The release today of the Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey 2021 Data confirmed many of the concerns of Christian school leaders across the country.
The Survey identified that ‘The number one stress is the sheer quantity of work. Qualitative comments reported concerns about increasing bureaucratic and compliance work. There is frustration with administrative work that does not improve student learning’ and also reported that ‘[t]eacher shortages are now at their highest rank as a source of stress since the survey commenced.
‘Concerns about increased compliance work, often with little clear link to student learning or student safety, is of widespread concern among Christian school leaders’, said Mark Spencer, Director of Public Policy at Christian Schools Australia.
‘Increasingly school registration requirements are focussing on non-educational matters and imposing highly bureaucratic processes in a ‘one-size fits all’ approach that doesn’t account for the needs of local school communities’.
‘Red tape has a very real cost for schools, with limited resources that time and energy focussed on meeting compliance obligations are resources that cannot be used to support student learning’, he said.
Mr Spencer also highlighted the significant stress created around teacher shortages.
‘The effect of “vaccination mandates” is clearly evident in these concerns’, he indicated, ‘schools around the country are being impacted, particularly those in regional and rural areas’.
‘When the first of these mandates was announced we warned of the impact on staffing in an already tight employment market’.
‘Governments around the country need to look at the impacts on the ground of these mandates, the impact on school leaders, the impact on affected staff and the flow on effect to student learning’, he said.
‘If governments around the country want to ensure positive educational outcomes, they need to look at the impact of their policies on school leaders.’
ENDS
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