AS the school year comes to an end, criticism has fallen on legislation passed by the Federal Government earlier this month.
A leading union says the Better and Fairer Schools (Funding Reform) Act has been seen as failing to compel meaningful employer action on excessive teacher workloads.
The Independent Education Union of Queensland and Northern Territory represents 17,000 teachers and support staff in non-government schools.
Branch secretary Terry Burke said that while the new arrangements acknowledged teacher workload and staff wellbeing, they failed to require specific and enforceable workload interventions at the school or system level.
“Employers must also be held to account for spiralling workloads in their schools,” Mr Burke said.
“While the Act includes a workload impact assessment to ensure overworked school staff are not burdened by even more administrative tasks, we are calling on non-government school employers to genuinely engage with our union on the issues of workload and work intensification.
“Simply acknowledging the problem or offering vague reports on existing (and often inadequate) workload responses isn’t enough.
“Reforms need to mandate specific new workload measures supported by a stricter reporting regime and employers should be held to account by having to demonstrate workload reductions in their schools.”
Mr Burke said the Act also missed the opportunity to resolve long-standing funding shortfalls for all schools.
“Full funding of public schools is essential to complement the work of members and schools in the non-government sector and our union believes that funding must centre on student need.
“The work of our members and schools in the non-government sector must be complemented by a world-class public education system accessible to all children in all communities.
“We commend the Federal Government for increasing their investment in education, but the truth is the new funding arrangements simply don’t go far enough.
“While the Federal Government has increased their contribution from 20% of the Schooling Resource Standard to 22.5%, this still fails to deliver full funding for the vast majority of Australia’s public schools.”
