Salutary lessons from staffing survey

Jonathan Atkin is 'fed up' with the NSW Government's appalling treatment of teachers.

A recent survey reveals local selection will mean many more hours on work not related to teaching.

By Wendy Currie

At March Council a survey was undertaken about time taken by teachers and executive on the staffing selection panel process. The results show the enormous amount of time teachers spend on this, time that would otherwise have been spent on teaching, preparation and so on, or even time with family and friends. It showed that the local selection process under the old staffing agreement was a burden on schools and teachers, with most of those who completed the survey using a good deal of their own time.

It is anticipated that with the changes to staffing procedures there would be many more selection panels established and many more applicants for a large number of the positions advertised, with the amount of teacher time and energy devoted to staffing increasing dramatically both in and out of work hours, taking teachers, both applicants and panel members, away from teaching and their families at an increasing rate. Those who will suffer will not only be these teachers but their students.

Seventy nine councillors identified themselves as having participated in selection panels, and completed the surveys. The majority had been on a panel for which there were between one and five applicants, over half had been on panels with between six and 20 applicants, a third on panels with between 21 and 40 applicants, while 15 of the 79 had been on panels for which there were more than 40 applicants.

There were schools in relatively desirable areas that had had up to 150 applications for one position, while 60 to 80 applications were not uncommon.

The average time taken depended on the number of applicants for the position. Where there were 1-5 applicants the average time was 15 hours, with the highest being around 36 hours. At the other extreme, where there were more than 40 applicants the average time was 33 hours, with 75 hours the highest.

Most telling was the number of hours spent out of school time, generally between two and 12 hours when there were one to five applicants, though clustered around five hours, and almost entirely spent reading applications. When there were more than 40 applicants this time increased to anything up to 48 hours. For only one or two panels were all the hours out of school time.

Respondents noted time spent organising the panel, training panel members, constructing interview questions, administrative support regarding travel and accommodation, so the average number of hours mentioned above are an underestimation.

Some of the respondents' comments were revealing.

One person reported they had to travel one hour each way to the panel and also spent 24 hours reading applications at the weekend.

Another said: "The hours tell only part of the story. The actual ramifications can be another story. For example, I had two panels in the last two weeks of the year. This effectively took me out for four days, plus the additional hours of CV reading. I was unable to complete my own work (stock-taking, book ordering, programming, class lists etc) and had to make up the time by coming in to school for three days in January."

One from a school in a less desirable location, when asked whether any position had more than 40 applicants, wrote: "We wish!!! I have never had more than six applicants at any time in regards to positions advertised in the 10 years I've been there." Another school in a similar area had 12 panels in the last 12 months. At five of those, they did not come up with a single suitably qualified candidate to interview.

These are the sorts of scenarios that will be repeated now around the state.

Wendy Currie is a Research Officer.

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Last Modified: 08 May 2008