Easing the administrative burden on NSW teachers would be the best way to ease the brain drain on educators, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.
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An upper house committee is investigating how to combat the shrinking supply of school teachers, a problem being felt across the country that has now drawn the federal government's focus.
Science Teachers Association of NSW head Margaret Shepherd said workloads and administration demands were a "significant driver" of teacher shortages.
"Add to that the feeling of being undervalued because of the ongoing wage dispute," Ms Shepherd said on Tuesday.
Public school teachers in NSW have taken strike action twice this year, calling for improved pay and better conditions.
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell has floated paying top-performing teachers more, and supplying educators with pre-written lessons to reduce work hours.
But the former suggestion has been criticised for pitting teachers against each other, while the latter has drawn ire because it is one aspect of the job teachers enjoy.
The inquiry also heard from Glenn Fahey from the Centre for Independent Studies, a libertarian think-tank.
He told the committee Australian teachers perform nearly four hours of extra work per week than the average educator in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.
This included about an hour on school management tasks, about 90 minutes on administrative work, and nearly an hour on collaborative work with colleagues.
Education and occupation experts from the University of Sydney also said administrative work, and the extra hours teachers performed to complete it, needed to change.
Rachel Wilson said teachers got job satisfaction from spending time in the classroom, while administrative tasks raised stress and job dissatisfaction.
Her colleague, Susan McGrath-Champ, said teachers worked 44 hours a week on campus, an extra 11 hours a week at home, and 10 hours a week during term breaks.
Keeping teachers in schools has become a national agenda item. Federal Education Minister Jason Clare met with his state and territory counterparts in Canberra last week to discuss how to fix the crisis.
The meeting canvassed multiple issues, including labour shortages, workloads and retention issues. It also considered incentives for people wanting to make a mid-career change to teaching.
Of the nearly 11,300 teachers and administrators surveyed in NSW, about 60 per cent said they planned to leave the profession in the next five years. The online survey was commissioned by the upper house committee.
Australian Associated Press
