Equal Remuneration Order (ERO)
Sharon - Hopefully common sense will prevail! Many thanks to everyone fighting the case on our behalf.
Lyn - A special thank you for standing alongside of early childhood teachers. I have been teaching for over 30 years and when I graduated there was no difference in pay rates [between school and early childhood]. Now graduates are forced to choose, and they select schools due to pay disparity. Research shows the benefits of early childhood. Please value our profession.
Kylie - Everything crossed for a successful outcome to better recognise the work of these great teachers.
Role of teachers
Tony - In the private system you are exploitable and in the public system expendable. Poor management - dreadful oversight agencies with an emphasis on compliance and an aggressive anti staff attitude. Rising expectations and the need to be social worker as well as administer an overcrowded curriculum. The evidence is out there and following the UK and US systems ain’t working folks. Let’s get creativity and enthusiasm back into the mix and let teachers teach - with respect on the way through.
Tony - Perception we get paid a lot - news to me. I look forward to becoming a casual teacher after 39 years full time. Too many cooks in the kitchen for mine!
Union wins
Patricia - Without unions we’d have no maternity leave, no RFF and probably have 50 in our classrooms. Almost every pay increase has been the result of collective bargaining!
Nadia - Would love to know what the ‘philosophical reasons’ for not joining a union would be - maybe getting things you didn’t work for? Is that considered a philosophy these days?
Claire - Without unions, teachers would always be on temporary contracts and forced to jump through even more hoops than there are now (good grief!) to keep their jobs, and none of those ‘hoops’ would have anything to do with good teaching. Our employers want contract workers, who are too afraid to say anything critical of them. It is so naive to say that we don’t need unions anymore.
Leonie - Give power back to the schools. School principals and teachers are professionals! They know their cohorts, they know what to teach and they know how to teach it. Enough of the box ticking and constantly having to prove one’s worth as a teacher - it is killing education!
Louise - If you look at the top performing countries there are two characteristics that stand out: teachers are highly respected as a profession, and/or teachers have reduced face-to-face time with students.