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World Teachers Day
26 October 2007
By Diane Hague
Media and Communications Officer
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World Teachers Day poster
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Today is World Teachers Day. World Teachers Day provides the opportunity to draw public attention to the important role of teachers within society. This year, the focus is on working conditions. All around the world, teachers, students and their communities are campaigning for better working conditions for teachers as these mean better learning conditions for students.
In Australia, increasing teachers' salaries and improving their working conditions is vital for the future of the Australian economy. In a time of massive skills shortage, it is imperative that teaching is seen as an important and valued profession and remunerated as such.
The NSW Teachers Federation is campaigning under the theme, Time to Teach - Time to Learn, for significant improvements to working conditions for teachers. Salaries will become a major issue for NSW teachers in 2008 when all of the awards to which Federation is a party are up for negotiation.
However, it is important that we remember our sister and brother teachers who are teaching in countries that are more disadvantaged than Australia.
Teachers of the world demand:
• A decent working environment - a safe and healthy learning environment for teachers and learners, appropriate class-sizes and adequate pedagogical resources in the classroom
• Living wages - salaries that allow for decent living conditions and that are regularly paid
• Equal pay and equal rights for women - female teachers should not experience discrimination of any form and governments should ensure the empowerment of women in the education setting, in decision making and in the workplace
• Initial and ongoing professional development - the opportunity to gain and to develop professional skills, to be kept uptodate with new information and pedagogical techniques, and to develop a career
• Involvement in policy making - to ensure that new policies reflect the reality of the classroom, social dialogue should be an integral part of education planning and policy formulation
• Collective bargaining to defend and enhance teachers' rights - working conditions, as well as quality assessments of teaching procedures, must be negotiated between representatives of the government/employers and the representative education unions.
For further information
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