Kylie Lang: Qld teachers show real nerve for demanding more while delivering less
Queensland teachers going on strike for better pay as NAPLAN results are tanking, writes Kylie Lang, meaning they’re demanding to be paid more for doing, or achieving, less.
Let me get this straight – state school teachers are striking for better pay as NAPLAN results
are tanking.
They want to be paid more for doing, or achieving, less.
These would be the same teachers who told a friend of mine, doing a practical placement as part of her degree, not to worry about kids misbehaving in class.
“We just treat them like the criminals we know they’re going to become,” one venerable educator in the state system said.
This is not to say all teachers are as pathetic but when Queensland kids are falling even further behind the academic eight ball, the justification for a salary increase is poor.
Take our Year 3s – they are now the second-worst performers in numeracy in the nation, behind the Northern Territory.
It’s also noteworthy that this week’s stop work action comes under an LNP government – there were no teachers’ strikes under the Palaszczuk and Miles regimes and why would there be – the Labor government indulged the union.
In 2022, for example, then education minister Grace Grace agreed to pay rises of 11 per cent over three years, some of the highest in the country.
But here we are now, with Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek holding 17 meetings over the past five months and the Queensland Teachers Union refusing to come to the table.
It says the offer of 8 per cent over three years is just not good enough.
Oh please.
Originally published as Kylie Lang: Qld teachers show real nerve for demanding more while delivering less
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