Tasmanian Principals Association says structural and social changes needed to address school staff pressures

TPA president Malcolm Elliott said the Australian Education Union Tasmania’s survey of 3000 Tasmanian public school principals and teachers showed a high level of stress suffered by educators who seek to provide the best level of education to students.

He said an increase in reporting requirements, and an ongoing shift in the expectations of parents that schools will provide more curricular and extra-curricular activities, was ratcheting up pressure on principals and teachers.

“All workload issues need to be systematically addressed, I think it’s a pretty complex problem,” Mr Elliott said, noting the overload of work could easily destroy teachers’ enthusiasm for their job.

Mr Elliott said another major concern highlighted by the survey was teachers not having not enough time for professional learning and development.

The survey reported primary teachers complete a average of 10.8 hours of unpaid overtime each week, and less than half of both primary and secondary teachers feel they can meet the needs of individual students.

Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said the state government had employed 107 more teachers and 74 more staff since elected and was supporting further needs-based reforms to the funding formula for administration staff.

“Our $17.8 million investment in supporting students to learn includes $6.9 million over four years for an additional 14.8 FTE professional support staff including speech pathologists, psychologists and social workers,” he said.

Opposition education spokeswoman Michelle O’Byrne said Labor was “committed to working with teachers to find ways to ease pressure on our schools”.

“We have already announced policies that will strengthen resources in our schools, including our promise to bring back Pathway Planning,” she said.