From the President - The Year Ahead
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 129 No 1, 16 February, page no. 7
Strong Union leadership is essential in advocating and achieving for our complex school environments and our TAFEs. By standing united, with meaningful policies and strategic plans, we can tackle issues such as the teacher shortage, fair funding, resourcing, and fair working conditions, benefitting all of our members.
Leading consultation, local workplace action, and state and federal campaigns underpin our work every day, and by working together with you, our members, we can create a stronger, fairer education system empowering our school leaders, as well as our school and TAFE teachers.
Your elected QTU Presidential team knows the importance of supporting our school leaders and teachers. It was a cornerstone of our successful first term. Our schools thrive with safe and conducive learning environments, and we believe school leaders are best placed to lead in this area.
Being your QTU President is more, however, than just promising to reduce your workload and make drastic changes to Union polices and rules. The role requires a nuance that only the experience of working within our democratic structures provides.
As your President, my job is to lead Union messaging in the media, via representation at the federal level and by representing the profession on numerous outside bodies and committees. It is about fostering strategic relationships with the Department of Education, negotiating solutions to a raft of complex professional issues, and having the experience, confidence, and credibility to do so.
In our 135th year as a trade union, I intend to build upon the work undertaken in my last term, as well as honour the Presidents that have come before me. Extending upon this shared legacy will ensure that our mighty Union continues to grow and flourish well into the future.
I would also like to recognise past Honorary Vice-President Jenny Swadling, and give my heartfelt thanks for her leadership, guidance, and activism over the past nine years.
As we begin 2024, my vision for the year can be summarised in one word – tenacity. The profession is facing a range of complex issues, and we will be raising these issues with the department at every level to ensure the working conditions of teachers and school leaders are constantly improved.
This will be achieved by holding the department and state government accountable, professionally, legally, and industrially. This is particularly true in the face of the nationwide teacher shortage – the state government must commit to world-class salaries, not only to attract new entrants to teach in Queensland, but to retain the existing workforce in rural, remote, and regional parts of the state. Innovative attraction and retention incentives, in addition to those in the Department of Education State School Teachers’ Certified Agreement 2022, must be urgently considered in the 2024/2025 Budget, to stem the flow of teachers from our great state schools.
Investment must also be made to fully fund state schools. The state government must increase the share of education funding to 25 per cent of the Queensland Budget in 2024/2025 and commit to sustaining this in the forward estimates. Adequate resourcing is required to address workload complexities and restore some balance, in order to attract and retain teaching and non-teaching employees in the state schooling sector.
Ensuring that every state school student is funded at a minimum of 100 per cent of the schooling resource standard (SRS) must be the priority as the Queensland Government commences negotiations with the federal government for a replacement National School Reform Agreement (NSRA).
The state government must additionally commit to increased resourcing in state schools, including fully funding QTU recommendations arising from the Comprehensive Review of School Resourcing – including funding additional workload reduction strategies, incentive and attraction initiatives, professional development, and quality programs – to ensure that our members can continue to deliver quality state education and training for Queensland’s students.
With consistent determination, focus and tenacity across 2024, my presidential team (Vice-President Leah Olsson, and Honorary Vice-President Josh Cleary), with support from QTU members, will strive to achieve meaningful outcomes for our members.