Central Coast teachers were seeing red on Wednesday, October 12, with the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) saying a recent offer from the State Government of an extra 30 minutes per week of release time was “insulting”.
Teachers around NSW dressed in red on Wednesday to protest continuing poor work and pay conditions, as the Industrial Commission prepared to hear the State Government’s proposal for a new three-year salaries award locking in a pay rise of 2.53 per cent a year for three years.
Premier Dominic Perrottet announced earlier in the week that teachers would receive 30 minutes of additional curriculum release time from face-to-face teaching.
“For high school teachers, this additional time will mean that they will now have the equivalent of almost one full day every week for lesson planning,” Perrottet said.
“We want students to succeed in their schooling and to do that we need to support teachers so they can plan lessons that will deliver the right outcomes for students.”
Secondary school teachers, who currently receive five hours and 35 minutes of release time each week, and primary school teachers, who receive two hours, will receive the equivalent of an extra 30 minutes per week in 2023, increasing to an extra 60 minutes per week in 2024 and 2025.
Education Minister, Sarah Mitchell, said schools will also be given more time to plan for the following school years, with an extra school development day scheduled for the end of Term 4 in 2022 and 2023.
But NSWTF Senior Vice President, Amber Flohm, said the offer was an “absolute insult” to teachers, students and their parents.
“The Premier is suggesting half an hour (extra) will address the underlying issues which are causing our teacher shortage,” Flohm said.
She said the move did little to solve the ongoing issues of unsustainable workloads and uncompetitive salaries.
“Schools would need to pay for that half an hour from within their budgets which only takes away from their resources,” she said.
“We don’t have enough resources in schools.
“To say this will suffice is insulting and in no way addresses unsustainable workloads which see teachers working 60 hours per week.
“The very cause of the chronic shortage is the unattractiveness of the profession.”
NSWTF senior vice president amber flohm
“We will continue to do what we need to do to secure good public schooling for our students.”
NSWTF President, Angelo Gavrielatos, said the Government’s proposed three-year award would deliver “real wage cut” to teachers, worsening shortages and making the profession less attractive in a highly competitive labour market.
He said a new Department of Education ministerial briefing, obtained under FOI, revealed that 62 per cent of public schools (1,367) had at least one permanent teaching position vacant at the end of July, 17.5 per cent (390) had two or more and 2.3 per cent (50) had five or more.
“That means there were more than 2,000 permanent teaching positions vacant in public schools,” Gavrielatos said.
“The decision by the Perrottet Government to cap pay increases at 2.53 per cent a year for three years when inflation is 6.1 per cent and rising defies (its) own research that shows the uncompetitive salaries of teachers is a major reason why the number of people studying to become a teacher has plummeted.
“Right now we have a crisis in our classrooms.
“Kids are missing out in public and private schools because of the shortages and teachers are burning out.
“The number of early career teachers leaving public schools is at a 13 year high.”
Gavrielatos said the Government’s Teacher Supply Strategy has been an abject failure so far.
Terry Collins
Are we forgetting the 2 weeks of school holidays each term teachers are supposed to use for planning?