Media release: Union rejects education job cuts

The union covering public servants in TAFE and the Department of Education and Training rejects the job cuts announced yesterday by NSW Education Minister, Andrew Refshauge.

The Public Service Association said that public servants should not be axed to pay for the Labor government's election promise to increase professional development for teachers.

"The Minister and Department heads might find it politically expedient to make the 'bureaucrats' pay, but the truth is that these are the people who are behind the scenes and in the frontline who are making the department run by staffing schools, paying teachers and others, trying to maintain school properties on a shoestring, and doing the administrative work in schools", said PSA Senior Industrial Officer Greg Shaw. "It's because of the work of our members that classroom teachers can actually teach and access the special programs to improve educational outcomes for students across more than 2000 government schools".

The Department's proposal Lifelong Learning: the Future of Public Education in NSW has been designed to appeal to the public who are rightly concerned about the inadequate amount of money that the state government is prepared to spend on public education. But they are proposing to reduce by 700 the numbers of administrative staff in the Department and TAFE despite the fact that they are now expected to service even more teaching positions, said Shaw. The PSA is also particularly concerned about the impact of restructuring in country areas. The impact of job cuts in country towns was devastating in 1996 when the department got rid of the regional structure they are now proposing to reinstate.

The PSA questions the government's commitment to employment and servicing of rural areas, with the number of non-metropolitan district offices to be cut from 24 to three regions, into which six TAFE Institutes are to also be rolled, along with Industry Training Service Centres, and New Apprenticeship Centres.