Victorian public schools teachers hit, bullied, attacked 153 times a day, Auditor General report finds

A damning Auditor General’s report has detailed just how often teachers are being hit, bullied and attacked across the state’s public schools — and the problem has more than tripled over the past decade.

Victorian teachers were hit, bullied and attacked more than 150 times a day across the state’s government schools last year, with thousands of other cases of schoolyard violence going under-reported, a shocking new report has revealed.

More than 30,675 occupational health and safety incidents involving public school staff were reported in 2023-24, the Victorian Auditor General’s Work-related Violence in Government Schools report found.

This is a 244 per cent surge in workplace violence at public schools in the past decade after just 8908 incidents were reported in the 2014-25 period.

It comes after the Herald Sun revealed teachers missed more than 900,000 days of work last financial year due to injuries sustained in the workplace.

Teachers were on the receiving end of behaviours including verbal abuse, physical assaults, sexual harassment and bullying, with psychological harm as a result of such incidents also considered work-related violence.

This is a 244 per cent surge in workplace violence at public schools in the past decade.

Specialist school staff made the most reports with 75.06 incidents occurring per 100 full-time staff, compared to 12.16 in primary schools and 11.15 in combined schools.

Meanwhile, secondary schools recorded the lowest number of incidents per 100 full-time staff at a rate of 3.32.

The Department of Education attributed the rise in incident numbers to the new eduSafe Plus occupational health and safety (OHS) reporting platform, which was implemented in 2021.

But the report found there were “weaknesses” in the systems in place, jeopardising teacher safety and contributing to hundreds of incidents going under-reported.

“The department takes reasonable steps to provide a work environment that is safe from work-related violence resulting from student behaviour,” the report said.

“But there are weaknesses in how it maintains that safe environment. The department does not record or report incident numbers completely.

“This means that it does not have a clear overall picture of work-related violence resulting from student behaviour.”

A whopping 11,093 incidents were under-reported in the past decade, with 5014 of those incidents occurring in last year alone.

This was due to OHS records not being categorised as work-related violence, because incidents involved contractors and due to some incidents not being deemed as OHS incidents.

If incidents had been logged correctly, the Auditor General report said thousands of more incidents should have appeared in the OHS update report in the past decade.

A whopping 11,093 incidents were under-reported in the past decade.

“Under-reporting has increased since the eduSafe Plus rollout … This means the department’s executive board and other governance bodies are not receiving complete, consistent

incident data,” the report said.

“Without complete data, the department’s leadership groups cannot be confident they are making evidence-based decisions.”

The report made four recommendations to improve staff safety at schools, including establishing a system to better estimate under-recording of work-related violence resulting from student behaviour and fixing data issues to ensure incidents were reported completely to its executive leadership.

Opposition spokeswoman Jess Wilson said the Auditor-General’s report has exposed the extent of worsening workplace safety across Victorian schools.

“Teachers are being exposed to dangerous situations at unacceptable rates – with an average 47 per cent increase in violent incidents from student behaviour each year over the past decade – meaning more disruptive classrooms, higher staff turnover and poorer educational outcomes,” she said.

“Furthermore, underreporting of incidents remains widespread and raises serious concerns for the ongoing safety of staff within school communities.

“The Allan Labor Government must take urgent action to reverse this trend and ensure schools are safe places for students, teachers, visitors and families.”

A state government spokeswoman said any harassment or violence towards principals, teachers and education support staff was completely unacceptable.

“The safety and wellbeing of staff, students and members of the school community is always our highest priority – which is why we have accepted all of the recommendations of this report,” she said.

“We continue to invest in significant resources to ensure schools are safe places to work and learn, including $9.3 million in the Victorian Budget 2025/26 through the Keeping School Staff Safe from Violence initiative.”

Originally published as Victorian public schools teachers hit, bullied, attacked 153 times a day, Auditor General report finds