ACT Minister for Education Andrew Barr writes:

The successful reforms of 2006 and since were hard, but they were necessary to achieve the strong education system we have today and whilst change will always be hard – it’s a fact of life in education.

We must constantly look at how we ensure we get the best outcome for our students with the limited resources we have, investing in new facilities, more teachers, new curriculum.

The ACT invests about 30 per cent more per student, than the national average, buying us lower average class sizes and a student-teacher ratio of just over 12:1 – well below every other government system apart from the NT, and well below ACT non-government schools.

Yet as a look at MySchool shows us – we are not getting 30 per cent better results.

We are not able to use the most important resources – teachers – as effectively as we could. We need to keep improving our education system and the best way to do this is to ensure we have the very best teachers in our classrooms.

Like many other jurisdictions around the country, we face challenges in attracting and keeping the best teachers.

The Australian Education Union is concerned about this; they rightly point out that after around four years many teachers are likely to pack it in for other jobs.

Although I note that their survey also revealed that as many as half of our teachers see themselves still teaching in 10 years.

ACT public schools are still a great career option for the very best teachers: It takes less time for a new teacher to get to the top of the pay scale in the ACT than it does in NSW and Victoria; face to face teaching hours are the lowest in the country, apart from primary schools in WA; and the number of teaching days are the third lowest in the country – less than NSW and Victoria.

But teaching is still not a profession that appeals to the best and brightest university students because pay is comparatively low. From the day you start work, your pay increases are determined by the length of your service, not the quality of your teaching and over the years the status of the teaching profession has been allowed to decline.

There’s no incentive for a young keen teacher to stick it out in the public school system.

Their friends doing law or commerce or economics earn good salaries from day one – and they have the potential to earn more if they work hard and deliver results; they get recognised for their hard work and achievements.

But for those who become a teacher it’s different.

It doesn’t matter how hard you work, it doesn’t matter how well you help students meet their potential, you get paid the same as every other teacher who started when you did.

Just as under the old Soviet system – there’s no incentive to do anything more than simply turn up, there’s no incentive to get better outcomes for the kids in your class – no incentive other than pure dedication to the profession and the joy of helping develop young minds.

In today’s world that’s often just not enough.

I am determined to change this.

I am determined that ACT public schools will attract and retain the very best teachers – by recognising them sooner, promoting them faster, and paying them more.

I want to see our best teachers paid six-figure salaries.

I want to see them spending more time in front of classes rather than buried in paperwork.

I want to see them move faster up the pay scale – as a reward for their hard work, creativity, and determination to get better results for their students.

And I want our newest teachers facing a lighter load as they learn the craft, and being mentored by our best and brightest.

None of this comes cheap, but reform is essential.  It cannot be business as usual.  More flexibility is required.

The ACT Government will be negotiating a new Teaching Staff Enterprise Agreement next year.