I received an email today from the Victorian Institute of Teaching inviting me to participate in the Australian Teacher Workforce Data survey. One of the first questions was very disconcerting. “In what year were you first employed as teacher/educator?” The list of years went down to 1975 and then implying that nobody could be that old still teaching, added casually: “before 1975”.
In fact, I was employed as a part time teacher in 1972 as I needed to “revisit” a couple of units in my university course at the time. But in a week in which treasurer Josh Frydenberg is encouraging oldies to stay at work (as a number of his predecessors have done) my original thought was dejavu – I have heard this all before. Therefore it was ironic that survey assumed that there would be too few in the category before 1975 to be concerned about.
It is incredible that this influx of baby-boomers into retirement years continues to come up as a surprise. Governments have lived through the wonderful tax years when the (OK)Boomers paid into the treasury coffers but few, I say “few” because some have made an attempt to develop our superannuation system (- thank you Mr Keating), have had the political will to do something. Most have either played with it as a cash cow or disregarded the problem altogether only echoing the previous treasurer when the next intergenerational report comes out.
I agree that our young people deserve better but so do those who have contributed their whole life time to advancing Australia’s economy. The fault doesn’t sit with the old or young but with a succession of our political betters who have, while knowing the inevitable statistics, done little to deal with the problem. Now we see a growing burden developing on our young but there are also many older people who are not on grand superannuation schemes who need to be assisted too. So there are lots of questions and very few answers.
Where are the leaders with vision who have the courage to look way beyond the next election? Don’t get me going. This is just one of many areas where vision is lacking. So, for the time being at least, I will heed my master’s voice and continue to teach. I wonder what the drop down box will reveal in next year’s survey?
Travels from Ur 