Rough start for casual and temporary teachers with new policy

DET's new staffing arrangements disadvantage casual and temporary teachers.

By Nicole Calnan

At the end of term 1 and over the holidays, Federation received a number of phone calls from teachers expressing their disgust over the content of the letter sent by the Department of Education and Training (DET) dated March 31 to all non permanent teachers seeking employment and also their concerns regarding the staffing changes.

The letter clearly illustrates DET's staffing policy will disadvantage casual and temporary teachers. The letter caused a great deal of confusion and concern to many casual and temporary teachers across the state.

Some of the concerns from casual teachers were: the abolishment of the Permanent Employment Program (PEP), the 48 hour turn around if the school opts to employ from a 'pool of interested applicants', that contact details on the letters were those of other teachers and that the email address to update and change DET contact details listed was incorrect.

The Permanent Employment Program (PEP) has been part of past staffing agreements over the years. This has seen up to 300 positions per year advertised with only casual and temporary teachers able to apply for positions in an attempt to gain permanency. The removal of this method of employment will see non permanent teachers competing with permanent teachers as well as other non permanent teachers for advertised positions. Federation remains committed to PEP as an important inclusion in any staffing agreement.

The 48-hour time limit placed on positions to be offered to the interest pool of applicants, Federation believes, is unreasonable. Casual teachers have reported the difficulties they have accessing computers when they are in schools. This strict time frame also does not take into consideration other responsibilities many teachers have outside of their working lives. This ill thought out policy assumes that every teacher has access to a computer and that all teachers would have time in the 48 hour window to sit down and write an application to suit the criteria being advertised. This particular method of filling vacancies is potentially discriminating to working people with families.

In the letter, DET requested that teachers check that their contact details were correct and if not, reply by email with the updated contact information. In many instances, the contact details that appeared on the letter were those of another teacher. When teachers tried to email the DET based on the email address given on the letter, the emails bounced as the email address was incomplete. This forced the DET to issue an email and SMS alert to teachers asking them to check the details carefully and providing the correct email address.

Given the difficulties DET had in contacting a large volume of teachers, a number of teachers have indicated a lack of confidence in the DET in being able to contact them if indeed a position becomes available at a school they have indicated they are willing to work in.

DET staffing policy will not create one additional job. The policy will simply allow for more teachers to compete for positions. Concerned casual and temporary teachers should write directly to the Director-General and the Minister to outline their concerns about the DET's imposed staffing policy. These concerns should also be sent to local MPs.

Federation remains committed to achieving a negotiated staffing industrial agreement and will continue to advocate for an agreement that protects the rights of all teachers.

Nicole Calnan Country Organiser.

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Last Modified: 08 May 2008