Victorian Auditor-General’s report
18 April 2012

Casual Relief Teacher Arrangements 
Audit summary
The Council of Australian Governments’ Smarter Schools National Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality identifies teacher quality as the most important in-school influence on student outcomes. Over the past decade, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) has focused on teacher quality as key to engaging students in school life and helping them achieve the best possible results. DEECD has identified that teacher learning needs to be ongoing, long term, sustained, and should occur at all levels of the system.
Casual relief teachers (CRT) are professionally qualified teachers who can be engaged by schools for up to 30 continuous days at a time. They provide continuity of learning for students during normal teacher absences and enable permanent teachers to access extended professional development opportunities. 
About 12 per cent of registered teachers identified themselves as a CRT when surveyed in 2007. This equates to over 13 000 teachers in 2011. On average a student is exposed to about three hours of CRT teaching every week. The number of CRTs employed in government schools has risen by 36 per cent since 2000, making schools more reliant on CRTs than ever before.
CRTs experience many of the problems associated with other casual workforces. They are paid less relative to permanent staff, have no opportunity to improve pay or conditions through performance, are not supported or funded to participate in professional development activities and have limited professional redress when they feel they have been unfairly treated. 
However, unlike many other casual workforces, they operate in a highly regulated environment dominated by the government sector, and they have a direct influence on the learning experience of Victorian school students. To be able to teach, CRTs need to meet all of the same professional requirements as any other teacher, but must do so without the same support provided to other teachers by schools and DEECD.
This audit assessed whether the use of CRTs in government schools has contributed effectively to student outcomes and teaching quality.
Conclusions
There are significant cultural and procedural barriers that constrain CRTs from contributing effectively to student outcomes and teaching quality. 
The audit did not assess the quality of CRT’s classroom teaching and it is not possible to quantify the direct impact of CRTs on student outcomes. However, CRTs are subject to the same professional standards as permanent teachers and schools react quickly and decisively to remove poorly performing CRTs. 
CRTs are a significant and important part of the teacher workforce, yet schools use them in a very reactive way and give little thought to providing them with sufficient resources, managing their performance, and developing their skills. Many schools perceive CRTs to be little more than classroom ‘babysitters’. CRTs perceived by schools to be performing poorly are often isolated from teaching opportunities and are unable to improve their practice and further their careers.
CRT use and availability is not uniform across the state, and regional and remote schools find it more difficult to source CRTs when required. This means that students in regional schools are at greater risk of disadvantage from a lack of skilled and experienced CRTs. A further issue is that fewer regional than metropolitan schools use CRTs to enable their teachers to participate in DEECD’s Teacher Professional Learning program. It is therefore not evident that CRTs are being used effectively to improve student outcomes and teaching quality.
When suitably skilled and experienced CRTs are not available, some schools have had to resort to undesirable solutions such as cancelling specialist classes and spreading students across different classes (class splitting)—removing them from their peer group and disrupting the receiving classes.
DEECD has not developed an approach to understand the location, availability and skills of the CRT workforce. Without this knowledge it is not well placed to develop evidence-based policy and make informed strategic decisions about the CRT workforce. 
While CRTs are a vital part of the school education system, they receive only limited support from DEECD and schools. Unlike permanent teachers, they are not contractually affiliated or connected to a particular school or to the government, independent or catholic school sectors. There is, however, a lack of assignment of responsibility for monitoring and supporting them. This means that the impact of the CRT workforce on student outcomes and teaching quality is not being managed. As casual teaching is clearly a statewide issue, DEECD needs to work more closely with the Victorian Institute of Teaching and other agencies to understand the CRT workforce. DEECD should take action when needed to address inequity and make sure that skilled and experienced CRTs are available when and where they are needed. 
Findings
Supporting casual relief teachers
CRTs and permanently employed teachers in Victoria have to meet the same professional standards before they can teach in schools. These standards include holding a teaching qualification and completing both 10 days of teaching practice and 20 hours of recognised professional development every year. Further, to work in government schools, they must understand and comply with school and DEECD policies. 
CRTs in Victoria are paid less than CRTs in other states and the same as graduate teachers in Victoria. They are often not provided with the resources they require to teach effectively and receive little or no support and professional development from schools. Figure A compares arrangements for CRTs and permanent teachers.
Figure A
Comparative arrangements for casual relief teachers and permanent 
teachers in government schools
	CRT	Government school classroom teacher	
Professional development	CRTs are required to complete 20 hours professional development each year. 
CRTs organise their own professional development and are not paid to attend.	Teachers are required to complete 20 hours professional development each year. 
Schools organise and pay for professional development from within their school budget. Teachers are able to attend professional development as part of their teaching role.	
Employer	Employed by schools or CRT agencies.	Employed by DEECD.	
Daily pay rate	$219.83 plus a 20 per cent casual loading.
Single classification for all CRTs.	Three classifications (graduate, accomplished, expert) each divided into sub divisions:
·	minimum graduate daily rate $219.17
·	maximum expert daily rate $323.29.	
Maximum income per year	$52 760 (working every day of the 40 teaching weeks of the year).	Minimum graduate salary: $56 985.
Maximum expert teacher salary: $84 056.	
Salary progression	None.	Salary progression cycle completed annually, based on achievement against criteria determined by the school.	
Leave entitlements	20 per cent casual loading.	Standard leave provisions including:
·	20 days annual leave
·	15 day personal leave.	
Performance management	None.	A performance review is undertaken at the end of each salary progression cycle.	
Teaching resources	No Edumail account and no automatic access to the Ultranet.	Edumail account and automatic access to the Ultranet.	
Source:	Victorian Auditor-General’s Office.
If schools perceive a CRT to be underperforming they will not re-employ them and often share this advice informally with other schools. CRTs have no redress in these situations and this informal ‘word-of-mouth’ approach can present significant barriers to gaining future work, especially in regional areas. This creates a vicious circle for the CRTs as they are denied opportunities to improve their skills through practical experience, which in turn prevents them from demonstrating their capabilities and securing further work, and risks their teacher registration from the Victorian Institute of Teaching.
Schools do not help CRTs to identify and address the cause of any underperformance, and do not support CRTs to develop skills and capabilities. Audited schools did not routinely invite CRTs to participate in school-run professional development activities. This is not consistent with the principles of DEECD’s Accountability and Improvement Framework and associated performance development culture.
DEECD does not monitor either the performance of the CRT workforce as a whole, or the type of professional development undertaken by CRTs working in government schools. While it has provided almost $1 million over two years to assist CRTs to attend professional development activities, uptake has been poor and participation restricted to areas where volunteer-run CRT networks have already been established. DEECD cannot explain why uptake has been so low.
Casual relief teacher supply and demand
DEECD does not have accurate data on CRT supply and demand. The number, location, skills and experience of CRTs is unknown as there is no central database or registration requirement for teachers to identify as CRTs. DEECD’s annual CRT census only asks schools about CRTs employed and does not capture data on unmet demand, i.e. situations when schools could not recruit a CRT. Therefore DEECD cannot gauge the number of CRTs its schools need, the location, or the size or skills and experience of the overall pool of available CRTs.
DEECD’s 2010 census data shows that on average, each school employed 1.2 full time equivalent CRTs. Estimates of the CRT workforce show that at any given time there should be six CRTs available to every school, meaning that supply should outweigh demand. In reality, the number of CRTs does not remain constant throughout the year, nor are CRTs evenly spread across the state. DEECD does not have enough data to confirm the distribution of skills and experience.
From 2001 to 2010, the number of CRTs employed in government schools rose by 39 per cent, with the biggest increases occurring in major metropolitan growth areas. Sick and carer leave by teachers has also increased by 8 per cent over the same period, but data is not available on other types of teacher absences such as attending camps or excursions and professional development. Without this additional data, DEECD cannot identify trends and make informed decisions about whether the future supply of CRTs is sufficient to meet demand from schools, and whether CRTs are suitably skilled and experienced.
Of the CRTs employed by government schools, 68 per cent are located in metropolitan areas. However, the ratio of CRTs to permanent teachers is similar across all schools. Schools in regional areas report more difficulty in recruiting CRTs. Students at regional schools may, therefore, be more disadvantaged by teacher absences than students in metropolitan schools. 
Secondary schools generally have a larger and more flexible teacher workforce than primary schools. It is, therefore, not surprising that primary schools are much more reliant on CRTs. In 2010, primary schools employed 2.7 CRTs for every 10 permanent teachers compared with only 1.4 in secondary schools. 
Schools have systems in place to manage teacher absences, and prepare a budget to cover CRT use throughout the year. However, schools rarely budget adequately for CRTs and often by term four, when teacher sick leave is at its highest, they have little or no CRT funds left. This can lead to classes being split up, students being removed from their peers and specialist classes being cancelled.
Sourcing casual relief teachers
Schools can develop their own list of CRTs to call on when needed or, where available, they can use recruitment agencies to source CRTs. 
Schools pay a significant cost premium (about 22 per cent higher) for agency CRTs, but avoid the administration burden of maintaining their own list. The number of schools using agency CRTs has increased since 2005, but agencies usually only operate in metropolitan or densely populated regional areas. Therefore, many regional schools have no access to agency CRTs. 
During periods of high demand, metropolitan schools can draw on the large agency CRT pool. Regional schools meanwhile must compete directly with each other to secure the best CRTs from limited pools.
Supporting teacher professional development
DEECD provides funding through its Teacher Professional Leave (TPL) program so that schools can employ CRT cover for teachers taking extended professional development. Since the TPL program was established in 2004, over $32 million has been provided to 998 schools for professional development for 4 761 teachers. DEECD’s evaluations of the program suggest that it is a valuable investment in improving teacher skills. 
Participation in the TPL program is dominated by teachers who work in metropolitan and major urban areas. DEECD has not done any recent work to understand and address the barriers to participation for non-metropolitan teachers. However, it is clear that unless more is done to help regional schools obtain CRTs to cover planned TPL absences, the impact of this program will remain restricted.
Other than through DEECD’s TPL program, schools rarely use CRTs as part of a coordinated strategy to contribute to teacher quality by enabling teachers to participate in planned professional development activities. 
Recommendations
Number	Recommendation	Page	
	The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development should:		
1.	assign responsibility for capturing and analysing more accurate information about CRT use, the availability of skilled and experienced CRTs, and demand for CRTs across the state 	18	
2.	monitor the CRT workforce and act promptly to address inequities so that schools can access a suitably skilled and experienced workforce when required regardless of location 	18	
3.	identify opportunities at a regional level for CRTs to participate in school-based professional development activities	26	
4.	review the Professional Learning Support Initiative to better target funding and improve CRT quality	26	
5.	further reinforce with schools that they should provide access to Edumail and the Ultranet for frequently employed CRTs.	26	
Submissions and comments received
In addition to progressive engagement during the course of the audit, in accordance with section 16(3) of the Audit Act 1994 a copy of this report was provided to the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development with a request for submissions or comments.
Agency views have been considered in reaching our audit conclusions and are represented to the extent relevant and warranted in preparing this report. Their full section 16(3) submissions and comments however, are included in Appendix A.