September 19th 2024
Dear Minister Palmer,
I am writing on behalf of Tasmania’s educators to express our outrage about the Government’s decision to cut over $80 million from public education in Tasmania. This is even more shocking after you recently took the opportunity to hear directly from teachers and other education workers about how dire the funding and staffing crisis in public education has become.
These cuts have raised grave concerns about your commitment as Minister to deliver any meaningful change to fix this crisis. This crisis has devastated our schools and continues to cause rising numbers of educators to be forced out of the profession they love amid unprecedented increases in psychological injury.
I ask that you as Minister explain to educators what your plan is to fix chronic understaffing in public schools when this Budget has not only failed to allocate minimum funding levels, but is in fact serving up more cuts that our public education system cannot afford.
Recent figures from DECYP have highlighted a rise in psychological injury claims (increases of 32% for teaching staff and 40% for other educators across DECYP) which are clearly directly related to the staff shortages across the state.
One of the major workload problems driving teachers out of the profession is that there are not enough ‘back-line’ staff doing non-teaching tasks, so these tasks fall on people who would spend time on other ‘front-line’ tasks if they weren’t constantly doing admin. As we all know, there is no such thing as a back-line service. Any cuts will directly affect classrooms and teaching and learning as ‘front-line’ workers are forced to shoulder more non-teaching work, perpetuating the cycle of educators burning out and walking away.
You have direct responsibility as Minister to ensure schools and colleges are safe for both students and for the educators who are state service employees. I ask that you explain how you intend to deliver on your duty of care to the safety of students and teachers under this Budget.
To quote a distressed Tasmanian teacher, “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.”
I understand you have established that the cuts would come from consumables, purchasing, energy savings and travel, and allegedly not from schools or colleges. I ask that you outline exactly where in these areas you intend to make these cuts and demonstrate to educators how your Government expects to be able to cut $80 million without impacting the provision of education or the resources available to schools or colleges.
Noting that $13 million of these cuts have been announced for the 2024/25 Financial Year and that we are already two months in, I request that you advise of any cuts that may have already been made, and what educators could expect to see slashed in coming months should your Budget pass.
When you attended a recent AEU Branch Council meeting, you told educators that you know teachers are beyond capacity.
You also told us that you believe in accountability – so we are holding you to your word.
As you understand, education is in crisis and so we call on you as the responsible Minister to take action.
Tasmanian public educators urge you to reconsider these cuts and instead invest additional money in public schools to fix the staffing crisis.
I request a response to my questions above by COB Friday 27 September.
Educators would be more than willing to meet with yourself and your Government to discuss genuine solutions to the crisis in Tasmanian public education.
If you would like to take up this opportunity, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at any time.
Yours sincerely,
Brian Wightman
State Manager
