Swim teacher shortage impacts sees lessons cut at Parkes Aquatic Centre

A shortage of qualified learn-to-swim teachers has led Parkes Shire Council to cancel swimming lessons at the Parkes Aquatic Centre.

The Council has cancelled a number of swimming lesson programs during January due to a lack of casual staff during January, a situation set to continue into next month.

Explaining that casual swim teachers have left the Centre to pursue permanent work in other sectors, which were also facing staff shortages, Parkes Mayor Ken Keith told the ABC “there's opportunities for people to get jobs wherever they really want them at the moment, so you can understand some of those casual swimming teachers wanting to take up a permanent opportunity somewhere else."

Noting that, prior to this year the pool had run a fully staffed Learn to Swim program for about 50 years, Mayor Keith commented “since Christmas, we've had a lot of staff take up other opportunities and jobs around the place, rather than having the casual one as a learn-to-swim teacher," he said.

"We've always had a very proud learn-to-swim program in Parkes … so it's disappointing that we haven't got enough paid staff to be able to deliver [it] at the moment."

He added that classes for babies and toddlers were the first affected by the town's swim teacher shortage, as teachers focused on lessons for older age groups.

Council General Manager Kent Boyd said it had been an exceptional year with staff shortages everywhere, and Parkes had been fortunate to keep all facilities operational.

Boyd told the Parkes Champion Post “this is one of the examples where we've had to cut back.

"I think we've found we've had some key staff take on other jobs. There has been a number of other staff trained."

Boyd said the decision had been made to focus on the age groups learning crucial survival skills: the middle levels of swim training, where children from four years of age develop independence in the water including floating and basic skills such as submerging, freestyle and backstroke, will be offered.

With pools across NSW and Victoria facing similar issues, as swim teachers departed for other sectors, Senior lecturer in Sports Management at Western Sydney University, Michelle O'Shea said regional and metropolitan pools right across the state were battling staff shortages.

Dr O'Shea advised “it's really been building since September-October last year, where we started to see this acute shortage of swim teachers.

"Unfortunately, most swim schools and allied services weren't eligible for JobKeeper, so during that shutdown period people have had to go seek employment in other sectors.

"We've got that knowledge base, those individuals who were trained, that we would've needed for summer (but they) have sought employment in other sectors."

Dr O'Shea said it was essential swimming programs got back underway as soon as possible, to prevent drownings.

Image: Young swimmers at the Parkes Aquatic Centre. Credit: Parkes Aquatic Centre.