Anonymous #046

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #046

Where are you located?

Queensland

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?

School leader

Elevating the profession

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

Neither agree nor disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

A $10m marketing campaign and a Teacher Award do nothing to actually address the abuse and distain teachers face every day. Do you believe a few marketing videos and posters will stop students from abusing teachers? Do you think it will make parents go "Oh wait, our child actually is terribly behaved, and the teacher is doing the right thing. Gee I love teachers."
It is delusional to think this is a solution. It shows how out of touch these people are with what goes on in classrooms.
On top of that, let's create a Teacher Award to celebrate and promote one teacher every year who is going well above and beyond. This only creates a culture of celebrating overwork/over-achieving and under-appreciates the effort of teachers who do their jobs and do them well, every. single. day.

What are you doing for EVERY teacher across Australia who does an incredible job every day supporting the youth? Nothing. You will spend $10m paying marketing companies to "celebrate" teachers and then give an award for one teacher each year. Well done. That is sure to solve the current crisis and change Australia's negative stigma and under-appreciation of teachers! If only we'd known all it took was a $10m marketing campaign! We could have fixed this issue sooner...

Get a grip. Please. If you want to change the stigma of teaching, this won't do it. Education is not valued in this country. Football and coal/gas/oil are valued. How about you tax the oil and gas companies more and use that money to actually help teachers. It's sad I waste time typing this, knowing full-well this draft is very much "final" and you will all pat yourselves on the back and say you've solved the issue and are "supporting" teachers while you turn around and condemn teaching unions and strikes.

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.

Somewhat disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

$40,000 is NOT how you solve the teaching shortage. People are not becoming teachers because teachers are not respected, not valued, underpaid, overworked and the job is emotionally exhausting.

$40,000 is peanuts to a high-achieving student when they can become a lawyer, doctor, engineer, scientist, programmer etc. and make $40,000 MORE per annum than a teacher. Does the Australian Government really believe you are going to convince someone on track to become a surgeon, to change career paths and subject themselves to swearing, abuse, name-calling and harassment from students AND parents every day, just for a $40,000 payout?!

This also places value in the wrong area. It is great to have high achieving students become teachers, but it should NOT be a focus on an entire national government. Plenty of really smart people would be terrible teachers, and some average, not-super-smart people make fantastic educators. You may do more harm than good by stigmatising the idea that high-achievers are valuable to the teaching profession and everyone else is not.

AND NONE OF THIS actually addresses the issue of retaining teachers. It is all good and well to pay people to study teaching, but a large portion of ITE graduates do not stay in the profession. Giving them a scholarship or making it easier to switch into a career in teaching DO NOT address the reason that teachers leave the profession. It just means more teachers into the machine that will be chewed up and spat out a few years later.

Why can you not understand that we would not have this teacher shortage if the industry wasn't bleeding teachers every day. Why are we bleeding teachers? How about you figure that out and fix it, rather than throwing money to bringing in new teachers that also end up leaving.

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 disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

It is laughable that one of the examples listed as having already reduced teacher workload is " digital roll marking."
Because the workload involved in ticking a physical form vs clicking a digital roll was so massive that " digital roll marking" is a worthwhile example of workload reduction.... Laughable. If you want to reduce workload, give teachers 7 hours of planning/prep time and 16 hours teaching time a week.

"Jurisdictions and non-government
school authorities will continue to
implement existing actions
designed to address teacher
workload issues."
Because they are clearly already doing such a stellar job... If any of the states actually had decent workload reduction strategies, you WOULD NOT be facing a teacher shortage.
Get your act together.

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?

Too little too late. Some of these reports won't be ready until the end of 2024. Australia will be lacking thousands more teachers by then... And then you need to plan actions to address what the reports tell you. Good luck. I love my job, but the education of young Australian's is already on life support, it cannot sustain itself much longer.

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.

Neither agree nor disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

QLD currently limits HAT to someone teaching for 5+ years. Why does a very high achieving third year teacher have to wait? Should we not be celebrating them for achieving so well early in their career? They get paid more to be a HoD and there is no restriction on this.

Is it really a great strategy to be pushing teachers towards MORE workload? HAT and LEAD are very intense. We want to push even more teachers towards this? This is NOT workload reduction and does NOT incentivise work/life balance.