2024 SMH Schools Summit

I acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation on whose homelands we meet today and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.

I also acknowledge the work of the wonderful Aboriginal leaders across NSW school, and our public education partners at the AECG who provide advice and guidance.

It’s been about 12 months since I was last here at the Sydney Morning Herald’s Schools Summit.
It was a different time of course.

We were in the middle of an election campaign.

I hadn’t had much sleep.

Taylor Swift hadn’t met Travis.

And we were yet to learn about Kate Middleton photo editing skills.

A different world.

But here – at this event – a year ago

I spoke about the three areas I would focus on … if I had the privilege of becoming Minister for Education.

Earning back the trust of the teaching profession.

Valuing teachers and lifting the status of the profession and being honest about the challenges facing the profession and confronting them with real, meaningful change.

At the time we had a teacher shortage crisis.

Where every day in NSW public schools there were 10,000 merged and cancelled classes because principals could not find the casual teachers they needed.

Where we had permanent teacher vacancies hitting record highs of more than 3 thousand.

Where for the first time resignations began outstripping retirements and where 1 in 5 early career teachers were quitting within just a couple of years.

These challenges were real last year.

And they remain real now.

In fact, the true scale of the crisis has become even clearer upon coming to government.

The systemic undervaluing of teachers over the past decade has had long-lasting, heartbreaking impacts.

Statistics don’t fully capture the experiences of teachers and what they have been through.

As the now Education Minister I have had the privilege to visit staffrooms and schools right across the state over the past year to talk to teachers and principals.

And what I’ve heard – has at times been concerning.

Teachers who have been burnt out and exhausted.

Some in tears on the verge of quitting.

Some demoralised because they haven’t been able to be the teacher that they set out to be.

I’ve visited schools only to be told at the front gate that a teacher had quit that very morning.

I’ve heard from principals who have had staff assaulted by students, but felt powerless to respond and make their schools safer.

And the word that has stuck with me, that has constantly come up – from teacher after teacher …
Is gaslit.

Teachers felt like they were gaslit by those who were meant to support them and be their champions.
Teachers felt like their experiences were being dismissed.

They were told there was no shortage.

That it was a beat up.

At the heart of the crisis we have inherited has been failure to listen to the profession and recognise their essential role in our education system.

That is why those three areas I spoke about a year ago:

Bringing back trust.

Valuing the profession.

Confronting the challenges.

Have not only remained my priorities, they are what have driven me as Minister and what I have been most focused on.

Because the opportunities we seek to provide our children and the things we want to see our students achieve, they are compromised while we have a teaching shortage that remains unaddressed.

For instance, when I talk about 10,000 merged and cancelled classes every day.

We’re talking about an extraordinary amount of lost learning.

While new schools and upgraded classrooms are important – and we’ve been working on that too – it is the teachers inside the classroom that are the most critical resource.

They are what everything depends upon.

Every student outcome.

Every academic success.

Every brighter future.

It all depends on teachers.

As I have always said, I am Minister for all schools.

There is so much valuable experience and knowledge throughout our state’s Public, Independent and Catholic schools and I believe we can – and should – learn from each other.

However, as you all know the public education system is the biggest part of my job.

In NSW – it is the law that every child has the right to receive an education.

It is the duty of the State to ensure every child receives an education of the highest quality.

And I would go as far as to say that not addressing the teacher shortage crisis, let alone refusing to acknowledge there is one, is a dereliction of that duty.

Ensuring we have a strong, high-quality public education system is at the core of a successful and cohesive society.

It is the glue that holds our society together.

And ensuring a strong and high quality education system may never have been more important – than it is now.

We are lucky in NSW to have strong educational offerings across ALL our three education sectors.

But I have heard from some families that when it comes to the choice of school, many parents in NSW have felt like they haven’t had one.

Either, because government schools have not been built in the areas they were needed.

Or if they were, their local school hasn’t had the staff or resources to offer the fully comprehensive education their children deserve.

This must change.

We must ensure every community has the option of a high-quality, fee-free public education.

Where parents can have confidence, that their children will have a teacher in front of their class and that their child will be able to achieve their best in whatever endeavour they set their mind to.

To quote a phrase that you may have recently seen:

‘Public education is the best education money can’t buy.’

It is up to me as Minister, and we as a government, to ensure that isn’t just simply a motto.

Now, the challenges our system has faced has left some communities wanting their local public school to deliver more high potential and gifted education.

They want programs rolled out which challenge our students and push them to extend themselves.

Whether that be in maths, the humanities, STEM, the arts or leadership, parents deserve to see high potential and gifted education inside the doors of every local school.

I know this is a focus for our partners in the Independent and Catholic sectors, and it will be my focus for the Public Education system as well.

Parents want confidence that regardless of their choice of school that the learning environment will bring out the best in their child.

That is certainly the desire of every teacher and school leader that I have met.

I also have high aspirations for our system.

And this year we’ll be doing more to expand and strengthen the opportunities for students to meet their potential in our schools.

We already have a world-class high potential and gifted education policy.

Our selective schools and opportunity classes are well known and well regarded in the community.

Currently such programs are only available in around half our schools. To be able to say we are truly a world class system, we need to deliver high potential and gifted education in every school, and for every community.

All schools need to be able to provide the challenge that students need.

That’s why we are working hard to deliver a stronger, high-potential and gifted education offering in our public schools.

To deliver the best education possible, public schools will be identifying high potential across key domains, including;

Intellectual;

Creative;

Social-emotional, and

Physical.

In doing so our vision is that in NSW, high potential and gifted education will be delivered in every public school.

In a high-quality offering.

In a way that is valued by students, parents and teachers alike.

This goes to the core of what we aim to achieve in public education.

Delivering equity of opportunity for students, no matter their background.

Delivering high-quality teaching and learning, with a focus on explicit teaching.

And ensuring all of our students are challenged.

But this all depends on our expert teachers.

It is why addressing teacher shortages in NSW is so important.

As I said at this event last year.

Tackling this challenge will require a herculean team effort.

There are no quick fixes here.

And our efforts need to be constant and ongoing.

Student outcomes depend on it.

It is why we made the early decision to deliver the most significant uplift in teacher’s salaries in a generation.

Taking NSW teachers from being the worst paid in the country, to among the highest.

We are now having stories from schools in Victoria who are losing teachers to NSW.

Jumping from Wodonga to Albury and not the other way around.

But this is not just an important measure to attract and retain teachers.

It is more than that.

I firmly believe that pay is a function of respect.

And to those critics who have called this reckless, I will point out the former Government suppressed teachers’ wages for 12 years, and still left NSW with record deficits and the biggest debt in NSW history.

The right priorities are what will deliver the best education system for NSW.

It is also why we’re exceeding our commitment to providing more job security to more education staff.

So far, we have offered permanent contracts to just under 17,000 temporary teachers and support staff.

We have taken the permanent teaching workforce in the NSW public education system.

From about 60% to just under 80%.

But that is just the start …

We need to ease the excessive administrative workloads that have been imposed on teachers.

This is an issue for every teacher in NSW, across all three sectors.

Unfortunately for the past decade governments – both state and federal – have repeatedly imposed new compliance measures that pile more work onto teachers.

A certain President of a Principals Council may’ve even quipped to me recently:

‘Weighing the pig more often won’t make it fatter.’

We have seen governments set admin requirement after admin requirement which haven’t made any positive difference to learning in the classroom – or do anything improve student outcomes.

The goal posts haven’t just moved over the past decade.

At times it has felt the sport itself has changed mid-game.

And there have been a chorus of voices telling teachers what they should be doing ….
…. Politicians and academics
… Commentators and keyboard warriors.

Too often these voices are loud.

But they’re not informed by listening to the profession on the ground.

And looking around the room, I doubt we’d find anyone here defending the incessant commentary by non-educators.

It is crystal clear we need targets to improve student outcomes.

High expectations are critical.

But teachers and educational leaders in our schools already know this.

Our schools know what works best.

And our government’s approach to address the challenges we face will always be informed by the profession.

Last year – the OECD released a report looking at recent school reform in NSW.

In its words, it was – quote – struck by the large number of policies and reforms that the Department had strived to implement, sometimes in very short time spans.

It found policy and programmes that had little input from the education profession.

It found a corporate approach to education policy with language far removed from 21st Century teaching, and it found the NSW teaching profession were being left with policy and reform fatigue. In some cases – we are still dealing with the detrimental legacies of failed policies that were repealed years ago.

Like Local Schools, Local Decisions. Which increased the admin burden on schools, leaving schools to find their own support.

Made staffing harder for principals and left schools to fend for themselves. These are all failures we cannot repeat.

Colleagues, my first statement of expectations for NESA that I provided to the Board last year was unashamedly focused on supporting the profession.

It outlined that the admin burden placed on teachers should be reduced as far as possible and that NESA should avoid duplication and the creation of unnecessary work by focusing on clear and concise language.

But today I can also announce, I have asked NESA to provide advice on changes that could be made to professional development requirements for teachers.

I have asked that its advice consider the restrictiveness of categories of professional development.

And whether they are preventing teachers from undertaking learning that meets their individual needs or limiting the opportunity for them to strengthen their practice.

I asked that NESA consider the administrative burden for teachers, as well as the professionalism of teachers in being able identify their own professional learning priorities.

My aim is to have a professional development policy that ensures teachers are undertaking learning that actually adds to their practice. That actually builds on their skills and knowledge. That is actually valued by the profession.

And that actually benefits students. But professional development is just one area of workload that we want to address.

We need to remove tasks or requirements that add little to no value to the classroom and that take teachers away from the core business of teaching.

It is why we have undertaken line-by-line audit of every policy and procedure public schools have to follow.

These need to be simple to read and simple to implement. Our mantra has been “clear and concise”. It is why we are also going through every task that public schools have undertaken, and it was horrifying to learn there are about 300 of them.

We are going through and asking why is this task necessary? How do we make it easier? Or – can we get rid of it?

Easing teacher admin workloads is a vital part of our work; in building back trust among the profession; valuing teachers;

and tackling the teacher shortage crisis.

However – the final piece of this work is funding.

The challenges we face come at a time when almost all our NSW public schools are funded below what Gonski recommended more than a decade ago.

That is, the minimum funding required to meet students’ educational needs.

The Gonski review was an extraordinary Labor initiative that laid out the path for transformational reform for the future of our children.

Gonski called for the Australian Government take on a greater role in funding for public schools.

Gonski called for the Australian Government to increase capital funding, noting that student outcomes are strongly influenced by the design of learning spaces and the facilities.

Gonski also highlighted the stronger taxation and revenue-raising capacity of the Commonwealth.

And the varied financial capacities of the states and territories.

Unfortunately more than a decade on – we still have not fulfilled the vision outlined by Gonski.

Our government is committed to working with our Federal colleagues in finally making this vision a reality.

But the question for the Federal Government is whether the 2.5% increase in funding it is offering states actually delivers on the vision outlined by Gonski.

Whether they will go to the next Federal election with the vision of Gonski still unfulfilled.

Or whether this Federal Government will finally complete the work that began a decade ago and make fulfilling the Gonski vision – a great Labor legacy.

I have hope.

They have already shown they’re prepared to break the appalling cap to funding of public schools that imposed by former Education Minister Pyne.

They’ve shown they’re prepared to recognise need and step into the breach when it comes to the Northern Territory.

So …

My invitation to the Federal Government is join us.

Join Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.

Join every teachers’ union, principal association and parents & carers group.

Join with trade unions and social service group.

Join us and agree that the Federal Government CAN ensure every public school is fully funded.

And join us … in ensuring every student receives the education they need and deserve.

Thank you.