Opinion: Abuse, violence push state school teachers to breaking point

State school teachers endure violence and abuse that would be unthinkable in private schools, creating a two-tier education system, writes Robert Schwarten.

State Labor ministers with QTU president Cresta Richardson (third from left) and others at this week’s teachers’ strike. Picture: Annette Dew

It is now commonplace that our state school teachers have to cop assault and abuse.

It is one of the reasons there has been a relentless drift to private schools by both teachers and students – because it is there the problem can be dealt with by expulsion.

In state schools, the classroom offenders must be compulsorily enrolled.

Recently a relative jumped ship into an elite private school with the soft landing of higher pay, fewer contact hours and other opportunities – not to mention the lure of being able to get on with teaching uninterrupted by abuse, defiance and parental insult.

I volunteer in a local state high school, and have seen conduct I never even contemplated during my short teaching career over 40 years ago – nor in the time after that when I was a QTU organiser.

The vast majority of kids are great kids who are trying to learn uninterrupted, so they can get ahead (and the vast majority of kids at state schools are as good as the best in private institutions).

But while the teachers are filling in forms recording student violence and attempting to stop obnoxious behaviour, the education of the others is being compromised.

Comparing what our state school teachers cop compared to their private school colleagues – or any other public servant – is apples and giraffes.

Why should parents who cannot afford to send their kids to private schools have their kids disadvantaged?

Why should our state schools be the option of last resort?

And then there are the other demands.

It used to be said that teachers had it easy – home at 3.10pm, 10 weeks of holiday and so on.

But times have changed.

Teachers are now increasingly having to deal with unpaid work, which puts them at a disadvantage to the other public sector groups who accepted the state LNP government’s wages deals.

My observation is that teaching is a profession that has reached the end of its tether – hence the almost unprecedented two strikes by members of the state’s teachers’ union.

Schools bear the brunt of societal discord, and it is time we demanded that the plight of our teachers and kids was openly acknowledged, debated and redressed.

A good start would be resolving the current enterprise bargaining crisis before break-up day.

Robert Schwarten is a former teacher, teachers’ union organiser and state Labor
minister. He is also a life member of the QTU

Originally published as Opinion: Abuse, violence push state school teachers to breaking point