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There is a myriad of issues in public education that are demanding more attention and resources, from workload, to teacher shortages and funding.

As the latest generation of Western Australian children start their education journey it is time to stop talking and start acting to address the problems facing public education. The announcement of a new funding agreement bringing $1.6 billion into WA public schools is a good start but there is more to do.

Read the full version of SSTUWA President Matt Jarman’s address to November State Council Conference, held on 10-11 November.

When the SSTUWA first discussed the option of commissioning a full review of public education in Western Australia it was with the intent of starting a conversation.

As a primary school leader for most of my career in country and metropolitan schools, I am often asked about the key lessons I have learned about leadership and how it applies to my current role.

Safety in schools has become a priority community concern. Members cite safety as the second most significant reason to leave the profession, after workload. Schools are often just a place where the violence manifests, not necessarily the root cause.

The following is a transcript of SSTUWA President Matt Jarman’s opening speech to June State Council Conference on 9 June 2023.

The latest area where teachers and school leaders should apparently take control over student behaviour is vaping. Vaping is rivalling artificial intelligence as the social panic hot topic. Whenever there is a crisis, it must be teachers who take action, apparently.

The latest results from the annual Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Well-being Survey are of great concern and highlight the strain school leaders are under as they struggle to manage the ever-increasing workloads, demands and expectations of their jobs.

One of the core reasons for establishing a review into the public education system (led by former WA Premier and one-time federal education minister Dr Carmen Lawrence) was to encourage community debate about public education.

Welcome to 2023 – a year of immense challenges for the State School Teachers’ Union of Western Australia and of great opportunity for public education. In this, the SSTUWA’s 125th anniversary year, it is an incredible honour to succeed Pat Byrne as president of the SSTUWA; though I will admit it is also a little disconcerting to follow such an inspiring and dedicated servant to public educators and public education.

The State School Teachers’ Union of Western Australia welcomed the announcement of a new Education Minister in December’s cabinet reshuffle, with the division into separate ministerial portfolios of early childhood education and training suggesting the state government is giving education a higher priority.

The state government’s desperate plans to fix the state’s teacher shortage will not address the underlying issues in the public education system, according to the SSTUWA. The union said the government’s plan to send under qualified teachers into short- staffed schools (announced late last year) was a short-sighted move which had the potential to cause more harm than good.

Normally we don’t make specific recommendations about voting to our members. The State School Teachers’ Union of Western Australia is a diverse organisation. Our members are intelligent and make their own decisions.

We are at the end of yet another year which brought far more turmoil than we could have ever expected. We thought that we’d seen the worst of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021 and that we were pretty well prepared - vaccinations mostly done – for the beginning of the year. That bubble burst in Week 1 of Term 1. The turmoil hasn’t been confined to COVID-19 or to Australia. We look around and see democracy in a fragile state in many parts of the world. This week’s mid-term US elections saw several candidates saying openly, even before polling day that they would refuse to accept a result which didn’t go their way; statements based not on legitimate concerns about a faulty voting system but on a simple refusal to respect the outcome of a democratic process.

Western Australia is facing a deepening crisis around Government Regional Officer Housing (GROH), with teachers saying the appalling state of the system is driving many away from the regions and putting others off moving to work in the country

Teachers know best on what is happening in schools right now. Consider this quote, which comes from one of over 400 school leaders and union reps who completed our survey Managing Teacher Relief in WA Public Schools: “Teacher burnout is very real, resulting from the continuous system-wide demands that assume we are working under normal conditions.'' With rolling waves of staff members having to isolate the reality of the situation is that we are exhausted just managing to keep the core teaching and learning operating. Add to that NAPLAN, the running of events, reporting to parents, performance management, SEN reporting, NCCR reporting etc. and you have a perfect storm for mental and emotional burn-out.

As an affiliate of UnionsWA, the SSTUWA has long known that strength lies in unity; the multiplier that applies when unions work together towards common goals.

On Friday 17 June, member voting closed on the Agreement in Principle for the 2021 General Agreement (Schools). Just over 5,000 members voted with 70 per cent of those voting in favour.

With Labor forming government, public education has been handed a reprieve from what may well have been an existential threat to the entire system.