Australian teachers at breaking point as budget delivers superficial support

By Annabel Mansfield

EDUCATION Research by UniSA researchers found South Australian teachers spend up to 60% of their time outside of face-to-face teaching, much of which is beyond their paid working hours.

Australian teachers are breaking under a system that is failing to address excess workload, complexities in students, and job satisfaction, according to a UniSA report.

The report indicates that the teaching system is running on empty, with 79% of South Australian (SA) teachers saying they feel overworked, 71% working with staffing shortages, and 67% struggling with their social and emotional wellbeing.

Prepared for the Australian Education Union, the report highlights the experiences of 1600 SA teachers and principals who are members of the AEU and working in public education, finding significant gaps between what teachers and students need, and what the system demands.

Critically, teachers report that growing bureaucratic requirements and a proliferation of top-down initiatives are reducing their core teaching hours and limiting their ability to support students.

It is timely information given the $9.3 million Federal Budget allocation to support work already underway through the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan to strengthen Australia’s teacher workforce.

But as UniSA researchers say, is this enough when the problems are compounding?

Report co-author, UniSA Enterprise Fellow Associate Professor Joel Windle, says “compliance, red tape and admin overload” are forcing teachers to spend more hours completing bureaucratic obligations than face-to-face teaching.

“The data shows that teachers spend up to 60% of their time outside of face-to-face teaching, much of which is beyond their paid working hours,” Assoc Prof Windle says.

“They’re weighed down by the demands of ‘success metrics’ and feel that test-based accountability systems are not fit-for-purpose and take excessive time to accommodate in an already full curriculum.”

To help reduce workload, the response from education authorities across Australia has been to deliver pre-packaged curriculum resources, but this is problematic, he says.

“On the surface, standardised teaching packages may seem helpful, but in reality, they reduce professional autonomy and satisfaction, depending on how these are used,” Assoc Prof Windle says.

“Teaching is a complex, highly skilled profession that requires extensive time building relationships with students and colleagues. Growing complexity of student needs makes such time even more important.”

UniSA Professor Sam Sellar says that the importance of nurturing a trusted and empowered teaching profession is key to attracting and retaining great teachers.

“Keeping the teachers we have and elevating the status of the profession is critical over the next 12 months. But we need to be wary of ‘solutions’ that do not address the right problem,” Prof Sellar says.

“We must focus on system-level changes that support our teachers to do their work as professionals. We need to recognise and adequately resource for the increasing diversity of student needs, and we need to reduce unnecessary administrative work so that teaching is a vital, healthy and sustainable career path. 

“A key part of this is increasing the voice of teachers in decision-making and policy.

“We know that our teachers are up for the challenge; they spend more time at work than teachers in most other school systems around the world. Making a difference by teaching our young people is what gets our teachers out of bed in the morning.

“It’s time to empower and elevate Australia’s teaching profession.”

Comparing current responses to those in the 2018 TALIS survey, the Teachers at Breaking Point report found that:

• SA teachers work on average 50 hours per week (including 30 hours of non-teaching time)
• Barely half are satisfied with their job (53%)
• Many SA teachers are not happy with their wages (38%)
• SA teachers are stressed “a lot” (48%).

Additionally, it showed that:

• 93% of SA teachers felt their views are not valued by policy makers, and 80% feel that policy demands are unreasonable
• 45% of SA teachers do not get enough support or mentoring early in their career
• 28% of SA teachers are teaching outside their trained teaching area with 57% of teachers not having enough training to do so
• 46% of SA teachers plan to leave teaching within five years.

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