Main clauses and documents

• Clause 37 – Hours of the Western Australian TAFE Lecturers’ General Agreement 2023 stipulates how Activities Related to Delivery (ARD) is allocated.
• Schedule L – Hours chart of the Western Australian TAFE Lecturers’ General Agreement 2023 breaks down the weekly working hours into teaching hours (TH), ARD and Professional Activities (PA), for each of the fractions.
• Western Australian TAFE Lecturers’ General Agreement 2023 – Implementation Guidelines – 2023, specifically clause 37 – Hours.

Key issues

Full time TAFE lecturers are expected to undertake ARD for 4.5 hours on site and 7.5 hours off site – a total of 12 hours ARD per week.

• Lecturers on averaging arrangements are still expected to carry out the full 12 hours of ARD each week of the averaging period regardless of the number of teaching hours scheduled.
• It is at the discretion of the lecturer as to when and where they do the 7.5 hours of ARD off site.
• The first 7.5 hours of ARD is off campus at the lecturer’s discretion. This means that for lecturers teaching 13 hours or less per week, all of the ARD time is off campus at the lecturer’s discretion as per clause 37.12 of the Western Australia TAFE Lecturers’ General Agreement 2023, which states:

  37.12 A maximum of 7.5 hours non-lecturing ARD time per week may be carried out off-campus at the discretion of the lecturer. This applies to both full-time and part-time lecturers. The maximum 7.5 hours of ARD is not to be applied pro rata to part-time lecturers.

• Part-time contract or permanent lecturers must have their fraction adjusted if they take on any extra teaching in any given fortnightly pay period. This means they also get paid for extra ARD and professional duties (PD) time. Refer to clause 37.2, which states:

  37.2 Where a part-time lecturer agrees to lecture beyond their regular part-time hours, the additional hours will be ordinary hours up to the maximum lecturing hours prescribed for a full-time lecturer and the fraction will alter accordingly. Professional Duties time and ARD will be allocated in accordance with Schedule L – Hours Chart.

• Lecturers do not have to be contactable by management or students when carrying out off campus ARD. ARD is professional time to plan, prepare, mark and make professional decisions associated with the delivery and assessment of modules within a lecturer’s own current teaching program.
• For a full description of ARD duties refer to Appendix A – Role Description and Duty Statement for Lecturers of the Western Australia TAFE Lecturers’ General Agreement 2023.
• Some of the ARD provisions differ for lecturers on a flexible hours arrangement. Refer to Clause 40 – Flexible hours arrangement for details.

From the Western Australian TAFE Lecturers’ General Agreement 2023 – Implementation Guidelines – 2023, specifically Clause 37 – Hours:

Clause 37.1 outlines that a full-time lecturer will work their ordinary hours of 37.5 hours per week between 7.30am to 8pm Monday to Friday. Different lecturers will have different configurations of hours depending on course delivery, however all lecturing duties and on-campus ARD will be worked at some time in the span of hours, from 7.30am to 8.00pm Monday to Friday, with PA time to be worked between 8am and 5pm Monday to Friday (Clause 37.17).

Where a lecturer is authorised by the employer to work outside of these hours overtime provisions apply. However, if a lecturer chooses to work ARD off-campus, outside of these hours, no overtime provisions apply.

Clause 37.12 confirms that lecturers can work up to 7.5 hours of ARD off-site, at their discretion. A part-time lecturer can also work up to 7.5 hours of ARD off-site. The 7.5 hours of ARD for a part-time lecturer is not pro-rated. A lecturer with additional duties or roles, who may be teaching less than the teaching hours allocated for their fraction, is still entitled to off-campus ARD in accordance with their teaching load and Schedule L – Hours Chart.

Schedule L – Hours Chart

The chart below is an expansion of the chart found in the Agreement – Schedule L – Hour Chart of the Western Australian TAFE Lecturers’ General Agreement 2023.

The chart breaks down the weekly working hours into teaching hours, on
and off campus Activities Related to Delivery and Professional Activities, for each of the fractions expressed in the second column.