The newspaper of the Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT Branch (vol 41 #5) July 2021 PP 100000871 ISSN No: 0728-4845
'TEACH FOR NSW' IS TINKERING
NOT REFORM Mark Northam Secretary
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell’s recent announcement, Teach for NSW, is aimed at fast tracking mid-career professionals into teaching and is yet another a symptom of the problem, not a long-term solution. The Minister uses the language of “big reforms and ideas”, but the solutions she is proposing, a NSW version of Teach for Australia, does little to address the structural issues facing the profession in a comprehensive and holistic manner. The teacher shortage crisis in NSW is a result of years of under-resourcing and neglect. The piecemeal, quick-fix solution, which fails to address the fundamental issues the profession faces, will have a limited impact and ultimately kick the can down the road for future generations to solve. Any number of inquiries have identified the profession's recruitment and retention concerns: • attracting high-performing young people into initial teacher education courses • ensuring graduates complete their initial teacher training • ensuring graduates obtain suitable placements of employment and are appropriately inducted into the profession (successfully attain proficient teacher status) • retaining teachers in the profession • retaining high-performing teachers in the classroom. Regrettably, the self-styled Teach for NSW program proposed by the minister sidesteps the first two concerns and jumps straight to trying to plug the gaps across the state; gaps, incidentally, that the union has been warning about for years.
It is also not entirely clear just which staffing problems this new proposal is intended to solve. It is assumed there will be a focus on filling the gaps in the many challenging, hard-tostaff schools across the state. In this respect, the success of the program must be gauged against how well the program addresses the fourth and fifth points around retention issues. Unfortunately, the proposal offers little insight into how these structural concerns will be addressed.
Short degrees Early discussion around the program design suggests it will allow academics, professionals, and subject matter experts to undergo shorter, more flexible education degrees which take into account their existing knowledge and teaching experience. It is unclear how this would apply to the primary context where teachers are required to teach across all Key Learning Areas (KLAs). This highlights the secondary school-centric aspect of the program and is a further indication of its limited application. Details of how the program will operate are scarce. However, it appears participants will undertake postgraduate degrees that are re-organised so students cover “the most important content first”, then work in a classroom while they complete the rest. The expected time frame is that these students will be placed in the classroom on salary, as interns, within six months. A recently released federal discussion paper on university teacher training found that, nationally, almost 50 percent of trainee teachers failed to complete their degrees. While some of these trainees would have quickly come to the conclusion they were not suited to a career in teaching, anecdotally, we know that many leave in this early stage due to the high levels of stress they experience during their pre-service placement.
It remains to be seen what strategies and resources will be put in place to ensure these fast-tracked graduates successfully complete their Initial Teacher Education (ITE). If the Teach for Australia program is anything to go by, the NSW equivalent will surely need to provide substantial support mechanisms to ensure participants don’t stumble at the first hurdle. Teach for Australia associates, as they are called, are given a maximum teaching load of 0.8FTE (full time equivalent). They are also provided with a teaching and leadership adviser, a dedicated academic mentor, and a school mentor (who receives time release – four hours per week in an associate's first year and two hours per week in an associate's second year).
What about graduates? It stands to reason that, if these support structures are appropriate for “the best and brightest from other professions”, who presumably come to teaching with a wealth of workplace and life experience, they should also be standard for the graduate teacher, fresh out of university, who is working towards attaining Proficiency in an increasingly challenging professional environment. Whether these fast-tracked Teach for NSW interns will continue in the profession long term is uncertain. More importantly, will they still be teaching in the most challenging and difficult-to-staff schools? Unless there is some meaningful reform with respect to teacher workload, teacher career pathways, and teacher remuneration, it is hard to see how anything is likely to change simply by changing the manner in which teachers enter the profession.
Why we all need paid vaccination leave First the IEU pushed for teachers and support staff to be included in priority groups for vaccination. Now we’re seeking paid vaccination leave. Here’s why. Defeating the COVID-19 pandemic demands high vaccination rates. And Australia’s best chance of achieving these high rates across the community involves enabling employees to get vaccinated as a workplace right – a right that is supported by employers and backed by the force of law. So the IEU joins with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) in calling for paid vaccination leave for all workers, including teachers and support staff from early childhood education and care through to secondary schools and post-secondary colleges. “It’s imperative to have paid leave readily accessible in a pandemic,” said IEUA NSW/ACT Branch Secretary Mark Northam. “Our members’ vaccination appointments are determined by the availability of the vaccine, the length of
queues and the difficulty of obtaining GP appointments. To predetermine all these factors to fall outside work commitments is impossible.” Since late June, the Greater Sydney area has been in lockdown owing to a surge of the Delta variant of the coronavirus. On 11 July 2021, 52 people were in hospital, six of whom were under 25. There were 15 people in intensive care and five on ventilators. To avoid even longer and more serious health, economic, and social disruption, the nation needs to increase its vaccination rate dramatically. Yet on 11 July, four months into the vaccine rollout, only 8.8 percent of people aged over 16 were fully vaccinated. The rollout has been too slow, poorly organised, and health advice has been inconsistent. It has not been worker friendly. Continued on page 2
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