Teachers fulfil a vital role in our society. Their core job is to deliver knowledge to students, mentor and inspire them to find their own passions, and help them to hone their skills through practical yet engaging learning experiences; yet an increasing number of teachers around Australia are experiencing a common roadblock to completing these essential activities.
Overwhelming administrative tasks have taken over many teachers’ classrooms and home lives. This is not an issue isolated to one state or territory, or one type of school system. It’s a pervasive one that is affecting how teachers and support staff feel about their profession and the type of holistic education experience they can provide students.
And it’s only getting harder for teachers and administrators to keep up with teaching work, let alone overwhelming administration. As more pressure is being heaped on schools to deal with these ever-increasing piles of administration, teachers are having to fill the gaps, giving up valuable teaching time to manually enter data, manage spreadsheets and conduct audit checks.
Schools are desperately searching for a solution to alleviate these administrative burdens. Administration staff need help now with overbearing administration tasks, and teachers need to get back to what they do best – teaching.
Ministerial Order and new Child Safe Standards adding additional pressure
Schools around the country are suffering from administrative burden, but Victorian schools are at a further disadvantage.
With the passing of Victoria’s Ministerial Order 1359 in February and the new Child Safe Standards, the pressure on teachers and support staff to safeguard students in schools is even heavier. The Ministerial Order compels schools to prioritise policies and procedures that promote and document safety and wellbeing measures. As part of this new legislation, schools must continually verify all accreditations for every teaching, support and volunteer staff – a near impossible task to complete manually with 100% accuracy.
To cope, many schools are looking to invest in technology or outsourcing solutions to address the strict requirements of the Ministerial Order and provide all-round relief with related administrative tasks.
But many solutions still rely on too much manual input or can’t effectively integrate with the existing technology infrastructure. While outsourcing is an option, it’s not making a dent in the core problem, as teachers and principals report being overburdened with more administrative tasks than ever. In fact, the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018 data showed that Australian teachers spend the 3rd highest number of hours on management and administration in the OECD.
Oho is on a mission to lift this administrative burden from schools. Using revolutionary technology specifically designed to meet the needs of schools, Oho’s aim is to reduce their accreditation and registration administration and maintain 100% compliance. Learn more about how Oho can help your school to retrieve precious time lost to overwhelming administration tasks.
With graduate teachers leaving the profession at record numbers, and feelings of dissatisfaction on the rise, this technological solution couldn’t come at a better time.
Bureaucratising our schools
Our schools have become increasingly bureaucratised and buried in administration tasks, to the detriment of staff and students alike.
This situation didn’t arise overnight – it’s been coming for 30 years. The Victorian school system has been a largely unwilling participant in reforms designed to improve learning outcomes as outlined by the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM). The corporate style model promised that increased monitoring and regulation of performance would help schools to benchmark against one another, inspiring greater competition and overall improved education outcomes for students.
Their impact on the education system has been substantial, but for all the wrong reasons.
Instead of alleviating the pressure on school staff, it amplified it. According to a recent paper from Save our Schools, the effect of over-bureaucratisation has seen administrative staff numbers bloat at levels inconsistent with teaching staff hires or student enrolments. Changes in staff and student data indicated that increases in administrative and clerical staff were astounding between 2002-2019, with over 100% increases in primary schools and 98% in secondary schools.
Tellingly, this dramatic increase in investment for administrative support over teaching does not align with the number of teaching staff hires or student enrolments. Increases in administrative staff were reportedly over five times the increase in students in primary schools (22.3%) and nine times the increase in secondary students (12.3%).
The need for greater support for teachers and administrative staff is evident, with 22% of teachers reporting that they intend to leave the profession within the next five years, citing ‘administrative burdens’ as one of the key factors.
Teachers are looking for solutions now to take back their time and guarantee more support.
With no other technology covering this space and its unique ability to be modified to meet school’s individual requirements, Oho is the support system administration staff have been searching for.
Oho continuously verifies and refreshes all employee, contractor and volunteer accreditations, removing an enormous administration burden from already overwhelmed administration teams.
With the ability to upload, verify and report data in real-time in a click of a button, Oho has created a way to give administration staff their time back, and teachers more support so they can focus on their job – teaching and guiding Victoria’s youth.
How Oho gives schools back time
Nationwide, there’s evidence that teachers spend upwards of an additional four hours on non-classroom work. Unfortunately, having extra administration staff on the books isn’t doing what it needs to, especially when it comes to keeping students safe.
Schools have a duty of care to keep students safe. The Ministerial Order enshrines this in law. The most time-consuming of all the order’s requirements associated is the need to monitor every lapsed accreditation expiry date, verify every replacement or new number and check it against the relevant databases.
The sheer amount of work and time that is required to manually complete this task is overwhelming to any Victorian school.
Instead of heaping even more administrative tasks onto teachers and support staff, the answer lies in greater support in the form of automation and technology-driven solutions.
Oho’s one-of-a-kind technology is ready to collect, store, verify, maintain and report any school’s accreditation data with the click of a button. Instead of spending hours manually checking WWCCs, teacher registrations and in-house accreditations, Oho automates these mind-numbing tasks. Adaptable, cloud-based, always working, and tailorable, Oho reduces accreditation administration by up to 80% and upholds 100% compliance.
For a limited time, Oho is offering Victorian schools an exclusive opportunity. Oho will conduct free data onboarding and cleansing worth $1,500. Schools larger than 500 core and support staff can also take advantage of a 5% discount if they sign up by 30 November 2022.
Get started with Oho today. Call one of our friendly support staff on 1300 388 963 to book a free demonstration and start taking back time lost to burdensome administrative tasks.
