BY SUE BULL
MELBOURNE — Talk to any Victorian teacher and you are likely to get the same story — the job's getting harder. Most of us are working longer hours, with more responsibilities and our pay rate is barely moving. More teachers are starting to think that their future lies in a different direction.
As teachers prepare to take their first nationally coordinated protest action on September 17, the teacher shortage is looming as a critical issue.
The current trends show that there is likely to be a national teacher shortage of 5000 by the beginning of the 2005 school year, and 25,000 by 2010. Already, more than half the schools in Victoria have had teacher shortages, and in rural secondary schools the figure is 85.7%. More than 50% of principals said the shortage was worse than the previous year.
Meanwhile, up to one-third of Victoria's teachers will retire in the next five to eight years under what is colloquially known as "54/11". Teachers get a much better superannuation pay-out if they retire at 54 and 11 months than if they retire at a later date.
To the casual observer, it might appear that there is a tremendous opportunity for young, enthusiastic and energetic teachers to enter the service and revitalise the industry.
Unfortunately this is not case. Victoria now has the lowest proportion of student-teacher enrolments in the country — 9,106 in teacher training as compared to 16,460 in NSW and 14,668 in Queensland. And once they graduate, these beginning teachers have some serious complaints to make.
Surveys by the Australian Secondary Principals Association (ASPA) and the Australian Education Union (AEU) have shown that 43% do not see themselves as teaching in 5-10 years time. They cite a number of problems — all of which could be easily resolved if governments had the will to do so.
For example, Melbourne's Sunday Herald Sun on September 7 quoted the ASPA survey, explaining that 40% of beginning teachers are teaching out of their subject areas. Forty-seven per cent were employed on contracts with none of the benefits of permanent employment.
Green Left Weekly spoke to two first-year-out teachers about their view on the problems of the industry.
Bronwyn Jennings is 26 years old and she teaches a composite Grade 1-2 at Moriac Primary School, a semi-rural area near Geelong. She's a contract teacher who has been employed on two six-month contracts. She is now facing her third application and job interview if she wants to remain at the same school next year, despite the school attracting increasing student enrolments.
Jennings says, "My school is like most others, too scared to employ more permanent teachers in case something happens and they are left with too many on the staff. Everything has been devolved to the local level and schools cannot carry any excess wage costs. So the answer is to have contractors who can be easily hired and fired.
"But the pressure this puts on beginning teachers, in particular, is enormous. Many new teachers are afraid to speak out. It's hard enough establishing yourself in a new job when you feel constantly under surveillance and fear not being re-employed without drawing possibly negative attention to yourself by being in the union or taking industrial action.
"Government initiatives have meant increasing amounts of testing, administration and professional development. There's awareness that workloads could really blow out. But also teachers feel cynical about government policies, such as those on smaller class sizes when there aren't even enough class rooms to cater for current enrollment levels."
Jennings said that she hoped this current AEU campaign would lead to greater involvement of young activists within the union. She said, "I hope this campaign goes on the offensive to improve conditions and not just maintain the not-very-good conditions we have at the moment".
Hamish McPherson is a 29-year-old teacher in his first year of teaching at Fairfield Primary School, an inner Melbourne suburb. Like Jennings, he is also on a contract and teaches Grade 1-2. Unlike Jennings, he has been offered a three-year contract from the beginning of next year but would prefer to be a permanent teacher.
He said, "This whole contract system was expanded under the [Liberal Jeff] Kennett regime and is helping to undermine the strength of the teaching workforce. The so-called reform of school devolution meant that policy, financial planning and the ability to hire and fire were increasingly placed at the local level. The centralised appointments system was abolished. This is becoming a real problem, given the teacher shortage.
"Our problems are linked to growing casualisation within the broader workforce. I've been a casual worker in warehouses, manufacturing and administration. It undermines the ability of workers to organise and protect themselves and advance their pay and conditions. The AEU needs to fight really hard over this issue and get the use of contracts reduced to a bare minimum. We need to get rid of this idea that principals can use contracts for any reason that they deem valid."
[Sue Bull is a secondary teacher and a member of the AEU.]
From Green Left Weekly, September 17, 2003.
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