Deprofessionalisation of State School Teaching: A Victorian Industrial Relations Saga

Abstract

DEPROFESSIONALISATION of school teaching has occurred through a number of managerial interventions. This study focuses on the erosion of teachers' rights and conditions of employment through the attempted deregulation of the state education industry in Victoria. This process, closely identified with radical labour market reforms, has been fiercely contested by Victorian state school teachers and their unions, especially over procedural rule making in industrial relations. This type of rule making relates to the processes of regulation and the jurisdictions made available to employers and unions by governments, the courts and the industrial tribunals. The recent struggles over procedural rule making, it is argued, have governed the pace and trajectory of the deprofessionalisation of state school teaching. It remains a continuing contest.