As part of the Teacher Workforce Action Plan, the Australian Government is rolling out a national campaign in 2023 to address the teacher shortage and raise the status of the profession. But for this campaign to be effective, we must address that Australia’s devaluing of the teaching profession- a workforce made of 71.7 percent females- has its roots in sexism.
Women’s fight to have fair salaries, for greater work flexibility, and their expertise respected is an ongoing battle. These issues are perhaps more pronounced in male-dominated professions such as technology and engineering, where women are clearly outnumbered, and their experiences can be starkly contrasted against their male colleagues. But when a woman enters a female-dominated workforce such as teaching, sexism blurs into becoming an industry norm.
70.8 percent of teachers feel that the Australian public does not respect and appreciate teachers. When teachers were asked what disrespect means to them in a study by Monash University, they mentioned:
1. Excessive monitoring and distrust: Teachers are expected to justify their decisions about the way they teach and manage their class. Their workload has increased with the burden of administration, data collection and reporting tasks.
2. Questioned, challenged, and abused: Teachers shared that they experience a bombardment of emails from parents and abuse from both parents and students.
3. Salary disparities: Teachers are also dissatisfied with the salary, which hits a mid-career plateau and is a long way off parity with most other professionals.
4. Negative media coverage: Media coverage of the teaching profession overfocus on scrutinizing the quality of teachers.
5. Disregarding their voice: Teachers stated they are tired of policy changes imposed on schools by governments without proper consultation.
This feeling that the public does not respect teachers is higher among female teachers (71.5 per cent) and non-binary, agender or gender-non-confirming teachers (73.1 per cent) in comparison to male teachers (64.9 percent).
The underappreciation of teachers in Australia is part of the wider issue of the gender pay gap. In Australia, female-dominated jobs are undervalued socially and financially. Caring occupations and industries in health care and education have lower pay than male-dominated industries such as construction. Women also spend a substantial amount of time devoted to unpaid care and domestic work in comparison to men.
With this context, it is unsurprising that the two most cited reasons for teachers leaving the profession, causing a crippling teacher shortage in Australia, are 1) wanting recognition and reward and 2) the heavy workload and difficulty of achieving work-life balance.
If we are to enhance the value of the teaching profession, we must also simultaneously enhance the perceptions of the work that women do:
- Trusting women as professionals will translate to trusting teachers as professionals.
- Recognising the social and economic contribution of ‘care’ work will translate to recognising the importance of teaching and education to the wellbeing of our society.
- Acknowledging the importance of women’s voices in decision-making will translate to teachers being included in consultations on education policies.
This is not to oversimplify solutions to changing attitudes towards teachers. The cultural shifts in the way we think and feel about the teaching industry are complex and take time. However, to truly uplift teaching as a profession, we must acknowledge that many of the challenges teachers face in gaining respect are deeply rooted in gender biases, including the belief that work that can be performed by women are not as important or requiring as much skill.
When the expertise, skills, and voice of teachers are devalued as a result of gender biases, students and society suffer. It’s time to treat the teacher shortage as a gender issue.