NSW Teachers Federation releases Valuing The Teaching Profession

Valuing The Teaching Profession, an independent inquiry commissioned by NSW Teachers Federation and chaired by former Western Australia Premier Geoff Gallop, recommends major changes to the salaries and working conditions of teachers.

Dr Gallop presented the findings to about 50 Albury teachers at Murray High School on Friday morning, accompanied by federation president Angelo Gavrielatos.

Based on responses provided by 18,234 NSW public school teachers, executives and principals, the average workload of a classroom or specialist teacher was 55 hours a week (43 at school and 11 at home), while principals and deputy principals worked on average 62 hours a week (50 in school and 12 at home).

Dr Gallop said government policies and increased data collection requirements left teachers "overloaded with detail".

"The time they need to put into dealing with all this, they feel very strongly, has taken away from the time they have to plan and then deliver good lessons," he said.

"Parental expectations are very high about the way their children are taught and on the other hand you have a lot of distress now being experienced by young people all throughout our society and that puts stress on teachers.

"They know about workload because they live it."

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Murray High School teacher Craig Jory, a federation representative, said teachers continued to be undervalued politically, even though schools often received great community support.

Valuing The Teaching Profession would be used as evidence to push for better remuneration and conditions to reduce the teacher shortage.

"For the functioning of society, we need good strong public schools, they need to be fully resourced," Mr Jory said.

"I think this is a bit of a watershed moment for NSW in general.

"It's not about teachers, it's about the whole system, it's about public education.

"At the end of the day, if we can't get teachers in schools, it's the students who end up suffering."

Mr Gavrielatos said NSW MPs would be briefed on the inquiry outcomes on Tuesday.

"These findings and recommendations need to be heeded by all members of Parliament, this is a critical situation that we find ourselves in," he said.

Teacher shortages were expected to worsen without policy change to attract and retain teachers.

"This is about getting the settings right so that every child, regardless of their circumstances, regardless of geography gets the best opportunity in life," Mr Gavrielatos said.

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