Australia’s teachers – undervalued and overburdened |
As ATAR scores dominate headlines, the work of teachers remains largely invisible. They are central to education and social cohesion, yet underpaid, overworked and routinely taken for granted.
Recently Year 12 students around the country have been celebrating or lamenting their ATAR scores. The celebrating students are featured in the media; the lamenters are mostly silent. But where are their teachers?
In Scandinavian and East Asian cultures, teachers are highly respected and their work is prized. In China, Korea and Japan, for instance, there are special days set aside annually to celebrate their teachers. Meanwhile, in Australia the work that teachers do is frequently devalued – evidence that the country is going backward educationally. We need to change.
The teaching profession in Australia is mostly regulated at state and territory levels but it’s funded mainly by the federal government. The result is a crazy mismatch of regulations and educational standards across state and territory borders and wide disparities in pay and conditions. Adding to this confusion are the urban-rural and public-private divides in all the states and territories.
An accurate comparison of the work of teachers with that of other professionals (doctors and lawyers, for example) illustrates just how poorly they are remunerated and how often their work is under-valued. Their conditions of work come nowhere near to reflecting the value of what they achieve for society and the economy.
Meanwhile, they are forever time-poor, each day struggling to complete mindless administrative paperwork........