Category Archives: Australian education

Union launches dispute with Deakin University over payments for casuals

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Accusations of academics being paid per piece, rather than per hour, comes amid widespread higher education wage complaints

The National Tertiary Education Union has accused Victoria’s Deakin University of paying casual academics per student assignment marked, rather than an hourly rate, in a formal dispute notice lodged with the institution.

The alleged breach of the institution’s enterprise agreement comes amid an underpayment scandal that has plagued Australia’s tertiary sector for the past two years. The Fair Work Ombudsman is investigating 11 cases of potential wage theft at universities.

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Australia news live updates: Albanese extends Covid funding as nation records 51 deaths from virus; energy supply will meet weekend demand, Aemo says

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NSW premier says health funding ‘a great start’ after national cabinet meeting; electricity reserves improve across National Energy Market; ASX plunges to lowest level since November 2020; nation records 51 Covid deaths. Follow live

The PM is making the rounds this morning, appearing on Sunrise and repeating his line that almost a decade of “delay and denial” under the former Coalition government led to the current energy crisis (I feel like this will be a recurring theme today.)

People want an end to the nonsense that’s gone on for the last decade.

You can’t fix 10 years of inaction in just 10 days but we are taking immediate action through Aemo to make sure that the lights stay on. At the same time, we’re making sure that we create the investment environment to make sure we get it right.

The gas is actually the property of the people of the state, whichever state that is, and there should have always been enough for the state and the country in question. It just seems to me to be very strange that there’s no gas for local people yet.

Coal-fired power generation is very old technology and very difficult for coal plants to cope with renewables coming onto the grid, basically, new renewables every minute

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NSW education department launches legal action against teachers union over May strikes

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State government accuses New South Wales Teachers Federation of breaching orders from Industrial Relations Commission

The New South Wales Teachers Federation is facing potential court-ordered penalties because of widespread strikes in May over pay and conditions in public schools.

In a lawsuit, the state’s Department of Education accused the union of breaching orders made by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) in November last year ordering it to refrain from further industrial action.

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Sacking of Melbourne worker homeschooling children found to be discriminatory

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Tribunal finds dental assistant was unlawfully discriminated against during Victoria’s Covid restrictions

A Melbourne dental assistant has been awarded $12,000 after she was sacked during the Covid-19 pandemic while forced to homeschool her children.

Fiona Carpenter took her former employer Pearly Whites to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, claiming she was discriminated against because of her family responsibilities and a broken foot.

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NSW and Victoria to push Albanese government to close public school funding gap

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Education ministers say they will demand increase in federal investment to reach 100% of Gonski funding benchmark

A fresh battle over the underfunding of public schools is brewing, with Victoria and New South Wales vowing to push the new Albanese government to lift its contributions to close an investment shortfall.

The new federal education minister, Jason Clare, said boosting the results of Australian school students against international benchmarks and revisiting the needs-based Gonski reforms that aimed to end inequities in the distribution of public money will be among his top priorities.

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Brisbane Catholic school asked students to seek approval for formal dresses

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Mary MacKillop college student says many were worried to show photos of outfits ‘in case they were declined’

A Brisbane student says her school asked girls to submit photos of their formal dresses for “approval” after giving them an “outdated” booklet outlining the event’s dress code.

Guardian Australia has seen an email sent by Brisbane’s Mary MacKillop college on 17 May, a week before the year 12 mid-year formal asking students to submit photos of their planned attire.

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One child a month left on a bus across Australia over the past five years

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Lawyer acting for families says it is ‘happening more than people would believe or understand’

At least 68 children have been left on buses in Australia in the past five years – a rate of more than one a month.

Earlier this month, three-year-old Nevaeh Austin was treated in intensive care after being found unconscious on a bus outside her Queensland childcare centre. She had been left on the bus alone for six hours in temperatures over 30C .

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Surge in NSW flu cases sparks concern over hospital capacity with Covid numbers high

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State’s chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, urges people to get flu vaccinations as 2,000 cases reported in last week

Surging cases of the flu are putting extra demand on emergency departments around New South Wales, with major outbreaks in boarding houses contributing to a doubling in cases in a week.

According to NSW Health, 2,000 flu cases were reported in the week to 7 May – up from 1,024 the week before.

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NSW education staff say they are being sent to schools without adequate training to ‘plug the casual crisis’

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Workers concerned they will be covering flu-related teacher absences in coming months with no end date for scheme given

Education department staff being “conscripted” to fill Covid-related vacancies at New South Wales schools have said they are being sent into teaching environments without adequate training, and were just plugging holes in a broader “casual crisis”.

One employee, who has never worked with or been specifically trained to care for special needs students, claimed they were sent to teach a class of students with disabilities.

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Labor to announce scholarship plan for high-achieving students to become teachers

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Policy will aim to double number of high achievers studying education and include places for qualified professionals to retrain

High-achieving students who want to become teachers will be given at least $10,000 a year to study education under a Labor plan to improve teacher quality.

Under the policy, to be announced on Monday, 5,000 students with an Atar of 80 or more will receive the scholarship to study an education degree, with an extra $2,000 bonus a year for those who teach in a regional area.

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Missing in action: five issues the major parties are avoiding in the 2022 federal election

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Key areas such as conservation, the arts, science and education have been neglected in a narrowly focused campaign

With two weeks to go until the 2022 federal election, most of the key policy offerings from the major parties have already been outlined – but there are some big gaps. From conservation to education and the arts, both Labor and the Coalition have been short on detail. Here are six areas where voters are left in the dark:

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Bid to have satanism classes in Queensland government schools dismissed as a ‘stunt’

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Noosa Temple of Satan founder ordered to show cause why affidavits shouldn’t be provided to prosecutors or police

A bid to have satanism classes taught at some Queensland schools has been dismissed as “a base political stunt”, with a supreme court judge ordering the founder of the Noosa Temple of Satan to explain why he should not be prosecuted.

The temple had sought to challenge the state government’s refusal to let the group offer religious instruction at four public schools.

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Toddler in critical condition after being found unconscious on a bus at Queensland childcare centre

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Three-year-old girl found just before 3pm in parked bus at Gracemere near Rockhampton

A three-year-old girl is in a critical condition after being found unconscious in a parked bus outside a childcare centre in Queensland.

An ambulance service spokesperson said paramedics responded to the incident in Gracemere, near Rockhampton, just before 3pm and the child was rushed to Rockhampton hospital.

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Teachers to strike despite plea from NSW government to delay industrial action

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NSW public school teachers will walk off the job for the second time in five months on Wednesday

Teachers in New South Wales will go ahead with a planned strike on Wednesday despite an 11th-hour plea from the government for the union to delay action until after the June budget.

Teachers will walk off the job for the second time in five months, amid long-running concerns over wages and conditions. It is the latest in a series of strikes in the state’s public service, with train drivers, nurses and paramedics recently taking such industrial action.

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Albanese rallies against ‘fear and division’ at Labor campaign launch – as it happened

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Anthony Albanese and senior Labor members speak at ALP campaign launch in Perth; Scott Morrison speaks at Sydney rally; Coalition outlines e-safety plan; Greens announce LGBTQ+ equality plan; Victoria reports seven Covid deaths; NSW reports five; South Australia reports two. This blog is now closed

Simon Birmingham is pushed on what the Coalition will actually do on the cost of living but there isn’t a clear answer. See this exchange with Insiders host David Speers:

Q: So essentially to get wages going is to keep doing what you’ve been doing for the last nine years?

David, our plan is a comprehensive economic plan and in contrast to the Labor party. We have outlined clearly plans for … that jobs growth. Jobs growth fuelled by lower taxes and tax relief for Australians that continue to be implemented in terms of lower income taxes, support for more businesses.

David, it is a plan that we’ve outlined in quite a lot of detail, compared to ...

If you look at this year’s budget, small business, a particular focus in relation to investment in technology …

The approach we’ve taken is to fix a particular problem in the housing market and that was the fact that you had to save, of course, for your deposit, takes months and months, years and years, to get that 20% deposit to avoid having to pay mortgage insurance, that was meaning that people were having to pay rent at the same time as saving.

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Victoria stands down 420 public school teachers over vaccine mandates

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About half had failed to get a booster shot before the March deadline and have been placed on unauthorised leave

About 420 public school teachers across Victoria have been stood down for failing to meet Covid vaccination requirements – with the majority of them not working because they haven’t received a third dose.

Despite previous fears of staff shortages in schools, Guardian Australia understands there are 420 full-time-equivalent teachers across Victoria’s public school system who are unable to work as they have not met the state’s vaccination mandate.

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National teacher’s union ‘concerned’ by lack of detail in Labor’s public school funding policy

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AEU president backed funding announcement but criticised lack of timeline, while noting Coalition had offered ‘nothing at all’

The teacher’s union has criticised Labor’s education policy for a “concerning” lack of detail about when public schools will get extra funding.

Australian Education Union president, Correna Haythorpe, welcomed the policy to put public schools on a “pathway” to full funding but said the lack of a timeline “is of concern to us”.

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Christian lobby groups push major parties to support unamended religious discrimination bill

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FamilyVoice says Labor not to blame for ‘Morrison’s failure’ to pass bill as Albanese pledges to extend school chaplaincy program with secular pastoral care

Christian lobby groups are pressing both major parties to recommit to the unamended religious discrimination bill as Labor guarantees to extend the chaplaincy program with a secular choice for schools.

Guardian Australia understands Labor has told FamilyVoice it has “consistently supported” the $61m-a-year chaplaincy program but will move to give schools the option of a secular pastoral care worker.

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Primary school children in Victoria set to no longer have to wear masks in the classroom in term 2

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Health minister Martin Foley to ‘reconsider all health orders’ including mask requirements once Covid cases hit expected plateau later this month

Mask requirements for primary school-age students in Victoria are expected to be scrapped in term 2 if Covid cases continue to stabilise, as the state government reconsiders all the state’s restrictions.

The state recorded 12 deaths and 10,293 new cases on Tuesday – a slight increase from Monday’s 9,597 infections – while there were 376 people in hospital with the virus, including 19 people in intensive care.

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Schools chaplaincy provider bans cohabitation and ‘sexually intrusive’ behaviour in staff’s private life

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Exclusive: whistleblower says code of Schools Ministry Group, Australia’s second biggest provider, could discriminate against workers

Australia’s second biggest schools chaplaincy provider imposes a code that discriminates against staff based on relationship status and sexual conduct, a whistleblower has alleged.

Caragh Larsen, a former Schools Ministry Group chaplain at two Adelaide public primary schools, said the code banning “cohabitation” and “sexually intrusive” behaviour left unmarried and LGBTQ+ staff vulnerable.

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