Call for 1000 permanent teachers to lighten load

By

Bob Lipscombe

Federation is calling for more permanent teachers to lessen the workload.

Along with staffing and salaries, Federation's Time to Teach Time to Learn campaign to reduce teacher workload is one of the major campaigns for 2008, with the union calling on the NSW Government to employ at least 1000 additional permanent teachers. Additional permanent teachers are also required in TAFE and AMES. The employment of these additional teachers will allow a start to be made on addressing key elements of Federation's policy on workload adopted by the 2007 Annual Conference. These elements include:

• an additional two hours release time per week for teachers in primary schools
• an additional two 40 minute periods or time equivalent 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.

Identified both by individual teachers in their daily work and by various surveys, unreasonable teacher workload is debilitating for the profession and quality public education. It is clear that the 21st century demands of teaching and learning can only be addressed by a commitment by the State Government to significant improvements to the staffing formulae that apply in our schools and colleges, by the employment of additional teaching staff and the recognition 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.

Apart from the one hour of additional release time being phased in for 1st year permanent teachers, there have been no significant reductions in teacher workload for two decades. While no teacher needs to be convinced as to the need to address workload, it is time it was made clear that governments have for too long exploited the commitment of teachers and their professionalism to fill the growing gaps in staffing, funding and resourcing our public schools. It has become all too common for governments to announce new initiatives with no commitment to appropriate resourcing, including release time for teachers. 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 the DET and the State Government to assess the workload implications of initiatives prior to introduction are ignored. Such an approach is disrespectful to both the profession and the students they teach.

As with the 2008 campaigns for staffing and teacher salaries, this campaign will be supported by appropriate political, industrial and legal strategies.

Bob Lipscombe is Deputy President.

Some beginning teachers miss out on release time

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March 2008 contents