Pay Our Teachers What They’re Worth — Victoria’s Future Depends On It

A petition to Premier Jacinta Allan, Minister for Education Ben Carroll, and the Victorian and Federal Governments

We are Victorian teachers, and we are exhausted!

We love our profession and we are dedicated to our students, but we are working unsustainable hours, spending our own money to keep our classrooms running, and watching colleagues leave a career they once loved because they simply cannot afford to stay.

We are stressed, we are overworked, and we are underpaid relative to every other state and territory in the country.

We are petitioning the Victorian and Federal Governments to urgently address the crisis in Teacher pay and working conditions are undermining public education across Victoria.

The evidence below is clear, the need is urgent, and the time to act is now.

Victoria Pays Its Teachers Less Than Any Other State!

Victorian teacher salaries are the lowest in the country. Every other mainland state and territory pays more; NSW by 13.3% at entry level, the Northern Territory by 20.8%, and Western Australia by 13.6% at the experienced level. The result is clear: teacher shortages are worsening, burnout is accelerating, and students are beginning to feel the effects. High-quality graduates are increasingly choosing interstate positions, and Victoria is losing its best teachers as a result.

An Unsustainable Workload and a Workforce in Crisis

The AITSL National Trends: Teacher Workforce report (2025, n=50,556) found that teachers work a median of 50 hours per week during term, averaging 12 hours unpaid work every week. The human cost of this is profound:

• 39% of teachers intend to leave the profession before retirement (up from 26% in 2019), with a further 35% unsure; among teachers under 30, nearly half are uncertain about their future in teaching.
• A 2025 UNSW Sydney study (n ≈ 5,000) found 90% of teachers experiencing moderate-to-extremely severe stress and over two-thirds suffering equivalent levels of depression and anxiety, approximately three times the national average.
• The Black Dog Institute (2023, n > 4,000) found that 46.8% of teachers were considering leaving within 12 months (up from 14% in 2021), 70% had unmanageable workloads, and 76.9% reported teacher shortages in their school.
• The ACU’s 2024 Principal Wellbeing Survey found 45% of principals triggered a ‘red flag’ email indicating risk of self-harm, and 54.5% reported threats of violence, the highest figure in the survey’s 13-year history.

Students Are Bearing the Cost!

Approximately 63% of Victorian students attend public schools. Victoria has the largest per-student funding gap between public and independent schools in Australia, at $10,461 per student.

The AEU’s 2025 State of Our Schools survey (n = 10,384) found 86.4% of teachers spending their own money on classroom supplies, averaging $988 per year. When teachers are overburdened and underpaid, it is students who suffer through larger classes, reduced subject offerings, and less experienced educators.

Real Wages Are Falling

The Victorian Government Schools Agreement 2022 delivered a total base salary rise of just 8.3% over four years — less than the 9.3% rise in employee household living costs recorded in 2022 alone (ABS). Put simply: the entire four-year salary rise was consumed by a single year of cost-of-living increases, and costs have continued to rise every year since.

What We Are Asking For:
• A minimum 35% salary increase for all Victorian classroom teachers – 15% in 2026, increased by 10% in 2027, and 10% in 2028 to achieve parity with the national average.
• A joint Victorian–Federal commitment to fund the Schooling Resource Standard in full for all Victorian public schools, with urgent priority given to disability support.

Teaching is not simply a job; it is a calling. And right now, that calling is being answered by dedicated professionals who are systematically undervalued, overworked, and underpaid. A society’s future is built in its classrooms. When the mounting pressures of the teaching profession are consistently minimised, morale deteriorates and the passion teachers have for their work is strained to breaking point. It does harm not only to teachers but also to every student they teach and, subsequently, to every community those students will go on to shape.

The teacher shortage already under way will not resolve itself. Victoria has long prided itself on the quality of its public education, but quality requires investment. Without urgent action on salary equity, Victoria will continue to lose teachers, and the damage done to a generation of students will be irreparable.

We urge the Victorian and Federal Governments to act with the urgency this situation demands.  The teachers of Victoria, and their students, deserve nothing less!