Professionally Janine has worked as a teacher, writer and consultant for the NSW Department of Education. Janine is a proud public school teacher and educator.
Within the Bradfield electorate Janine has taught at:
- Normanhurst Boys High School, teaching English and History,
- Killara High School, teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) and HSC English,
- Beaumont Road Public School, West Lindfield, teaching Japanese and Science.
Primary and Secondary Education
Janine will work to ensure
- that there is a comprehensive Federal school recovery strategy and that the program
- that the Gonski reforms are put 'back on track'
Within primary and secondary education, teachers feel stressed out, underpaid and under resourced. Teachers have been amazing in their adaptability during COVID, but this is taking its toll. 10,198 educators have given up on the Teaching profession in NSW in 2021, including many teachers newer to the profession.
The Gonski blueprint promised that our education system would be funded so that each school would be able to meet the specific needs of students. The Federal Government has failed in providing this funding and instead P&C associations are required to raise funds for specialist and support teachers.
- More than 4000 secondary teachers will be needed in the next 4 years – where will they come from?? Yet:
- 50,000 teachers are expected to leave teaching over the next 5 years – how will they be replaced? Where will they come from?
- Between 30-50% of teachers in the initial years of their teaching will leave because of low pay uncompetitive [with corporate world] salaries, lack of career advancement and unsustainable workloads and conditions.
- 40.000 students [including 1 in 8 secondary students] are being taught by teachers who were not trained in the subject(s) they are now teaching.
- Out-of-trained-subject teaching is most severe in Maths [ for example, 22% of maths teachers in regional and remote schools are not trained in Mathematics] and Science & Technology [areas where qualifications earn much more in the corporate world] again particularly in low SES, rural and remote schools.
- Morrison would say Education is a State responsibility – NOT when Australia faces a crisis in schools and teaching never seen before!!
- Every child deserves to be funded according to their educational and social needs to achieve to the very best of their ability: ‘funded according to need’ [Gonski Report]
- Research unequivocally demonstrates that it is the first eight years of a child’s life that are the most important in providing the basis for successful learning and academic achievement.
- Every child should receive a minimum of 2 years of QUALITY pre-school by qualified early-childhood teachers FREE OF CHARGE! WE WERE ABLE TO PROVIDE THAT DURING COVID – WHY NOT ALWAYS?
- More than 30% of teachers have resigned within 5 years because of low pay, long work hours, lack of career advancement and a managerial system where teachers spend more time on bureaucratic record keeping than in teaching.
Tertiary
Janine will ensure that
- The tertiary education system redefines its goals in terms of educational and research excellence
- Is funded on a sustainable basis
The tertiary education sector has been decimated by COVID. For too long, Australia far from being the 'smart country' has funded tertiary education through overseas student education. Numbers of overseas students were decimated due to COVID. Increased numbers of people are employed in the tertiary sector on a casual temporary basis. This move to less certain employment, really hit home during COVID with estimates in the number of people lost from the tertiary sector ranging from 4000 to 17,300 (p.23).
The tertiary sector has been instrumental to our transition to carbon-free communities, with contributions in areas such as photovoltaics giving us hope. Many more innovations are required as we contain climate change and adapt to emissions free technologies
- Because the Morrison government continually and deliberately refused any funding support to Universities and university staff during CoVid there were massive losses of staff [18,00 or more – many permanent experienced staff: those who were responsible for high quality research and teaching]. Now universities are seriously understaffed and mainly staffed by casual/part-time/short-contracted ‘junior’ academics who are seriously overworked: morale of staff has been seriously undermined and serious staff ‘burn-out’ is an increasing possibility.
- The Morrison government has systematically gone about destroying the true purpose of universities in Australia: they should be places for researching and discovering the knowledge, skills and technology that Australia needs to be a leader in the world: the Morrison government has reduced support for research and development.
- Universities should be the places of advanced thinking and inquiry, for higher teaching and learning: the Morrison government has turned them into impoverished corporately managed factories for job-ready training.
Trades and Technical Education
The Federal Government undertook an attempt to privatise technical colleges and instead ended up with a system of rorts and deficiencies.
Again, in a period of rapid change we need our tradespeople to be as skilled as possible. There are dramatic skills shortages and this is impacting our ability to take on infrastructure projects or become leaders in 'smart manufacturing'.