Abstract:
Australia’s national teacher shortage is reaching crisis point. Research is consistently finding that teachers’ work has changed (Creagh et al., 2023). Long, intense hours, coupled with competing demands are forcing teachers to constantly triage their work (Stacey et al., 2020). This is contributing to teacher stress, burnout, and ultimately, their exit from the profession. The answer to this problem is not a straightforward one. We argue that part of the solution needs to be the consistent, recurrent funding of teacher wellbeing initiatives; that focuses both on student outcomes and teachers’ needs.
Successive Australian federal governments, primarily through the enactment of a version of an outcomes focused national needs-based funding model recommended by the Gonski Review, have promised better, more consistent, and more equitable outcomes for schools and students. Missing from the current School Resource Standard (SRS), which provides a funding amount per student plus loadings for disadvantaged groups, are recurrent need and wellbeing based funding allocations per teacher. Our hypothesis is that residualised schools – that tend to have greater proportions of less advantaged students (therefore requiring additional SRS funding), are likely to have greater teacher support needs (i.e. compensating for their emotional labour and burnout).
In this exploratory case study, we interview nine teachers at various career levels, who work in a residualised school in Victoria, and reflect on their experiences of the teacher shortage. Drawing on their insights, we problematise the concept of a “needs based funding model” that solely focuses on the supporting individual students through the lens of education outcomes while teacher wellbeing, appropriate work conditions, and professional development support are omitted from the framework.
Successive Australian federal governments, primarily through the enactment of a version of an outcomes focused national needs-based funding model recommended by the Gonski Review, have promised better, more consistent, and more equitable outcomes for schools and students. Missing from the current School Resource Standard (SRS), which provides a funding amount per student plus loadings for disadvantaged groups, are recurrent need and wellbeing based funding allocations per teacher. Our hypothesis is that residualised schools – that tend to have greater proportions of less advantaged students (therefore requiring additional SRS funding), are likely to have greater teacher support needs (i.e. compensating for their emotional labour and burnout).
In this exploratory case study, we interview nine teachers at various career levels, who work in a residualised school in Victoria, and reflect on their experiences of the teacher shortage. Drawing on their insights, we problematise the concept of a “needs based funding model” that solely focuses on the supporting individual students through the lens of education outcomes while teacher wellbeing, appropriate work conditions, and professional development support are omitted from the framework.