Ahead of an upcoming strike on May 4 from teachers asking for better pay, incentives and an improvement to working conditions, Griffith Teachers Association president Jenna Woodland urged the Commonwealth to step in.

"Due to the state government's refusal to agree on a solution, I'd like to call on Sussan Ley and the current federal government to recognise that there is a complete disregard for the profession by the state government," she said.

"I personally think it's time the federal government stepped in. They stepped in on NAPLAN."

Ms Ley said the upcoming strike was 'disappointing.'

"It's always disappointing when students aren't able to go to school and issues are unresolved," she said.

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She reiterated that disappointment on noting that students have already been going untaught due to a lack of available teachers.

Angelo Gavrielatos, the NSW Teachers Federation President, explained the severity of the situation in a recent release.

"As of February, there were a total of 2,383 permanent vacancies across 1,251 schools in NSW."

Numbers from the Department of Education show that Griffith alone is 35 teachers short.

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Despite the plea from the Teacher's Federation, Ms Ley said it would be inappropriate for the Commonwealth government to take any action on a state matter.

"Teachers are employed by the NSW government ... if they have problems with their workplace or anything else relating to their employment, that is directly a matter for the NSW government."

"I think that it's a relationship between an employer and an employee, it's inappropriate for the Commonwealth to be involved. The employer is the NSW government."

"I'm not going to wade in and say what either party should do."

A recent survey from the Teacher's Federation asked 10,000 of NSW's teachers about conditions, with 88 per cent saying that shortages are very significant and 82 saying that those shortages were leading to higher workloads.

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