Reforming Replacement Teachers' Conditions: A Game Changer for the Development of Early-Career Teachers

• In Event: 30.061 - Attracting and Keeping the Best Teachers

Abstract

Objectives
The objectives this paper are, first, to investigate the ways in which early career teachers’ work-lives are shaped by the systems of teachers’ industrial conditions, school authorities’ workforce requirements and management practices, and the teaching labour market, and, second, to evaluate policy alternatives to reform replacement teachers’ conditions and thus the conditions of most early career teachers.

Perspective, method and data sources
The perspective is primarily macro-level, policy-focussed, and, in part, comparative. The method integrates analysis of data and information from Australian and international datasets on the teaching workforce and its conditions, work organisation and characteristics; industrial awards and agreements; qualitative research on replacement and early career teaching; and indicators of the attractiveness of teaching.

Substantiated conclusions
Roughly a fifth of all Australian teachers are on limited term or casual contracts (McKenzie, et al., 2014, p. 44), replacing teachers on leave or undertaking other duties, or because the position is yet to be permanently filled. Replacement teaching is relatively unattractive – it is insecure with minimal career paths, inferior pay and conditions, low status and little professional recognition or support. This unattractiveness entails that it is usually undertaken by the least powerful in the teaching labour market: early career teachers. More than three quarters of Australian recent graduates are initially employed on limited term or casual contracts (Graduate Careers Australia, 2013), and fewer than half obtain on-going positions during their early career years (McKenzie, et al., 2014, p. 43).
The predominance of limited term and casual work contracts among early career teachers is not a result of their active preferences or a direct policy choice of school authorities. Rather, it is an unintended outcome of the context in which they work. The placement of early career teachers in challenging and insecure replacement work is not conducive to attracting and keeping the best teachers. The alternative is for early career teachers to have more supportive and secure positions. This requires that more experienced teachers fill limited term and casual replacement positions, and for more replacement roles to be undertaken by permanent teachers. For this to occur, replacement work needs to be professionalised, and conditions and status need to be improved. Such changes would enhance teaching and student learning, irrespective of its impact on particular cohorts of teachers.

Scholarly significance
The paper offers a fresh perspective on the circumstances of early career teachers, and addresses a significant gap in the literature on the attraction and retention of teachers. It outlines and evaluates policy options for stakeholders in teachers’ industrial relations and professional organisation. The teaching profession is in a period of generational change as the large 1970s-recruited cohort retires. Teachers now being recruited are likely to become influential cohorts for decades to come, and it is vitally important that they become highly effective teachers and professional leaders.

References
Graduate Careers Australia. (2013). Graduate destinations 2012 custom data. Melbourne: Graduate Careers Australia.

McKenzie, P., Weldon, P., Rowley, G., Murphy, M., & McMillan, J. (2014). Staff in Australia’s Schools 2013: Main report on the survey. Canberra: Government of Australia. Retrieved from http://education.gov.au/school-teacher-workforce-data-reports.

Author

• Barbara Preston, University of Canberra