MORE then 250 teachers from New England region public schools were yesterday told a new "local schools" government policy was more about economy rather than education and was not in the best interests of students.
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The teachers attended a stop work meeting at Wests Diggers in Tamworth yesterday and it was estimated hundreds more from around the region gave up their pay to walk off the job for 24 hours and protest the state government's Locals Schools, Local Decision policy.
The local contingent, which comprised primary and high school teachers travelled from as far south as Muswellbrook and other towns including Gunnedah, Boggabri, Manilla and Barraba, were joined by thousands of their colleagues from across the state.
Teachers gathered in Tamworth voted unanimously to support a one page recommendation to "Put Students First".
The recommendation states Local Schools, Local Decisions (LSLD) has been developed to reduce the overall levels of permanent teaching and support staff.
The stop work meeting involved the live-streaming of a meeting being held in front of thousands of teachers at Sydney Town Hall.
NSW Teacher's Federation president Maurie Mulheron said the scheme which plans to give school principals more autonomy and the ability to control budgets for staffing and resources was about economy and not education.
He said they would mean the end of specialist positions including assistant principals and that the only roles left tin schools would be "principals and teaching staff".
Mr Mulheron said the Tamworth Teacher's Federation vice-president Greg Parker agreed.
He said the policy would take away the elusive public education "golden egg", teacher permanency.
"These changes will lead, among other things, to a casualised workforce," he said.
"They are not about what is best for students. What we want and are trying to achieve is an educational change that is based on what students need."
Mr Parker said yesterday's protest was one of the biggest in Tamworth involving teachers since the 1960s.
"We haven't had a meeting that big in a long time and I think that says a lot about the changes that are being proposed and how teachers feel about them," he said.
The next step in the campaign will be formulated properly at the NSW Teacher's Federation annual conference to be held in the first week of the July school holidays.
A spokesman for the Department of Education and Communities told The Leader less than 17 per cent of the New England Region's 124 public schools were non-operational as a result of the strike.
"The rest were fully operational or provided supervision to the students who attended," he said.
