The Department of Education is to introduce hundreds of new roles in administration, leadership and support to allow the State’s teachers to spend more time teaching.
Announced by the Minister for Education and Early Learning, Sarah Mitchell, more than 200 new admin roles are to be trialled in public schools from Term 4 to reduce teachers’ workload.
“Our teachers are skilled professionals and their time is precious,” Ms Mitchell said.
“However, they are stretched across too many non-teaching and low value activities,” she said.
“We need to look at the work staff do in schools and think differently about how it gets done.”
Ms Mitchell said the new admin roles would work with teachers to undertake non-teaching tasks such as data entry, paperwork, and coordinating events and excursions.
“It’s a great opportunity for parents and carers who have the necessary skills to do these jobs well, to work within the hours of school drop-offs and pick-ups,” the Minister said.
“It’s also a chance to up-skill our current non-teaching, school-based staff to provide greater support to our teachers.”
In addition to the new roles, she said recruitment had started for 780 Assistant Principals to support teachers to adopt best practice and use resources as effectively as possible.
“The boost to the workforce is supported by research by the University of Technology, Sydney which found that instructional leaders, robust system support and quality professional learning significantly improve teachers’ capacity to meet students’ needs,” Ms Mitchell said.
