Opinion: As Qld teachers strike, we need to talk about NAPLAN

If your child is facing literacy or numeracy problems, it might be time to ask yourself some tough questions, writes Paul Williams. VOTE IN OUR POLL

Current Industrial Relations Minister Jarrod Bleijie (right) with then premier Campbell Newman in 2013.

I wrote on this page a few weeks ago that industrial relations in Queensland are at tipping point.

Now it looks like that point has finally tipped. With police angrily rejecting an 8 per cent wage increase over three years, and with teachers today on strike for the first time in 16 years, Industrial Relations Minister Jarrod Bleijie is fast learning his job is not all about delivering happy Olympics news.

Fair or not, how ministers negotiate with economic stakeholders, like business and unions, can shape government fortunes. Disruptive unions helped bring down Gough Whitlam’s Labor Party in 1975, and overreach on WorkChoices gutted Liberal prime minister John Howard in 2007.

Labor’s Kevin Rudd was similarly wounded by what looked like shabby treatment of the mining sector, and Queensland LNP premier Campbell Newman lost government in 2015 partly because he picked unnecessary – and unwinnable – fights with public servants, doctors, nurses, police and the arts and legal communities.

Fast forward a decade and we’re again seeing a Queensland LNP government trying to do industrial relations on the cheap. While its stoush with the CFMEU will prove popular, failing to deliver acceptable conditions and wage increases for police, nurses, firefighters and teachers – all under current salary negotiations – will prove very unpopular, even mean-spirited.

Sadly, when teachers – like nurses, the caring professionals trained to put others first – strike, you know they’ve hit breaking point.

Let’s break it down. The Queensland LNP government has offered a paltry 8 per cent wage rise over three years that offers little catch-up for recent inflation.

Teachers received a 4 per cent wage increase in 2022 when inflation approached 8 per cent, and another 4 per cent in 2023 when the cost of living was still around 6 per cent. Even their 3 per cent rise last year fell short of a 3.4 per cent inflation rate.

Yes, teachers are better paid than most, with beginning teachers commencing on $84,000 – slightly higher than the average annual Brisbane salary of $78,000. But that’s cold comfort for four-year-trained graduates, bearing a heavy HECS debt, now worse off in real terms than just a few years ago.

Teachers (like doctors, nurses and police) occupy a special place in society’s vocational pecking order. In dealing specifically with children – any community’s most vulnerable members – society has (or at least should have) esteemed teachers to a trusted, venerable position. If a state is proud to show off its educators as caring professionals at the chalkface of curriculum and technological frontiers, why can’t that same state support that esteem with commensurate salaries and working conditions?

Worse, there’s been much hysteria over today’s strike, with critics even suggesting that poor Queensland NAPLAN results is reason enough to punish teachers with poorer wages.

But this is the thinking of those who don’t know – or who do not want to know – how hard, and how personally draining and potentially soul-destroying it is to teach a class of up to 30 often undisciplined souls who, for the most part, do not want to travel the learning journey. With Australian classrooms already among the most unruly in the world, it’s little wonder “good” students get lost in the blackboard jungle, too.

Yes, this year’s Queensland NAPLAN results rate poorly against other states. But this is historically the case, with Queensland – especially in the regions – lagging behind almost everyone except the Northern Territory. Boys’ literacy, right up to year 9, is especially a problem, and has been for generations.

But teachers are hardly to blame. Motivated children from literate and engaged parents will excel despite poor teachers, and unmotivated kids from illiterate and disengaged parents can perform badly despite the best classroom experiences.

The key variable in the parent-child-teacher equation is, therefore, the parent – not always, but usually. If a child begins Prep with a limited vocabulary for feelings or basic objects – and if that child has never seen her parent read – what chance does her teacher have of bringing that kid up to speed by the end of the year?

If your child is facing literacy or numeracy problems, it might be time to ask yourself some tough questions. Have I engaged with my child and his homework? Do I model reading for pleasure and for purpose? Do I practise phonics and number facts with my early primary school kid? Do I quiz her on basic general knowledge? Do I encourage my child to strive for scholarly rather than sporting prowess?

Let today’s strike be a lesson not only for the Queensland LNP government but for parents, too.

Paul Williams is an associate professor at Griffith University