Campaign aims to reduce teacher workload

By Bob Lipscombe

Federation is to embark on a campaign to achieve reductions in teacher workload.

With teachers increasingly reporting that workload is overwhelming their professional capacity as educators, Federation annual conference determined that unreasonable teacher workload in schools and TAFE colleges was one of the major issues confronting the public education system today and must be a priority issue for Federation.

Federation Executive and Council are to develop and implement appropriate political, industrial and legal strategies to support a "Time to teach -- Time to learn" campaign in the second half of 2007 to achieve reductions in teacher workload.

Unreasonable teacher workload is debilitating for the profession and quality public education. It is clear that for many teachers workload is not only impairing their professional capacity, but it is also impairing their ability to engage in activities beyond work which most others take for granted. For some, it is also impacting adversely on their health.

Unreasonable teacher workload has been identified by individual teachers in their daily work, by various surveys and through the work of Federation's Excessive Teacher Workload committee.

For too long the Department of Education and Training (DET) and governments have exploited the commitment of teachers and their professionalism to fill the growing gaps in staffing, funding and resourcing our public schools and colleges. It has become all too common for governments to announce new initiatives, with no commitment to appropriate resourcing, including release time for teachers. All too often it is assumed that the latest initiative can be loaded on top of what teachers already do. Schools and TAFE colleges are frequently inundated with paper policies, initiatives and curricula, uncoordinated and under-resourced and with no acknowledgement of the teacher time involved in their implementation. Repeated calls on both DET and the State Government to assess the workload implications of initiatives prior to introduction have been ignored. Such an approach is disrespectful to both the profession and the students they teach.

Recent examples of this approach are to be found in initiatives relating to audit and administrative requirements in TAFE, reporting, technology, occupational health and safety, and accreditation of New Scheme teachers.

Unfortunately this intensification of teachers' work has frequently been worsened by decisions made within particular schools and colleges which have broadened the role and workload of teachers. As a consequence, many teachers have difficulty in accessing such basic entitlements as lunch and morning tea breaks. The constant round of playground and/or other duties, committee meetings, programming, development and/or implementation of new policies, dealing with difficult students, marking, interviews with parents, selection panels and addressing occupational health and safety issues leaves many with little time for reflection or preparation.

To address these issues, annual conference has determined that key objectives of "Time to teach -- Time to learn" campaign will be:

• improvements to school and college staffing formulae and the employment of additional teachers to ensure that the staffing of schools and colleges is able to properly support quality education today. Specifically, the improvements in staffing sought are:

  *an additional two hours release time per week for teachers in primary schools;
  *an additional two 40 minute periods release time per week for secondary teachers;
  *an additional one hour release time per week for TAFE teachers;
  *alignment of release for primary promotions positions with release available to secondary promotions positions;
  *extension and improvement of the current concessional allowance available to secondary schools so that primary, secondary and central schools receive a concessional allowance of 0.1 release for each six teachers (full time equivalent) or part thereof;
  *enhancements to clerical and other support staffing in schools and colleges, to be based on the number of teachers located in the workplace;
  *the provision of supplementary staffing to ensure curriculum provision in the transition from years 11 to 12;
  *investigate and pursue the reduction or phasing out of playground duty for teaching staff.

• pursue the restoration of minimum lunchbreaks of 30 minutes and recess breaks for all teachers, to be used at the teacher's discretion and uninterrupted by playground (or similar duties) and meetings;
• establish guidelines to manage and reduce workload in schools and colleges. Such guidelines will also address the issue of workload arising from the excessive number of meetings conducted in some workplaces, especially when relief is not provided;
• pursue release time for Federation Representatives to enable them to perform their roles, including participation in workplace consultations with principals and in staffing selection processes;
• pursue the provision of appropriate levels of technology support in schools and colleges, including the provision of specialist technicians in sufficient numbers to support all schools and colleges, together with additional release time and professional development for teachers implementing new technologies and using technology-based learning materials;
• pursue significant improvements in the way existing curricula and new curricula are introduced and supported in schools and colleges;
• seek to establish guidelines with the DET on reasonable documentation around programming and lesson planning for early career teachers.

While no-one is under any illusions as to the difficulty in achieving some of the objectives of the campaign, the campaign must commence. There is no doubt that teaching today requires more time for teachers to prepare, more time to engage with students outside the formal classroom situation, and more time to engage professionally with colleagues to support teaching and learning.

Bob Lipscombe is the Senior Vice President.

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July 2007 contents