Fewer Australians are entering the teaching profession, generating an ongoing tussle with unions and universities to attract enough teachers, Queensland's Education Minister Grace Grace says.
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On Sunday, the Queensland Teachers' Union called for an additional 7000 teachers in Queensland schools.
Ms Grace said Queensland education authorities would provide 3700 more teachers over the next four years and were ahead of projections to provide the extra 7000 teachers.
"At the moment we have more than adequate teachers for our needs," Ms Grace said.
"In fact we are about 875 (teachers) over our requirement, which is great for delivering world-class education."
"We are on schedule to employing 3700 teachers that we said that we would do over the term of this government."
One thousand extra teachers would be hired in 2019, she said.
Ms Grace said the Queensland Teachers' Union's estimate of an extra 7000 teachers over a decade is based on student enrolment growth staying "as it is now".
"At the moment we are looking at providing 3700 teachers, and of course we are almost halfway there," she said.
"We are clearly looking forward to employing more teachers, but we need them in the profession.
"Hence my urging to students and mature-aged people who want to enter an excellent profession: teaching is a great job."
Ms Grace said it was true that Queensland – like other states – needed extra teachers over the next decade.
"People are speaking with their feet and public education is certainly growing in this state," she said.
There were 51,478 state school teachers in 2018, up from 47,831 in 2015, an education department spokesman said.
Ms Grace said she was interested in options to increase the attractiveness of teaching, including a review of the two-year Graduate Diploma in (Secondary) Teaching course and talking to federal authorities about waiving HECS debts for teacher training.
"I think there is a number of options that have been put forward about how do we attract and keep teachers in the classroom," Ms Grace said.
"HECS is but one of them.
"Clearly that is a federal issue, but we are willing to look at all issues to attract our best and brightest to become teachers in Queensland."
Queensland Teachers' Union president Kevin Bates said enrolments in Queensland's state education system traditionally grew between 3 and 4 per cent each year.
However, in more recent years enrolments in the state system had jumped to 6 per cent.
He said other states had also recently tightened entry requirements to teaching courses, reducing the number of people entering teaching.
"My concern is that as we experience these shortages in teachers, other states are starting to cut that way as well," Mr Bates said.
"Up until now we have been drawing a lot of our teachers from interstate," he said.
He said Queensland teaching authorities "had to remain focused" as several issues combined to create "almost a perfect storm" to reduce teacher numbers.
"I agree that we have some things in place, but when you look at the southern states they have just gone down the path of introducing minimum entry standards for teachers," he said.
"That will reduce their entry pool as well, which means there are fewer people overflowing for us to be able to employ."
Mr Bates said it was important to be aware of the trends "right across the nation".
"Because we really are going to be hard up against it to have enough teachers."
Mr Bates said he had faith the Queensland government wanted to employ enough teachers.
"Our concern is whether they have the teachers to employ," he said.
Mr Bates agreed it was important to examine recent changes in graduate diploma courses for both primary and secondary teachers to see if they enhanced teaching standards, or were an obstacle.
He warned – though conceded further research was needed – the additional extra year for the graduate training process could create a two- to four-year "lag period" for mature age students before they entered teaching from other professions.
