ACT teachers are “under-staffed, under-resourced, and under-appreciated”, according to an Australian Education Union ACT survey of 1,800 teachers and principals published this week.
In response to Union demands, the ACT Government has set up a taskforce that will meet for the first time this Thursday. It will work with universities, the Teacher Quality Institute, and relevant experts, said Yvette Berry, ACT Minister for Education and Youth Affairs.
“What we’re looking for in the short-term out of the taskforce is that we address some of the known issues around teacher workload and teacher recruitment,” AEU ACT senior industrial officer Patrick Judge said.
“Teachers find their work incredibly rewarding, but workload pressures and under resourcing, not meeting students’ needs the way they want to, and not getting to spend time with their families mean they’re looking at work outside the teaching profession.”
The report reveals that as Australia faces a nationwide teacher shortage, more than half of ACT principals surveyed cannot fill permanent or temporary positions at schools. Almost all teachers work unpaid overtime every week – more than 40 per cent two days every week. This ‘subsidises’ the ACT Government to $75 million every year, while teachers spend $5 million of their own money on classroom resources; 85 per cent think the Education Directorate is not sufficiently resourced.
An overwhelming 97 per cent of staff believe split or modified classes disadvantage students and learning. One in five respondents had experienced violence in the classroom.
In addition, 85 per cent report that staffing pressures have undermined their mental health. Others are missing important life events. Many – including a third of teachers in their first three years – consider leaving teaching because the workload is unmanageable, and more than half of classroom teachers would not recommend teaching as a career.
Teachers report they are spending more time on welfare work: finding mental health crisis support or housing for students and families, connecting them with legal advice services – tasks schools are not resourced to do, and which should be done by healthcare professionals or social workers, Mr Judge said.
Teachers are also under pressure to provide information about student activities during the day through apps and online platforms: documenting learning activities, taking photos, and writing descriptions.
“Some of that work is probably appropriate, but the work involved in providing the level of detail that some teachers are asked to provide is excessive,” Mr Judge said.
More than a third of principals work 10 to 15 hours overtime, and a further third more than 20 hours.
Principals report having to make as many as 30 phone calls to find relief staff, or manage school maintenance, capital works, and IT procurement – which Mr Judge believes should be a central system-wide responsibility.
“We think there could be efficiencies in terms of centrally working out where relief teachers are best directed, and making sure resources are used equitably across the system.”
The issue has built over the last couple of years, Mr Judge said. The AEU represents the great majority of teachers in ACT public schools; every day for the last 12 to 18 months, he said, teachers have raised concerns about staffing and workload, while their workload has become more complex over the last decade.
“These issues are beginning to bite,” he said. “We’ve got ongoing and worsening teacher workforce shortages as a result.”
The AEU and the Education Directorate have worked for some time on improving teacher recruitment and teacher workload, Mr Judge said; further centralisation, he believes, would take pressure off schools. He hopes the taskforce will improve quality of life by the end of the year. The taskforce will also address broader concerns around teacher shortage and the teacher education pipeline.
“We need to ensure that when people come into the profession, we’re not losing them,” Mr Judge said.
“We want to keep them in the system. Second, we need to look at what will attract people into teaching or attract them back to teaching.”
Ms Berry said the ACT Government had introduced new strategies to help with workforce shortages, including a dedicated staffing hotline and more centralised management of the relief teacher pool. A national and international recruitment campaign would attract teachers to ACT public schools.
Mr Judge said he understood the government had updated its human resources systems, rather than the model by which relief staff were distributed to schools; he believes the Education Support Office should take responsibility for providing relief staff.
Teachers’ salaries are also uncompetitive, Mr Judge said, pointing to the NSW Gallop Report; earnings have not improved compared to other professions.
He did not expect the government to increase salaries outside an enterprise bargaining round. “But certainly, we would expect over the short term that some of these workload reduction measures and other quality of life improvements can be made, and we definitely don’t want to wait for a round of enterprise bargaining to address those.”
