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Initially she took a casual position, then early in her second year was granted a permanent position. The Department, in their infinite wisdom, chose to do the changeover on her 202nd day of teaching. As it happens, you must teach for 203 days before you get a pay rise, and you can't mix permanent and casual days to get the 203 days. Consequently, she spent her second year teaching on first year wages.
After working overseas for a few years, Helen returned to teaching in NSW.
On returning to Australia, Helen contacted the Department, enquiring about casual teaching. She was told she would have to re-apply for an approval number since it was 6 years since she was last employed by the Department. After waiting almost 2 months she was granted an approval number - the SAME number she'd had 6 years earlier! She was paid twice for her first two days teaching - once by direct deposit and once by cheque to her address of 6 years earlier. After taking 3/4 of an hour to convince the Department that she had in fact been paid twice, she returned the cheque. Two months later, you guessed it, she received a letter saying she had been double-paid and demanding return of the payment.
Once the payment problems were sorted out, her attention turned to the salary she was earning. Obtaining a Masters degree in her field of expertise didn't count towards a pay rise. Working for a year and a half as a part-time university tutor didn't count toward a pay rise. Working for two semesters as a full-time university lecturer didn't count towards a pay rise. Working in industry for 2 1/2 years didn't count for anything either.
In every case, according to the NSW Department of Education, each was not quite enough by itself, and you can't combine them. It gets worse. Not only was there no recognition of her additional qualifications and experience, since she had been out of teaching in NSW for several years she lost the pay increments she had previously accumulated! More time on first year wages.
Queensland will grant Helen provisional teacher registration provided she signs a form agreeing to undertake yet another year of university study. It's as if all her qualifications and experience are only of notional value. It begs the question of why a teacher needs more skills to handle Queensland students than their peers in other states.
In Victoria you can submit your application any time you want, but they won't look at it until they get a request from a school. At that point, they will review the application and tell you if they will accept your qualifications. It would obviously prove difficult for Helen to provide additional documentation at that time (if it were necessary) since most of our belongings are in storage. In addition, since our business is mobile and Helen is interested only in relief teaching, we were interested in how long it would take to process her paperwork once a request had been received. A letter outlining these concerns prompted no response.
South Australia seemed a little more progressive, until you actually test the waters. Helen was granted provisional registration, and a letter saying she could teach in SA. The next step was to submit an Application for Employment as a Teacher. This application must be accompanied by still more copies of her degree qualifications and birth certificate, evidence of SA teacher registration as well as a First Aid for Centres and Schools Certificate and a Mandatory Notification Certificate. The fact that Helen has both Senior and Remote First Aid Certificates and has completed the equivalent Mandatory Notification in-service in NSW was irrelevant. Since our business services rural and remote communities Helen would need to travel significant distances to the nearest cities or wait months to be able to complete these mandatory courses in the local area.
Helen has also applied for registration in the Northern Territory and must go for an interview on arriving in the Territory. We'll update this page when we find out how they deal with things.
Everywhere there is a shortage of teachers. As a science-trained high school teacher, Helen's skills are in particular demand. You would think that under those conditions our elected representatives and the public servants we pay taxes to support would attempt to serve our country's children better. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case.
Why isn't there a national teacher registration scheme? Why is it so difficult for such a well-qualified teacher to provide help in places where it is desperately needed? Why would anyone bother to go through all this just to be underpaid and undervalued?