the
shitty
life
of
a
western
australian
teacher...
Ok,
the sytem works like this... you study to be a teacher, apply to the education dept for a job and 9/10 they don't give you one coz there's too many graduates each year. So you do relief/supply/substitute work... what the hell, it pays...
then after a while you might get a 'fixed term placement' which means exactly that. You're effectively a contractor and the edu dept has the option of not renewing it at the end of each period. This can be a term, a semester or a year. This is me.
You can also elect to go 'bush' and work for upto 4 years out there at the end of which you get your permanancy. This means the edu dept assures you of a job 'somewhere' in the State each year no matter what. if you'
re lucky this means the capital city of Perth but it might mean being out bush for even more years and years and years... but eventually you'll get back to the city.
The problem was that when I graduated 15 years ago they had a massive cut back of funding for education and so none of my graduating class got to go bush at all. Every single one of us was on relief or fixed term work. That's over 2000 grad students. Since then some have gone private school or gained their permanancy through various postings and by going bush, but for me it wasn't an option because my wife is a computer programmerr and going away from the prog world for that long would mean the effective end of her career. She earns more than I do now anyway.
Fast forward to today....
I've been at my current school of Como Sec College as a fixed term for 5 years. I've been lucky there's been a vacancy each year but today I've just been told that a permanent status teacher needs the position and so this guy gets it over me.... $#@#%&^*&*&^ bastard.
So, with 1 and half weeks to go until the end of the school year, I'm counting down the minutes to unemployment, unless in that time the edu dept can find a fixed term vacancy for me somewhere else....
To add extra stress to the issue, a fixed term teacher can gain a 'priority' placement status (that means you get first pick of any fixed term jobs that may come up) - but only IF you complete 9 years continous service at some school somewhere within the edu system. I have 6 months to go before I qualify for that. If I don't work for the equivalent of 1 semester (20 weeks) then that continous service resets back to zero - and Relief work doesn't count towards this service. It's only 1 inch above the rest of the pond scum but it's still higher than anyone else at that level.
Life sucks
Sean
