Reality of Victoria, Reader's Comment, Full marks for teachers who make a differ

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Reality of Victoria, Reader's Comment, Full marks for teachers who make a difference, Dr Tanveer Ahmed, a psychiatrist, The Age, 5 April 2011 http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/full-marks-for-teachers-who-make-a-difference-20110404-1cyir.html? comments=79 Historical link preserved from the original page.

Victoria: unsuitable people are in promotion positions in schools. The best teachers leave. There is a phenomenal rate of workplace bullying.

The central point in the "trouble with teaching" is the way power is grossly misused and abused in this system because unsuitable people are in promotion positions.

Invariably rewards go to people who are in the boss's pocket to the exclusion of those who have earned it by hard work and better ability, who can then find themselves under the heels of the manager's mates and even forced out to eliminate the competition.

This is unethical, demoralising and causes the divisions in staffroom between "favourites" and "others. "

From experience, these workplaces are run by well-paid managers as a tiny club for the benefit of those club members, not as a team and certainly not for the benefit of teaching and learning.

This mentality is the problem and it is the level above teachers.

The better teachers leave because of it or are bullied out by it.

Many education workplaces are run like private fiefdoms (closed shops open to mates only) at public expense, and at the expense of teaching and learning.

This leads to the other great ill of endemic workplace bullying at phenomenal rates in teaching and, in the end, you have a system in crisis as there has been for decades.