How will you relieve the pressures on our local teachers in order to help them concentrate on learning? What steps will you take to help our children thrive and grow in public schools?

Here's how they responded, seat by seat.

Lee Evans (Liberals): The Perrottet Liberal Team have committed to a series of initiatives including:

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Cooper Riach (The Greens): Public education is a fundamental right, regardless of your background, and it is the government's responsibility to provide it to everyone. To do this, we need enough teachers to deliver a high-quality education, and to relieve the pressures they face so they can focus on student learning.

The Greens have a plan to improve the pay and conditions of teachers and provide them with the resources they need to excel. We will scrap the public sector wage cap and give teachers a 15% pay rise plus inflation, as well as developing a workforce plan to attract and retain 12,000 new teachers over the next 10 years. Additionally, we will provide an increase in 2 hours per week of Relief from Face to Face (RFF) teaching for all public-school primary teachers in NSW and 2 hours less face-to-face teaching for all High School teachers. We believe that these measures will not only help to retain and recruit teachers but also improve the quality of education that students receive.

We cannot expect our public schools to deliver world-class education with insufficient funding. If elected to parliament, I will push for schools across NSW to be delivered 100% of the School Resourcing Standard. Additionally, we will invest $1 Billion to address the school maintenance backlog by 2026 and provide at least one additional school counselor for every public school in NSW over the next 4 years.

Access to quality education in the preschool years is critical to a young person's lifelong health and wellbeing, as well as being crucial to future prosperity. We are committed to making preschool education universally available to all children.

The Greens education policy is written by teachers to ensure that our children thrive and grow to their full potential.

Paul Scully MP (Labor): Under a Minns Labor Government 10,000 permanent teacher roles will be created by shifting temporary roles into permanent positions providing job security. Schools will have the flexibility to deliver lessons, and parents can have renewed confidence their children will be taught by a teacher and not spend time in merged classes.

NSW Labor will order a line-by-line audit of teachers' administrative workloads.

Dealing with more paperwork is forcing teachers away from learning time and many are just leaving the profession. NSW Labor aims to reduce the administration burden by up to five hours per week.

NSW Labor will instruct the Department of Education to immediately begin negotiations with teachers for a comprehensive agreement on reducing workloads and competitive salaries while protecting the NSW Budget.

NSW Labor will end the historic under-funding of public schools by creating a $400 million Education Future Fund, as well as establishing a permanent and ongoing Literacy and Numeracy tutoring program.

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Mobile phone use in schools will be restricted in public high school classrooms. NSW Labor will also conduct a review into the impact of technology on children and young people and will develop digital media literacy programs with a focus on online ethical behaviours, data privacy, and critical thinking skills.

NSW Labor's 'Growth Areas Schools Plan' which will deliver new and upgraded schools in growing areas across New South Wales, including new public schools in the Illawarra.

To take a tangible step towards universal preschool for four-year-olds before 2030, a Minns Labor Government will also build 100 public preschools co-located with government primary schools, in its first term of government if elected. We would also invest $60 million in new and expanded preschools co-located at non-government schools.

Cath Blakey (The Greens): As the daughter of a literacy teacher I know how hard teachers work and the damage caused by years of under-resourcing our educators. I did all my schooling in the public education system, and my daughter is due to start kindergarten next year. I want school to be a place where children can thrive, learn critical thinking, develop creative skills and build social connections. But at the moment the Liberals and Nationals have stopped listening to teachers, are short-changing students, and have no plan to attract and retain teachers in the public system.

As your Greens MP for Wollongong I will push the next NSW government to deliver:

The Department of Education must be resourced to reinvest in our teachers, and ensure they have professional salaries, more time to plan, and more reasonable workloads.

No one should leave TAFE or uni with a debt that takes a lifetime to pay off. HECS was introduced by Labor, and made worse by Liberals. Contestable vocational training funding was introduced by federal Labor, and made worse with the implementation by the NSW Liberals.

But during the pandemic - in what I take as a recognition that course fees are a barrier to learning - the NSW Liberal government made a COVID stimulus investment in free short courses. In less than 6 months it saw enrolments rise over 100,000 students. Let's invest in vocational education, and workforce planning so there are qualified and resourced TAFE teachers to deliver it.

With energy, digital and environmental transitions underway, we need a skilled and education-empowered workforce. Instead of Minister announcements that leave TAFE faculties scrabbling for teachers and facilities, we need long-term stable career pathways for educators.

As your Green MP for Wollongong I will push the next NSW government to:

As a parent of a four-year-old I recognise that access to quality early education is foundational to children's lifelong health and wellbeing. Early childhood educators need the pay and conditions needed to retain and attract quality educators to the profession.

For the Greens full policy platform: https://greens.org.au/nsw/education2023

Kit Docker (The Greens): From speaking to teachers and parents across the Illawarra, it's clear that children across our region's schools are being left behind in a big way. It is not uncommon for children to turn up to school only for there to be no teachers available to teach their class. We also have many skilled and experienced teachers who are forced to teach outside the Illawarra due to rampant casualisation of the teaching profession in the region.

Our party's policies on education are written by teachers who believe in the universal value and benefit to society of well-resourced public education. To achieve positive change the Greens will be pushing the next NSW government to:

Supporting our public schools is one of the best investments we can make. Together we can return our schools to a world-class level.

Ryan Park MP (Labor): As a former classroom teacher I know the pressure that teachers are under. I am passionate about lifting our educational standards that have fallen under the Liberal National Government.

We will ensure there are 10,000 more teachers by making temporary and casual positions are made permanent. We will support small group tensive tutoring program for literacy and numeracy and ending the chronic underfunding of NSW public schools with our Education Future Fund.

Labor understands that in our growth areas we need to plan for and build new schools. That is why we will plan for a new public school in West Dapto. We also know how much of a distraction mobile phones are in schools and that is why we will introduce a ban.

Local schools across the Illawarra will have access to the $8 million for Foodbank to deliver meals for children to help lift attendance and improve their focus in the classroom. Only Labor has a comprehensive plan to turn around the Liberals and Nationals neglect of our education and school system.

Anna Watson (Labor): From preschool through to TAFE and university, education is the cornerstone of every thriving economy - and we want ours to be world-class again, with the best and brightest teachers and first-rate school facilities.

That's why we'll boost the availability of preschool places for families by building 100 public preschools and investing in 50 new and expanded preschools at non-government schools.

Read more of Labor's education policy here.

Jamie Dixon (The Greens): There isn't an issue in this election, from climate change to cost of living, that the next generation won't be able to solve, given free and equitable access to quality public education. In order for us to get there though, the educators currently in our classrooms, whether its in a prior to school setting, primary, secondary, or in our TAFEs, need better resourcing, and conditions that reflect the essential role they fill.

The elected Greens, whether in balance of power or not, will continue to push for a removal of the public sector wage cap, and an immediate 15 per cent wage increase. We will provide at least 2 hours per week Relief from Face to Face teaching, and ensure that all schools receive 100% for School Resourcing Standard funding. The Greens will budget a $1 billion fund for school maintenance to clear the backlog, and get our children out of demountables. We will rise the award for early childhood educators to bring them in line with later stage teachers, as is the case in Victoria.

In the medium term we will fund the recruitment of an additional 12,000 teachers to fill the gaps in teaching positions, and provide additional counselling support staff across NSW to take the burden off classroom teachers, and ease the relief teaching budget for our public schools.

While the primary focus of our policy is to respect, recruit, resource, and retain our current educational workforce, the Greens will also commit to providing bipartisan support for essential local infrastructure such as a new primary school for West Dapto, and a new High School for Flinders.

Tonia Gray (The Greens): The education sector across the lifespan (early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary) is well and truly broken and has been for the last decade.

Teachers are burnout, dispirited and undervalued which is attributed to a myriad of factors, but the top four are:

1: Teacher workload: Unsustainable workloads and the minutiae of administration. We need to reduce the constant change in curriculum and/or programs, the duplication of data entry across school-based and department record systems. SLSOs should be able to supervise play breaks like they do in many other countries around the world.

2: Unacceptable exposure to parent aggression and media's negative portrayal of the profession. The Minister Sarah Mitchell has no respect for the profession as witnessed in her condemnation of the profession for striking last year. (Personally, I believe she should have been marching in the streets for you, especially after your herculean efforts during COVID, flipping to online learning in two weeks). Parental expectations that they will access the teacher via phone during teaching hours or that afternoon, escalating incidents of disrespect, threat and aggression - particularly towards principals.

3: Salary: It starts out at an acceptable level and then plateaus quickly. Highly accomplished teacher accreditation designed to enable expert teachers to remain on class at executive level salary... YET the accreditation process is overly cumbersome, arduous and time consuming. This dissuades you from applying and very few teachers bother with the complicated, year-long process for minimal financial gain. The distinction between classroom teacher and assistant principal/head teacher salary is ridiculous .. about $10,000 difference after tax.

4: Burn out and teacher shortage: the department has no idea of the reality. A friend just resigned from a substantive executive position and had no exit survey. How can the department possible say they know what is going on for teachers or why they are leaving the profession when no-one asks? Secretary and Minister say there is no shortage, have they seen split class/minimal supervision data from schools?

Change will take bold ideas and bold action. The Greens are the only party to address a holistic approach to education for a better NSW.

The Greens will:

Katelin McInerney (Labor): If the pandemic has shown us anything, it's that our teachers have been undervalued and overworked for far too long.

I am proud that a new Labor Government will convert 10,000 existing temporary teachers to permanent positions. This will greatly benefit teachers in regional NSW and allow them to put down roots in our community, giving students and their families certainty as to who will be in front of their classroom.

We will also implement changes that will cut admin time for teachers by five hours per week and will ban mobile phones in classrooms to improve learning outcomes for students.

Labor will end the historic underfunding of our public schools by establishing the $400 million Education Future Fund, as well as establishing a permanent and ongoing Literacy and Numeracy tutoring program for students.

We know that early childhood education is equally important which is why Labor will invest $22 million to turbocharge the early childhood workforce with new scholarships, professional development and research into improving early childhood learning outcomes and build 100 preschools co-located with government primary schools in the first term of a Minns Labor government if elected.

The Sustainable Australia Party provided the following answer on behalf of its candidates in all electorates:

Sustainable Australia Party supports a world-class education system that gives all Australians the skills and attributes they need to secure jobs and flourish in society. For starters we would maintain, and where needed increase, funding for public schools as well as increase the salaries and improve the working conditions of teachers. Sustainable Australia Party would prioritise needs-based education funding as well as teacher and principal quality across the primary and secondary education system, and encourage small class sizes in order to better enable teachers to help all students achieve their potential.