Bid to end 20-hour teaching week for TAFE

TAFE NSW has taken steps towards cutting back the extraordinarily generous conditions of its teachers.

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet. Picture: AAP

TAFE NSW has taken steps ­towards cutting back the extraordinarily generous conditions of its teachers — negotiating a deal with the Australian Education Union to double the number of normal teaching hours — in a bid for a defence training contract.

Under their current award, TAFE teachers have 16 non-teaching weeks a year. Of the 36 teaching weeks, just 20 hours a week are teaching hours and of the remaining 15, five are at home.

Primary-school and high-school teachers get 13 non-teaching weeks a year in leave.

The Australian understands the TAFE conditions are set out in an enterprise bargaining agreement that the NSW government is unwilling to take on ahead of next year’s state election. They occur in the context of state Treasurer Dominic Perrottet increasing the “efficiency dividend” — the amount departments must cut — to 3 per cent a year in last month’s budget.

Recently, TAFE management secured agreement with the Australian Education Union in bidding for a defence training con­tract that involved raising annual teaching time from 720 to 1440 hours. The bid was unsuccessful but the “greenfields agreement” with the union on defence teaching is being seen as a blueprint to rein in the conditions of TAFE teachers in future and better compete with private operators.

The Australian understands that with TAFE teachers earning an average salary of at least $90,000 a year, the government is payingthem $138 per teaching hour. In comparison, private competitors pay $50-$60 per teaching hour based on private-sector operators teaching for 958 hours a year, as ­opposed to 720 hours. The average public-school teacher earns $88,000, according to the Education Department.

The agreement with the union specified: “The ordinary hours of work for full-time assessment specialists, training support officers and defence instructors shall be 38 hours per week, Monday to Friday (inclusive), between the hours of 6am and 10pm.” The agreement doubled the annual teaching hours from 720 to 1440.

A spokeswoman for TAFE Minister Adam Marshall said: “TAFE NSW was able to submit an extremely competitive bid. The bid reflected a shared position from TAFE NSW management and the union that want to see TAFE NSW in the strongest shape possible, both now and (in future).”

Working conditions of TAFE in NSW are understood to mirror those in other states and are considered very generous. TAFE teachers receive four weeks of ­annual leave, seven weeks non-­attendance leave (school holidays) and five weeks “non-teaching” where they are on campus. These weeks are said to be used usually for marking, marks entry and professional development.

Other states’ TAFE teachers work 40 to 44 weeks a year compared to NSW’s 41. Work hours in other states average between 35 and 38 a week, with a similar split of teaching and non-teaching.

If NSW TAFE teachers need to work longer hours they are paid overtime. Assuming a teacher was in the classroom five days a week, for the 36 weeks of teaching a year, they would be entitled to overtime after teaching 20 hours a week — with penalty rates after 6pm and on Saturdays at 25 per cent loading, and double time on Sundays.

Teachers cannot do more than 24 hours face-to-face a week, but can go up to 30 with negotiation. They also cannot teach more than 12 weeks in a row, under the award.