Cuts to NSW Public School Teachers' Professional Learning

On Monday 28th November the NSW Director-General of Education Michele Bruniges announced to teachers that she would be cutting their professional learning opportunities to help fund a 0.5% pay increase. Currently, schools are funded $700 per teacher to cover the costs of professional development courses. Michele wants to cut this to $190 per teacher so that teachers can have a pay increase less than inflation.

To offset this loss of funding teachers will be expected to participate in courses in their own time. You can only imagine the quality of these courses when there is so little money available to fund them.

Both the NSW Education Minister Adrian Picolli and Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett have proclaimed the centrality of teacher quality to student learning outcomes. Yet it seems this is the first thing to be undermined in salary negotiations by government.

The biggest losers in this cutback will be rural public schools. Teachers in rural schools have to travel long distances and stay over night to attend training opportunities in larger centres. They will now no longer be able to do so without the funding.

The long term consequence of this will be that teachers will not be able to maintain their accreditation with the NSW Institute of Teachers. Teachers have to participate in 50 hours of courses accredited by the Institute to be able to maintain their accreditation to teach. These courses are the most expensive because of the rigourous quality control involved in developing accredited courses. Without the funding to attend these courses the NSW Department of Education will find thousands of its teachers each year losing their accreditation to teach.