Increasing bureaucracy is a feature of public school systems in Australia. The growth in administrative staff in schools and in central departments has far outstripped the increase in teachers and students since 2015. The most dramatic staffing growth has occurred not in classrooms but in state education departments.
The growth in administrative staff reflects increasing reporting and compliance regulations required by governments in the face of the increasing complexity of student needs and expectations about service provision. It is absorbing an increasing proportion of expenditure on public schools. More funding is being diverted from core functions of teaching and supporting the learning and well-being of students to administrative and operational tasks. Moreover, there is widespread evidence that teachers are over-loaded with administrative tasks themselves. A key issue is to identify what is necessary and reasonable and what is unnecessary and wasteful of time and resources. Reviews of the workload on teachers in public schools in NSW and Victoria have revealed that teachers face much unnecessary administrative work.
As is the case for all government services and professions, schools and teachers have to undertake some administrative tasks to meet government regulations.
The good news is that governments are making greater effort to identify what is needed to reduce bureaucracy. The bad news is that government responses to date do not provide much confidence that unnecessary and wasteful regulations will be reduced to any significant extent.
Although the big funding increase for public schools under the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement is largely postponed to the last five years of the ten year agreement, it is imperative that administration does not soak up more and more funding. The funding increase should be devoted to student learning and well-being. The growth in bureaucracy must be contained as much as possible to enable more resources to be directed at improving student outcomes and greater equity in outcomes.
Administrative staffing increasing far faster than students and teachers
Non-teaching staff in public schools and out of school staff increased by much more than students and teachers in public schools between 2015 and 2024. Non-teaching staff in public schools increased by 47.7% and non-school staff by 89.1% compared to only 7.4% for students and 16.2% for teachers [Chart 1]. Non-teaching staff in primary schools increased by 44.9% compared to 4.3% for students and 15.6% for teachers. Non-teaching staff in secondary schools increased by 51.8% compared to 12.4% for students and 17% for teachers.
The largest increase in non-teaching staff in schools was for administrative and clerical staff who increased by 50.4%. This was three times the increase in teachers and seven times the increase in students. Administrative and clerical staff increased by 47% in primary schools and by 55.8% in secondary schools.
There was a significant increase in specialist support staff of 44.5%. This increase largely reflects increases in teacher aides, such as for disability students, learning support, counsellors, youth workers and IT support. The increase in primary schools was 46.4% and 42.3% in secondary schools.
Central Bureaucracy Has Grown Even Faster
The most dramatic staffing growth has occurred not in classrooms but in state education departments. There was a huge increase in non-school staff, especially executive, specialist support and administration and clerical staff. The number of executive staff in education departments more than doubled over the nine years from 635 in 2015 to 1,331 in 2024, an increase of 109.7% [Chart 2]. The number of specialist support staff in central and regional offices almost doubled from 1,098 to 2,184, an increase of 98.9%. Specialist support staff in education departments include IT, human resource management, curriculum development, infrastructure planning, financial and other staff. The number of administrative staff increased from 8,284 to 15,512, an increase of 87.2%.
All these increases far outstripped the increase in students and teachers. The increase in executive staff was nearly seven times the increase in teachers and nearly 15 times the increase in students. The increase in specialist support staff was six times the increase in teachers and thirteen times the increase in students. The increase in administration staff was over five times the increase in teachers and nearly 2 times the increase in students.
Teachers are a declining proportion of the public school workforce
The composition of public school staff has changed significantly as a result of the differential increase in staffing categories. The proportion of teachers fell from 68.4% of all staff in public schools in 2015 to 62.2% in 2024 [Chart 3]. Administrative staff in schools increased from 23.5% of all staff in 2015 to 27.6% in 2024. Non-school staff increased from 4% to 6%. Total non-teaching staff (in school and out of school) increased from 31.6% to 37.8%.
The proportion of teachers in primary schools dropped from 70.3% to 65.5% while the proportion of administrative staff increased from 25.7% to 30.4%. Only 2.5% of primary school staff were specialist support in 2024 and was little changed from 2015 when it was 2.1%. There was also no change in the proportion of building and maintenance staff. Non-teaching staff increased from 29.7% of primary school staff to 34.7%, the increase being almost entirely due to the increase in administrative staff.
The proportion of teachers in secondary school staff fell from 72.7% to 67.3% while the proportion of administrative staff increased from 22.8% to 28.1%. Only 2.9% of secondary school staff were specialist support staff in 2024 which was almost the same as in 2015 when the proportion was 2.6%. There was also no change in the proportion of building and maintenance staff. Non-teaching staff increased from 27.3% of secondary school staff to 32.7%, the increase being almost entirely due to the increase in administrative staff.
Increasing administrative and compliance demands are driving bureaucratisation
Several reviews have found that growth of departmental programs and policies has contributed to increased administrative and compliance workload.
An audit of the administrative tasks of teachers conducted by the NSW Department of Education in 2024 identified the range and complexity of what teachers actually do in schools. It found that government policy is the main driver of administrative tasks in schools.
The audit also found that more than 70 per cent of operational tasks directly map to a policy. This highlights the link between policy requirements and increased workload. [p.10]
It identified 201 policies involving 361 policy documents which are difficult for schools to access, use and implement. The audit also identified 105 tasks having high or very high bureaucratic workload on teachers involving processes considered “frustrating, painful, cumbersome, or overly complex”. Some 30 or so tasks with very high workload involving teachers included complex and manual paperwork, increased curriculum differentiation and resource creation, greater administration required for student wellbeing.
The audit noted that the Department had commenced work on consolidating policy documents reducing them from 361 to 180 documents to streamline the documentation. The revised documents have been released in batches from March 2024 to reduce the change fatigue and consolidate communication to schools. However, consolidating polices in fewer documents without reducing reporting and compliance requirements does not necessarily reduce the number of administrative staff in the Department of in schools.
A review of administrative and compliance activities in Victorian public schools in 2024 also noted that government policy contributed to the administrative workload in schools :
There is also evidence for a sustained increase in administrative and compliance workload in department policies and programs, which have grown over time, often in response to external regulatory or accountability requirements…
New requirements compound over time to create a large workload, and it is rare to remove older requirements as new ones come into effect. [pp. 25,26]
The review noted that school autonomy in decision making “increases administrative burdens on school staff” [p. 33]. It found that administration and compliance tasks take school staff away from their core business of improving student learning and wellbeing [Finding 2]. It recommended that the Department should reallocate operational tasks away from individual schools.
State education departments are increasingly focused primarily on administrative and compliance roles rather than curriculum, teaching and learning support. A cursory inspection of the organisational charts of education departments around the country reveals that very few branches are directly involved in supporting teaching and learning. The vast majority are devoted to administration of finance, policing compliance to regulations, performance monitoring, human resource management and other corporate functions. For example, the NSW Department of Education has seven divisions with over 50 branches but only a few could be considered as directly involved in supporting teaching and learning. Similarly, only a few of the branches of the Victorian Education Department appear to be directly involved in supporting teaching and learning.
Expenditure on administration outstripped expenditure on teaching
Expenditure on in-school and out-of-school staff for public schools has increased by much more than on teachers since 2014-15. Expenditure on teacher salaries (including expenditure on more teachers and salary increases) increased by 48.5% between 2014-15 and 2022-23 compared to 80.6% for non-teaching salaries [Chart 4]. Expenditure on non-teachers in public schools increased by 76.7% and by 99.8% for non-teachers in central and regional offices.
The increase in non-teaching expenditure is mainly attributable to the large increase in administrative staff in schools and in central and regional department offices together with salary increases. While there was a large increase in specialist support staff in schools and out-of-school, they comprise only a very small proportion of all staff in public schools.
Expenditure on teacher salaries in public primary schools increased by 47.8% compared to 72% for non-teachers. In secondary schools, teacher expenditure increased by 49.5% compared to 83.3% for non-teachers.
This trend represents a significant diversion of funding from teaching and learning to non-teaching staff in schools and non-school staff. It means that a larger percentage of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) of public schools is comprised of non-teaching, mainly administration, staffing as this expenditure is also included in the calculation of the SRS. If the expenditure composition had remained the same as in 2014-15, about $1.58 billion more would have been spent on teachers in 2022-23.
This estimate includes a nominal amount for payroll tax which averages about 5% across Australia. Payroll tax is excluded from the estimation of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) which is the measure of the resources needed by schools to provide successful learning outcomes for all students. Payroll tax on $1.58 billion would be about $79 million, so that the diversion of expenditure from teachers amounts to about $1.5 billion in 2022-23.
This is a rough estimate intended only to be indicative of the extent of the diversion of expenditure from teaching to non-teaching salaries. It represents about 2.8% of the SRS of public schools in 2023, based on figures supplied to Senate Budget 2024-25 Estimates.
More administrative staff have failed to reduce the administrative burden on teachers
It is ironic that the increase in administrative staff in schools has not reduced the administration load on teachers. The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2024 found that the hours spent on administration by lower secondary school teachers was slightly up from TALIS 2018 – 4.7 hours compared to 4.4 hours. The administrative workload on Australian lower secondary teachers is the fourth largest in the OECD which is the same as in TALIS 2018.
The National Trends Teacher Workforce Report published by the Australian Institute for Teaching and Learning found that the hours spent on administration by primary school teachers increase from 5.4 hours per week in 2021 to six hours per week in 2023 and increased from six to 6.4 hours for secondary school teachers.
Many studies show that the administrative burden on teachers remains high. For example, a paper by academics at Monash University on the future needs of the teaching profession found that administration and compliance activities, and meetings, take disproportionate teacher time. Another recent paper on teacher workload found that administrative duties, compliance requirements, and excessive data collection are taking time away from lesson planning and student engagement.
Preserve funding increase for student learning and well-being
Increasing administration is a challenging issue facing public education systems throughout Australia. It is a major factor in teacher workload and teachers leaving the profession and more and more funding is being diverted to administration while public education remains massively underfunded and there are huge achievement gaps between rich and poor.
As in the case of other professions, teachers must undertake at least some administrative tasks. Schools cannot be regulation-free zones and complying with regulations requires administrative and operational tasks. Regulations are necessary to provide such things as teacher and student health and safety, data collection, effective financial management and to meet many other societal and government expectations of public schools.
As documented by the NSW and Victorian reviews of the workload of teachers, a wide variety of government regulations drive the administrative demands on schools and teachers. A key issue is identifying those that are necessary and reasonable and those that are outdated, unnecessary and wasteful of time and resources.
To their credit, the governments around Australia have recognized the extent of the problem and instituted reviews of the administration load. However, the responses of governments so far do not provide much confidence that the administrative burden on schools is being genuinely addressed.
It is imperative that the growth of bureaucracy in public school systems be contained to limit the workload of teachers and the diversion of funding away from teaching and supporting the learning and well-being of students. Public schools will remain heavily underfunded over the next ten years. Restricting bureaucracy in central office and schools would free up funding for more teachers and other professionals to directly support the learning and well-being of students.
This paper was covered in stories in several News Corp websites including the Herald-Sun and The Advertiser..