Strike Over Funding Shuts Classes

The Age

Tuesday February 3, 2004

Farrah Tomazin, Education Reporter

More than 1100 Eltham High School students were forced to stay home yesterday morning as staff walked off the job in protest at State Government funding shortfalls.

Almost all morning classes had to be cancelled after 84 of the school's 96 teachers staged a half-day strike over funding changes that have left the school with a budget shortfall of $102,000.

Changes to the Education Department's funding structure mean that schools with high numbers of senior teachers do not have as much money to pay for salaries as those with younger, less experienced staff.

Eltham High School has 44 experienced teachers and 15 leading teachers, double the state school average.

Principal Paul Rose, who is also a principal class convener for the Australian Education Union, said he could be forced to use locally raised parents' funds or cut back on student programs and classroom resources unless the department helped meet his costs.

State Education Minister Lynne Kosky dismissed the strike as an union stunt ``to support its excessive wage claim".

``The public should get used to these types of stunts. They will be happening more and more often over coming months as the union campaigns for a 30 per cent pay rise," Ms Kosky said.

Eltham is the only school so far to launch industrial action over the budget problems, but educators say it is not the only one to experience big shortfalls this year because of the department's funding changes.

The president of the Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals, Andrew Blair, said he had received about 50 reports from schools around the state that are struggling to meet their salary costs, with some shortfalls as high as $300,000.

``They are either having to beg the department for top-up funding or sign off on a repayable loan when there's no certainty about what their funding will be next year," Mr Blair said.

Despite the disruption taking place only days into the new school year, Mr Rose said yesterday's stopwork was broadly supported by parents.

About a dozen parents joined teachers in a march from the school to the Eltham town centre.

© 2004 The Age

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