly increase the time that it takes for new teachers to get their Authority to Teach letters.
This is your first time applying for your Authority to Teach.
In addition to this, if you have not applied for an Authority to Teach with the South Australian Department for Education before, it is likely that your letter will take a lot longer to process.
This is natural and expected, as someone needs to manually check all of your documentation and paperwork to make sure that it’s current and genuine. Many of the requests that the Department for Education gets regarding the Authority to Teach letters are updates from teachers already in the system, and these take a much shorter amount of time as any pre-existing documentation that is still current does not need to be checked as thoroughly.
While this is frustrating for new teachers, it does mean that when it comes to updating or renewing your Authority to Teach, you will be in a much better position.
How long did it take for your Authority to Teach letter to come through? Is there anything that you did that successfully sped up the process? Comment your thoughts below!
