The new ACT Government taskforce to address the Territory’s teacher shortage problem must be “more than window dressing”, the Canberra Liberals insist.
The taskforce, which meets for the first time tomorrow, was set up in response to a survey of 1,800 ACT educators – most of the public school principals and more than 1,000 teachers – by the Australian Education Union (AEU) ACT. The union states that Canberra’s teachers are “under-staffed, under-resourced, and under-appreciated”. Principals struggle to recruit permanent or casual staff; teachers are working two days unpaid overtime every week; and many are considering quitting the classroom altogether.
“This report puts to rest that there is a crisis … emerging in our public school system,” said Jeremy Hanson MLA, Shadow Minister for Education.
“We’ve met with denials when we’ve raised issues about staff shortages, or the government’s really downplayed it. But … the government can’t deny it anymore. And they’ve now got to respond about how they’re going to fix it.”
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Mr Hanson said many teachers to whom he talked were so stressed they thought of leaving the profession.
“That’s pretty sad, because a lot of teachers are very passionate about what they do. They put their heart and soul into it. And they just don’t feel they’re being respected by the government. A lot of them are reaching breaking point where they can’t continue any longer.”
Moreover, Mr Hanson claimed, the ACT Government had not adequately resourced the education sector – a view shared by 85% of teachers the AEU ACT surveyed.
Although expenditure per full-time student in government schools was the second highest in Australia, he said, the ACT Government’s proportion of funding had decreased by 3% over the last decade, while Federal Government funding had increased by 26%.
In addition to the teacher shortage, he said, Canberra schools were poorly maintained, classes were overcrowded, and academic results were behind the rest of Australia.
“This is a problem the government has allowed to develop, or has created over a long period of time, and it really needs a change of direction to fix it,” Mr Hanson said.
“It behoves the government to respond and explain what they’re going to do. This taskforce that they have announced needs to be more than just window dressing and trying to dampen the problem down; it really needs to come up with some substantive recommendations of how they will address [the crisis].”
In June, the Canberra Liberals released an education vision for Canberra, Bringing out the best in every child. Although rejected by the ACT Government at the time, Mr Hanson maintains that it presents “a strategic way forward to respond” the ACT Government would do well to heed.
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“Fundamentally, they’ve got to make sure the system is resourced adequately to provide a sufficient number of teachers. That’s the bottom line. But when it comes to the management of teachers across school communities, you’ve got to make sure the Education Directorate is actually working as a Directorate, rather than at the moment when we’ve got 89 schools working independently.”
Casual staff should be put to the greatest areas of demand, rather than schools managing their own resources, Mr Hanson said.
The Liberals’ paper stated that teachers and principals spend more time managing than educating – a problem flagged by the AEU ACT report. Teachers must document learning activities or even organise housing and legal services for their students, while principals are managing school maintenance, capital works, and IT procurement.
“We need to make sure that where possible, the administration, the logistics, the back end of stuff, is done at the Directorate level, and that the teachers do what they do best, which is teaching in a classroom, and that principals do what they do best, which is leading a school,” Mr Hanson said.
“But at the moment, that’s not happening. There’s far too much other stuff that teachers and principals are required to do.”
Mr Hanson said the Liberals would go through the details of the AEU ACT’s “comprehensive” report, and continue to raise issues in estimate hearings and in the Assembly.
“I call on the government to do everything in its power to make sure that they give teachers the resources and respect they need so that they stay in the profession. Education is the most important service that we deliver as a government to the community, and we’ve got to get it right.”
The ACT Greens welcomed the government decision to set up the taskforce.
“When teachers tell us their own wellbeing and the educational wellbeing of students is at risk, we have to listen,” said Johnathan Davis MLA, ACT Greens spokesperson on Education.
“This taskforce is exactly the kind of targeted response that can help address a specific issue in our public schools, more than any vague overhaul of the entire system could.
“Similar to the current School Infrastructure Inquiry, we support these kinds of specific and targeted interventions to best support our education system.
“We look forward to the taskforce’s work in relation to covering staff absences, improving continuity of education for kids, and improving recruitment processes to attract and retain staff who will be supported and valued over their hopefully long careers in ACT public schools.”
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