NEWS campusreview. com. au
Staff overworked, underpaid and happy
University employees report job satisfaction despite many daunting factors.
More than one-fifth of university staff have reported working more than 51 hours a week, and many said the extra – often uncompensated – work was necessary to meet the requirements of their job.
A nationwide survey of more than 7000 staff, carried out by the National Tertiary Education Union( NTEU), found that despite feeling overworked, most staff remained overwhelmingly happy in their jobs. More than three-quarters of respondents reported that their work provided them with satisfaction.
In a series of reports the NTEU released based on the survey, respondents cited exciting and interesting work environments, positive relationships with colleagues and a good work / life balance as the key contributors to their level of job satisfaction.
This result came despite the reports’ conclusion that“ it is clear that [ staff ] have major concerns about employment security( even for those with what traditionally would have been considered secure jobs), workloads and work / life balance”.
“[ Staff ] also have little confidence in senior management or their ability to manage workloads and staffing, including an unsatisfactory reliance on casual staff,” a report read.
The average reported working week of 51 hours was well above the national standard 38-hour week. In addition, the NTEU found that 45 per cent of general or professional staff reported working uncompensated overtime, and more than three-quarters of academics were completing about 9.8 hours a week uncompensated.
“ While much is made of generous donations to universities from wealthy benefactors, the results of the NTEU survey clearly show that university staff are by far the largest philanthropic contributors to Australia’ s public universities [ and ] on a conservative estimate will in 2015 contribute on the order of $ 1.7 billion to the sector in effort for which they receive no direct compensation,” the NTEU concluded. ■
NAPLAN hostilities
Pyne, senior lecturer find vastly different meanings in early test results.
A senior teaching academic has branded the disappointing preliminary results from the 2015 National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy( NAPLAN) testing a failure of the test itself, rather than of teachers or students.
The preliminary results, released in early August, showed that since the national testing model was introduced in 2008, there has been little if any improvement on virtually all measurements.
A senior lecturer at Charles Sturt University’ s School of Teacher Education, Dr Jae Major, said the absence of any positive effect of the testing had been consistent with international experiences relating to“ high-stakes standardised testing”.
“ There is usually a short-term improvement followed by a plateauing of results,” Major said.“ The typical response is to call this stagnation and blame teachers, suggesting they get‘ back to basics’ in curriculum and pedagogy. In other words, blame anything except the test itself for the problem.
“ It can be easy to blame teachers for results, but there is increasing evidence that high-stakes, national standardised testing has little impact on achievement [ so ] why we are spending so much money on something that doesn’ t enhance learning outcomes?”
The education minister, Christopher Pyne, rejected the suggestion of weaknesses in the NAPLAN model. He told ABC radio he believed the results demonstrated the testing was“ doing exactly its job, which is to show what the results are, and how we are progressing”.
“ NAPLAN can’ t be failing – [ the test ] shows how the students are performing”, Pyne said.“ What it shows is that we have to focus on curriculum, teacher quality, on parental engagement, on school autonomy, because they are the four things that will make a difference in Australia to the outcomes for students.
“ It also shows that in spite of spending 40 per cent more on school education over the last 10 years, our results have stagnated, so it is not about money, it is about the basics of school education.” ■
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