Submission: Understanding the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators in the workforce.
The Australian Education Union (AEU) is the federal body for the representation of educators, from schools, TAFE institutions to early childhood centres. The AEU has over 185,000 members nationally and includes associated bodies within the States and Territories.
In 2020, Yalukit Yulendj, the AEU’s National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education committee, committed to a survey of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators and their experiences of work. The overall question the survey sought to answer is:
‘How do Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander public education workers in Australia perceive and experience racism in their workplaces and across the system more broadly?’
In congruence to the AEU educator survey, the Jumbunna Institute, in partnership with the Diversity Council of Australia, conducted a national survey of over 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their experiences of work. The report was entitled Gari Yala, meaning ‘Speak the Truth’ in Wiradjuri. The report detailed racism within the workplace, cultural load and identity strain faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and the impacts of this for Aboriginal and Torres Strait employees and their employers. For the purposes of this report, we have used the Gari Yala report as a national benchmark to compare the AEU survey against.
What we found was consistent across the Gari Yala survey and the AEU survey is how culturally unsafe workplaces are, with 28% of Gari Yala respondents noting this, compared to 25.2% of AEU respondents. 44% of AEU respondents felt that they were responsible for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues in the workplace, which is higher than the Gari Yala cohort of 39% feeling a high cultural load.
Perhaps the most concerning trends from the AEU results is an inherent finding that other educators provide the most racist burden to their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues, more than students, parents, and the community. This is despite 36.4% (strongly agree and agree) of respondents noting that their workplace (and 42.3% for the department) provides access to professional development on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture to all staff. This suggests that existing training needs to go further to better provide cultural awareness of other educators.
The impacts of racism in the workplace were prevalent when responders were asked about their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues. 48.6% noting poor mental health and 37.2% noting poor physical health, of their co-workers due to racism.
The impacts of racism and culturally unsafe workplaces also mean that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff are likely to leave the workplace or sector, with 20.8% of AEU respondents having previously left a role because of discrimination. A further 35.6% of respondents were aware of a colleague moving positions due to racism. This is common for staff experiencing racism, who were 2.5 times more likely to leave their current employer in 12 months if they experienced racism in the workplace.
The findings of this report used the Gari Yala ten truths to frame the required next steps.