Anonymous #270

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #270

Where are you located?

Australian Capital Territory

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?

Teacher

Elevating the profession

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

Strongly agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

You can only really elevate the value of the profession by paying for it and valuing the workplace working and learning conditions.

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?

This may be a sufficient incentive for teachers to complete their training but it will not retain them.

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.

Neither agree nor disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Until we see how this time will be given, I cannot evaluate it.
So much of our non-teaching periods are hijacked by nabobs climbing the greasy pole out of the classroom, fluffing their CV,s at our expense. It’s inevitably cloaked in by faddist management weasel words, but steals valuable lesson preparation and planning time from those of us who actually still enjoy being in the classroom and want to keep teaching.

Stop lumbering teachers with constant monitoring procedures of everything we do in multiple IT and hard copy administrative tasks. Create admin systems so that the admin staff can do the admin and let us get on with teaching

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?

Not effective at all

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Clearly the NSW DOE has lost all corporate capacity to audit or staff schools. Until recently they denied that there was any shortage. The neo liberal project of LOCAL SCHOOLS LOCAL DECISIONS crushed the bureaucracy that was a centralised system of staffing every school, every year with graduates who had high Atars, teaching scholarships, security and transfer rights.

Real wages relative to other graduate professionals has plummeted, that’s the icing on the cake. Teachers need to be paid fairly. You can’t expect us to do it for love.

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.

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Firstly, get rid of the bureaucratic monitoring of teachers by nesa and the other state bodies. They are expensive rubber stamps which teachers pay for! Let teachers in schools manage this with genuine collaborative practices. Reinstate a central staffing unit, where there is a queue and hard to staff areas are staffed first with a right to transfer after 3-4 years. Staff will get great varied experiences. This was the practice until the 1990s’. Should beginning teachers decline the position they could either add the scholarship to their hecs or pay it back.

Secondly, the sycophantic brown nosing of individuals into promotion positions induced by local “merit” selection processes, is the opposite of what is needed to ensure quality leadership in schools. A centralised list system of promotion would share talent across the whole of a state with plurality and consistency. Apart from a lack of housing, Merit Selection recruitment is responsible to a great extent, for the shortages of teachers in disadvantaged communities.

After teaching for thirty years, I don’t need some narcissistic know all telling me how to teach from the tome they wrote about themselves to become a HALT.