DOZENS of schools across Melbourne’s west are closed today as up to 40,000 teachers walk out in the state’s biggest education strike.
Support staff are joining teachers for the first time in the state’s history, placing added pressure on a government that promised to make Victoria’s teachers the best paid in the country.
The government is offering a 2.5 per cent yearly rise and demanding productivity gains but teachers want a 30 per cent pay rise over three years and better job security.
Yarraville Special Development School principal Allan Cleland said he expected the entire staff of 30 to strike.
“This is justifiable action because there was a clear policy from the Baillieu government to make teachers the best paid in the country. Our performance warrants that promise to be kept.”
A spokeswoman for Higher Education Minister Peter Hall said striking workers’ demands for a 30 per cent pay rise was “out of touch with community standards”.
“The government is disappointed that the teachers union, despite months of positive negotiations, chose to break off negotiation and pursue legal action through Fair Work Australia,” the spokeswoman said.
“They have favoured unnecessary industrial action which has inconvenienced parents and children in Victoria.”
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has now revealed the federal government’s long-awaited response to the Gonski report on education funding.
The government has adopted the review’s core recommendation that every child’s education be supported with a benchmark amount of funding.
Ms Gillard pointed out that targeted funding at Braybrook College delivered extra literacy lessons, computers, an upgraded school library and new science lab.
“And it worked. Last year, almost 70 per cent of Braybrook’s year 12 students were offered a place at university,” she said.
Premier Ted Baillieu said the Gillard government failed to take meaningful steps towards a new states and territories funding partnership.
