Victorian Commercial Teachers Association

Submitter information

Name

Victorian Commercial Teachers Association

Where are you located?

Victoria

What type of area do you live in?

Metropolitan

Are you an education professional?
(e.g. teacher, school leader, learning support assistant, teacher’s aide)

Yes

Which sector do you work in?

Secondary

What is your occupation?

Executive Officer

Elevating the profession

The actions proposed recognise the value teachers bring to students, communities and the economy.

Somewhat agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Action 2.
This action will create a larger burden on administrative tasks in order to apply and prove a teacher's worth for such an award. There are already National Awards in this area operated by The Educator Online (Education Awards) and are mainly attributed to Private and Independent schools who have the additional staff writing the applications. This would only become a successful initiative if administrative loads are kept to a minimum and support is provided to all institutions to ensure equal access to applying for the awards.

Action 4
HALT status again involves an enormous workload to prove and create the evidence. Whilst this is a great initiative it would be best to ensure that the administrative and accessibility criteria for teachers is fair and equal.

Improving teacher supply

The actions proposed will be effective in increasing the number of students entering ITE, number of students completing ITE and the number of teachers staying in and/or returning to the profession.

Neither agree nor disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Providing bursaries and/or any form of financial incentive is a short-term view. Financial incentives don't keep people in the profession if their internal motivation is not met. It would be more efficient to find out why teachers are leaving the profession and to seek ways to improve upon their lack of motivation to stay. I doubt that financial gains will keep more teachers in the profession.

Quite often teachers salaries are reach the maximum amount available within 10 years and then the only way to receive a significant pay rise is to gain a position in school management. It is unusual in any profession to not seek recognition via remuneration beyond ten years.

Strengthening Initial Teacher Education (ITE)

The actions proposed will ensure initial teacher education supports teacher supply and quality.

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Maximising the time to teach

The actions proposed will improve retention and free up teachers to focus on teaching and collaboration.

Somewhat agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Whilst all the initiatives to help increase the time to teach sound great it excludes the impact of Professional Teacher Associations such as the Victorian Commercial Teacher Association (VCTA) and many, many others from around the country. Within these organisations, are professional development journals and resources already being developed on shoe-string budgets and funding these organisations to a degree will help these professional associations to better target resource development for a wide range of teachers within their judisdictions. For example, at VCTA we already produce 65 articles or items for the classroom each year, which are fresh and ready to use, but this is stretched across five different curriculum areas. However, we are able to reach our member database which extends to 3400 teachers across four states, mainly in Victoria. Our resource development is currently restricted to what we can provide through membership fees. Should we be properly supplemented by Government funding we could provide even more timely, and specific resources to our 3400 teacher members.

Better understanding future teacher workforce needs

How effective are the proposed actions in better understanding future teacher workforce needs, including the number of teachers required?

Slightly effective

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

It is disappointing to note that there is no reference to Professional Teacher Subject Associations in this section. Professional Teacher Subject Associations. As an example, the Victorian Commercial Teacher Association (VCTA) works closely with it's 3400 teacher members in the area of Accounting, Business, Economics and Legal Studies and along with member working parties that target immediate needs of teachers, can provide much of the detail in terms of understanding future teacher workforce needs within these subjects. In addition it is recommended that this report includes the future needs of different subjects such as the Commerce area (and not only English, Maths or STEM) as Commerce needs to be constantly updated with Reserve Bank Policy, changes to laws and Business needs - all which require consistent and ongoing teacher professional development as provided by us at the VCTA. Without keeping our teachers up to date in these areas and therefore well-prepared for the classroom, they quickly fall behind in their content knowledge and feel undervalued and under prepared.

Better career pathways to support and retain teachers in the profession

The proposed actions will improve career pathways, including through streamlining the process for Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher (HALT) accreditation, and providing better professional support for teachers to retain them in the profession.

Somewhat agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

It is disappointing to see that the QTR is only funded to the UoN in the strategy plan.

The Victorian Commercial Teachers Association (VCTA) along with many subject teacher associations play a vital role in keeping teachers in the classroom up to date. In 2022 the VCTA has provided legal updates and economic updates to teachers of VCE, provided ongoing support to new teachers learning their content, provided annual conference days for all commerce teachers (which attracted over 800 teachers) and has provided mentoring to new teachers. It is vital that subject teacher associations such as the VCTA are included in the career pathway discussions to retain teachers in the profession given the opportunities that they are already providing and delivering. The VCTA delivers supporting programs and activities to over 3400 teachers in Victoria, NSW, QLD, NT, SA, WA and Tasmania with the majority of it's membership coming from Victoria. The only state or territory we do not deliver professional development to is the ACT as we have no members from this jurisdiction. The VCTA therefore has a wealth of institutional knowledge on how to attract and retain Commerce teachers.