What kind of profession do we want ours to be? What shared values do teachers and support staff hold that motivate us to do what we do?
At July 2023 Branch Council members made a choice for the future of our profession. Council committed to making careers in public education not just great and rewarding work, but a great and rewarding life. Council passed the following motion, unanimously:
Council acknowledges that excessive workloads present the greatest continuing challenge for attracting and retaining staff in the teaching profession.
Council further acknowledges that despite continual strengthening of enterprise agreement workload protections and the resourcing of ACT Public Schools to 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard, excessive workload remains a critical issue across our system.
Council notes that while the teacher shortage crisis has exacerbated workload problems, it is not the underlying cause of excessive workloads. Achieving sustainable workload reduction requires a cultural change across the ACT Public School system at all levels where sustainable workloads are prioritised and the limits of school resources are acknowledged.
Council:
- Calls on ACT Education Directorate leadership to make sustainable workloads their highest priority;
- Calls on the AEU ACT Branch office to prepare and resource a campaign that commits ACT public education workers at all levels to specific action to reduce workloads;
- Calls on all AEU sub-branches to make a collective commitment to reducing workloads.
Councillors committed to taking the conversation back to their workplaces and encouraging others to join with us in making manageable workloads a reality. Check out the gallery below to see what things AEU members committed to doing to reduce workloads.
