A long-awaited audit of administrative tasks in New South Wales (NSW) public schools has revealed that managing medications, addressing school refusal, and preparing behaviour plans are among the most time-consuming duties outside the classroom. Despite pre-election promises from the NSW Labor government to reduce teachers’ workloads by five hours a week, the report stopped short of recommending the removal of any specific tasks.
The audit identified 105 tasks considered to have “frustrating, painful, cumbersome, or overly complex” processes that teachers said were draining their time. These include managing non-attendance, handling medication for students, and implementing individual support plans for students under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The report highlighted that more support is needed to ease teachers’ workload and allow them to focus on their primary role of teaching.
Balancing priorities
Research from the Grattan Institute previously found that 92% of Australian teachers frequently feel they lack the time for effective teaching, with school principals pointing to bureaucratic demands as a key obstacle.
A selection of the 105 high workload tasks identified by teachers:
- Non-attendance and school refusal
- Medication management
- Late arrivals and early departures
- Community facility hire and use
- Check-in and other department-developed assessments
- Behaviour support plans
- Individual NDIS student support
- Unit and lesson planning
Audit of teaches’ administrative tasks final report (December 2024) (Source: The Sydney Morning Herald)
NSW Secondary Principals’ council president Denise Lofts highlighted the tension between ensuring student safety and managing administrative demands. While essential tasks such as anaphylaxis and ADHD medication plans are critical for individual student care, they contribute to an overwhelming workload.
“If you think about anaphylaxis plans, ADHD meds and asthma medication – they are about individual care of students. While this is important, it is actually becoming a massive burden. Between medication and behaviour plans, there seems to be no room for teaching,” Lofts said. She also pointed to growing data collection requirements as an area that could be reconsidered to free up teachers’ time.
Mixed progress on election promises
Reducing teachers’ administrative burden was a cornerstone of Premier Chris Minns’ 2023 election platform. At the time, he promised to review all administrative requirements to give teachers more time to improve student outcomes.
Since coming to office, the government has simplified dense Department of Education policies, provided teachers with access to an artificial intelligence tool to navigate those policies, and overhauled accreditation requirements, a report from The Sydney Morning Herald noted.
“The audit of teachers’ tasks is the first step by identifying – for the first time – what teachers actually do, so we can work out how to streamline or reduce certain tasks and enable teachers to focus on the classroom,” acting education minister John Graham said. “This work is ongoing.”
Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Mitchell criticised the government for failing to deliver meaningful changes. “After almost two years in government, all they have managed to achieve is a departmental audit which doesn’t identify a single task to be removed for classroom teachers, nor does it identify any metrics to be used to measure any time ‘saved’ for teachers,” she said.