October 3rd 2024
Dear Minister Palmer,
I note your lack of response to my letter dated September 19th 2024 on behalf of Tasmania’s educators requesting detail on the impact of cuts to public education and your plan to fix the staffing crisis in the face of this Budget’s drastic cuts.
In the days since the release of the 2024-25 State Budget, I have been inundated with messages for you from devastated educators, students and families.
I have attached a selection of these messages to this letter. I now ask you show respect for Tasmania’s public educators by reading these messages, and providing a response to the questions asked in the above letter and to the concerns educators have raised in their messages to you.
I note your comments in Budget Estimates that you intend to make budget cuts totaling $11.8 million dollars in 24-25; $23.9 million dollars in 25-26 and $36.4 million dollars in 26-27.
You have still not provided any detail on exactly where these cuts will occur, or even a clear timeline on when you will tell educators what they can expect to see cut. All they know is that funding for urgent programs and interventions isn’t there and no timeframes have been offered to alleviate workload or rising school violence.
In my previous correspondence, I put forward that educators would be more than willing to meet with you in good faith to discuss genuine solutions to the crisis in Tasmanian public education. We would like to arrange a date and time to have this discussion at your earliest convenience.
I request a response by COB Wednesday 16th October.
Concerned,
Brian Wightman
State Manager
Messages from AEU members:
“I would like to see our staff skilled to be able to support our students with needs in a safe environment. Currently schools are underfunded and not trained to be able to educate students with disabilities.”
—Terri
“Dear Minister Palmer, I am a fully registered teacher. I have taught in the Tier 3, 3.5, 4 spaces for a number of years. Furthermore, I have taught a Tier 4.5 from the Goodwood Community Centre once per week in 2022. It was not resourced. As a direct result of student behaviours and student physical assaults at me, I am now on workers compensation. Tiers 3-4 need high level funding with adequate staffing.”
—Andrew
“As a teacher for nearly 30 years, I am worried about the stress from unmanageable workloads placed upon teachers. I have witnessed some excellent teachers retiring early and young teachers giving up their profession after only 2 or 3 years in service. I think it’s very important that principals don’t lose sight of the classroom workload before adding extra expectations upon our hard-working teachers.
“It is quite a shock to new teachers that they are expected to work so many unpaid hours. Just imagine if we, like nurses, could be paid for overtime!! Principals need to gauge the workloads of their teachers and make adjustments to prevent burn out. Yours in education,”
—Di
“In the middle of a desperate teacher shortage, it is critical that the government support teachers to be safe. No other employees would be required to face the types of incidents teachers are seeing. Tier 3 and 4 students need to be supported to succeed, rather than being put back into classrooms with little or no support after prolonged periods out of schools.”
—James
“Dear Minister Palmer, with a looming crisis education due to teacher shortages, a major decline in morale in the education workforce and increasingly complex needs for students within the public education sphere, now is not the time to be cutting back on education. Every child deserves the right to a decent education to prepare them for life and work and fulfilment.”
—Peter
“Dear Minister Palmer – Your decision to cut Public School funding will have devastating impacts on our community. You are stripping away social supports that are critical to a literate and functioning society.
“We need well-funded Public Schools for our students. Parents should not be put in difficult positions where they feel obliged to pay for their children’s education, they should feel confident that their feeder school has the supports they need to do the job. For our schools to support today’s young people, we need proper funding. There is a plethora of issues students face, and we cannot do that on passion alone. We need the funding for support teachers, we need funding for calculators, for experiment materials in science. We need full funding to attract and retain staff, both classroom teachers, support staff, and admin.
“A school is a critical element of a well-oiled society, but your government is not oiling the machine, and it’s falling apart. Thank you for reading this, and I hope you listen to your teachers. We need you to support us.”
—Kaija
“Dear Minister. Very good teachers who we can ill-afford to lose from the public system are under so much stress that they are looking for jobs away from teaching.”
—Anne
“Instead of respecting the professionalism of teachers and listening to their advice state governments have ‘chosen their own paths in education’. They have failed to include their specific communities along the way.”
—Lola
“Dear Minister Palmer, after many years as a classroom teacher, my current role with DECYP is as a Literacy Leader in a local southern college. We are all working hard on the first stages of the Lifting Literacy Implementation Plan. I professionally and wholeheartedly support this DECYP vision. But how can we fulfill the needs of our students, teachers and wider community if there are cuts to already underfunded government schools? There are already significant barriers that effect students’ learning and teachers’ capacities to educate young people. It is critical that funding not only improves but reflects the government’s position on supporting schools to do their best work.”
—Tania
“I work as an ESP (Education Support Officer) in high schools in the northern suburbs and the eastern shore.
“I’m sure you can appreciate this gives me a unique insight into the issue and impact of Tier 4 funding in classrooms, particularly as curriculum becomes more demanding, and students face countless challenges typical of late adolescence. Students with support needs should not be left to sink or swim in mainstream classrooms, they deserve a fair go by the provision of fully funded staff and other supports that allow them to thrive, not barely survive.
“Staff like myself, trained personnel with experience, degrees and the drive to supports students who face challenges to succeed, deserve to be recognised for their tireless dedication under often extremely stressful circumstances in high schools and colleges. Education Support staff have the right to recognition, stable employment and a fair wage. Having to go without pay during school holidays is a travesty and insult to the value we bring to our school community.
“’Stand down’ provisions in the state services award are a betrayal of all that is right and decent. I implore you to consider the lives that are directly impacted by your decisions not to provide funding for Tier 4 supports. When public schools aren’t funded adequately everyone suffers. Staff burn out, students don’t attend and their families struggle to know how to cope. The impact is felt by our whole community. Families and children deserve better, they are our state’s future and deserve to be treated with respect and value.”
—Jeanne-Claire
“Cuts to education, at a time where there is a staffing crisis, increased behaviour issues, increased mental health issues and families struggling to support their children and relying on schools for more and more help (cue breakfast clubs and school lunch programs as an example!)”
—Monique
“I see first-hand the need for Tier 4 programs in the Senior Secondary sector as I work in a Tier 4 school. Students have anxiety going into such a different environment and support for them should continue beyond Grade 10. This would provide them with a greater capacity to complete Year 12. I have recently worked on the west coast for several years as an AP and a principal and know how Tier 4 can provide valuable support if it was to be introduced. West coast students deserve equal opportunities to be engaged in education and support to remain engaged in learning.”
—Tessa
“Dear Minister Palmer, as a teacher in both a primary school (Bellerive Primary School) and at Hobart College I have the opportunity to observe the progress the primary students who have been identified as needing Tier 4 support, are making. If it is deemed important that primary and secondary students who need Tier 4 support, are receiving this, there is no particular reason why senior secondary students should miss out on this. It is all the more important for this age group as the students are nearing the time to enter the world of work.”
—Ans
“I am begging you to consider that children are failing already with underfunded programmes and not enough professional support staff. Staff in schools are barely managing to ‘keep their heads above water’. We are tired, more likely to get sick and with few relief staff to replace us, because we are compassionate people we don’t want to take sick leave but sometimes that is unavoidable. Further cuts to our sector could well be the tipping point.”
—Jo
“Children get one chance. Let’s become an education state where public schooling is number one.”
—Julianne
“No Tasmanian public school student is funded even to the agreed minimum resource standard. Please don’t allow any cuts to education. In 30 plus years of teaching, I have never experienced worse morale in the profession, or more desperate need in the students.”
—Joy
“The demand of work being put on teachers is getting out of hand and the needs of students are increasing. There is a teacher shortage and yet it is not appealing to stay in the profession or even join. Something needs to change.”
—Sophie
“Public education is underfunded as it is. Classroom teachers are struggling with the high workload and expectations of the community. Further cuts will directly hurt the educational outcomes of our students and the future adults of our communities.”
—Rachael
“Our education system is in crisis. We do not have the resources to support our most vulnerable learners and we are not able to provide students with the quality of education we are obligated to provide. Education is a human right.”
—Kate
“Public education deserves better from our government.”
– Claire
“Dear Minister for Education, as an educator we cannot afford any more cuts to our funding. Students are going without learning resources as we do not have the funds to buy what they need. Staff need better support in schools, too many are being injured. We do not go to work to be hurt. Kind regards,”
—Ros
“In an already broken system, the worst possible decision would be to make further cuts. The long-term effects will leave our state in a terrible way.”
—Bianca
“Without our schools having access to fully funded resourcing your Govt is creating a very dark and bleak future for Tasmanian students. How about for once, you listen to the community and invest in our children’s future and provide them with the much-needed educational pathways that will help them succeed in life.
DO IT FOR THE KIDS.”
—Peta
“The current curriculum offers very little to support students who would be in Tier 4 programs, or any supported programs. The curriculum review has been indefinitely suspended due to inadequate staffing.”
—Bob
“Dear Ms Palmer, I teach in a college and the amount of staff resources we use trying to engage T4 classified students is staggering and to the detriment of other programs. Please support the continuation of T4 into yrs 11-12!”
—Murray
“We are in dire need of your assistance to keep us all safe and provide all our students with the support they desperately need and deserve. Thank you.”
—Sally
“T4 funding in colleges is essential. I would also add that resourcing Tier 3 programs in High Schools needs to be addressed, as well as incentivising working at T4 campuses (especially T4 Glenorchy). I will have 2024 data and a formal proposal coming your way very soon.”
—Tom
“Dear Minister Palmer, as you know, the college years are the pointy end of public education. These years are where primary and secondary education culminate and bear the fruit of that investment with either continuing education or gainful employment. It is during these years that students start to shoulder the real role of citizen. For all that work and investment to pay off, they need to be supported.
“That support may be in the form of ‘critical supports’ for themselves, but it more often needs to be in the form of critical supports (aide hours, appropriate and supported educational programs and pathways, etc) for other students that need it, so that the resources and supports that they need to succeed are not spread so thinly amongst the whole student cohort. For any education to be worthwhile, the end of education needs to be successful. For that to be successful, all students in the cohort need appropriate supports. If one group lacks essential critical supports, all students suffer from thinly spread support.”
—Shannon
“This is not only about these students’ futures but about our state’s future. We need everyone to feel valued and to know that there are avenues for everyone to grow to be contributing citizens in our state and economy, otherwise not only are they let down, but our state retains being the basket case of Australia. Let’s do something about it and invest in education!”
—Cynthia
“It is unimaginable that a state Govt can simply dictate that our most ‘at risk’ students with poor social backgrounds, poor education backgrounds and some with learning disabilities, behavioural disorders and other problems must be in school until they are 18, and then walk away offering no resource allocation. Consequently, when these students do attend college there is often friction, due to a lack of suitable programs and supports. In addition, I believe there needs to be more resource put into this area in the primary and infant school years as well, giving the ‘at risk’ younger students earlier interventions, improving their chances of leading fruitful lives outside of our prisons, hospitals and cemeteries. Funding this area should be seen as a positive investment in Tasmania’s people and our future community.”
—Scott
“Dear Minister, I implore you to please to spend some time (3-4 days minimum) with Tier 4 student and teachers. Politian’s NEED to develop a better understanding of the needs of students (at all participation levels). Students in Tiers 3-4 level need a huge amount of adjustment and social support. As a high school teacher of 15 years, it is VERY clear that the people to set the funding DO NOT have a good understanding of funding needs. Please learn more about the needs of students to develop and better understanding of student needs so that you are more able to lobby for funding changes. From a frustrated secondary teacher,”
—Jane
“Please hear our pleas for more funding in education. There are so many children who are falling through the gaps. We need more tier 4 funding to help those students who are at-risk. After all, a stich in time saves nine!”
—Belinda
