Editorial: No workload reduction “silver bullet”

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 125 No 6, 14 August 2020, page no.5

There is no silver bullet for workload reduction, else it would have been fired long since. One reason is that there are six layers of workload creation for Queensland teachers and principals: national, state, regional, community, school and individual.

Unless all can be addressed effectively, a workload reduction in one area will soon be negated by increases in workload from the other sources. The task is akin to the vaudeville act of keeping six plates spinning on a stick at once.

The lists below are not comprehensive but hopefully convey an idea of the extent of the challenge in reducing workload.

One thing is very clear: workload reduction will not occur unless teachers and principals stop doing some current work.

It is not a matter of greater efficiency (working smarter, not harder), or red tape reduction, or greater use of ICT. They have been tried but have proved inadequate to “manage” workload. Some of those strategies have increased workload, as you well know.

It takes more than building resilience, which, while good in itself, carries the implication that it is the workload victim’s inadequacy that is the problem.

This campaign is not easy. It involves stopping doing things that we have done for a long time but which are no longer valuable. And it involves rejecting additional work that can come from any of the six levels.

The 2019 QTU Conference did not adopt the reduction of workload in a sustainable way as the QTU’s top priority because it was easy. It is the priority until AT LEAST the next Conference in 2021. But the reviews of the CARF and the school accountability regime are opportunities for the first tangible benefits in the campaign.

Graham Moloney

General Secretary