New research conducted by Monash University, What the profession needs now for the future, has confirmed what the teachers’ union has been saying: most Victorian public school teachers say they are overworked, underpaid and face rising levels of aggression from both students and parents.
The research team from the Faculty of Education and led by Professor Fiona Longmuir surveyed 8000 teachers, principals and support workers and found that only three in ten can see themselves staying in the system until retirement, with 40 per cent already considering leaving.
The top reason listed was excessive workloads – nominated by 82.8 per cent of participants. Next on the list were:
- poor pay (70.8 per cent),
- lack of respect for the profession (67.5 per cent), and
- student and parent behaviour (64.9 per cent and 33.7 per cent respectively)
In 2022 the Australian Education Union negotiated an EBA which gave a 2 per cent annual pay increase and a reduction of 1.5 hours of face-to-face teaching time each week. The government also promised to employ 1900 additional teachers. However, survey respondents said they were still completing an average of 12.5 hours of unpaid work each week.
AEU Victorian branch president Meredith Peach said the State Government was to blame for the crisis. “Without significant and urgent action to retain current staff, the teacher workforce shortage crisis impacting Victorian public schools will get worse,” Peace said. “The state Labor government has not done enough to fix the teacher shortage crisis and have done nothing new to fix the issue in over 12 months. This new research is a wake-up call for Education Minister [Ben] Carroll and the Premier.”
Source: The Age; Monash University Project overview