IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, August 12th 2025
Tasmanian public school principals have today launched industrial action in protest against DECYP’s completely arbitrary and unfair performance target that has resulted in half of Tasmania’s principals being prevented from passing their annual Performance Development Plan (PDP).
The school leadership community has been shattered by DECYP’s determination to assess principals against a target (known as the “system-wide goal”) that is close to impossible for some schools to achieve.
“Principals are doing the best that they can, but they’re now being told that they’re failing because their performance is being assessed by a one-off test, not by looking at all of their school’s actual achievements,” said AEU Tasmania President, David Genford.
“There are principals who have gotten excellent results on their External School Reviews, or who have students have fantastic NAPLAN test results, or who have increased school attendance, who can easily demonstrate that they have improved outcomes at their schools – and yet they have failed their PDP because the system-wide goal wasn’t achieved. This isn’t fair.”
“I feel that my professional worth and credibility is now being questioned for the first time,” said one principal.
“I’m gutted,” said another principal. “This doesn’t reflect the feedback I’ve gotten from my community and the Department.”
Another asked, “How can this contradict the complimentary findings of our External School Review?”
The AEU is aware of a significant number of long-serving principals who have been prevented from passing their PDP for the first time ever in their careers as a result of the system-wide goal.
“We would never subject students to this kind of assessment,” said Mr Genford. “Students have NAPLAN tests, normal school tests, assignments, and opportunities to speak to teachers. We don’t test them against a single, fundamentally broken metric and then tell them they’ve failed.
“It’s devastating. DECYP’s insistence on using a broken metric to assess principals’ performance shows total disregard for principal wellbeing and the ongoing workload crisis in Tasmania’s schools.”
DECYP implemented the system-wide goal without consultation earlier this year, despite being warned by the Australian Education Union several times that the test would set principals up for failure.
Principals launched the first phase of industrial action at midnight last night, which will remain in place indefinitely. This initial phase of industrial action means AEU principals will no longer:
- Attend principal briefings, meetings or forums
- Undertake work associated with principal PDPs
- Undertake work associated with PDP for staff (except for staff who need to complete PDP to receive a pay rise)
- Facilitate any State Government MP/MLC visits to schools or colleges
Principals will continue to implement and escalate industrial action until DECYP implements a reasonable system-wide goal.
