Casual and temporary public school staff have been told their positions are secure for the 2026 school year. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
The positions of casual and temporary staff at Canberra’s public schools have now been assured for 2026, less than a week after the Education Minister said such a promise wasn’t possible.
Yvette Berry wrote to the Australian Education Union’s ACT branch making a number of commitments, including that no school would be required to reduce staff levels below 2025-levels next year.
“All school staffing changes for 2026 will be achieved through natural attrition and redeployment,” she wrote.
“Principals will work with ESO [Education Support Office] to identify any temporary staff that are surplus to requirements for their school for 2026.”
Any excess staff would be offered a job “at their current classification” at another public school. If such an opportunity isn’t possible, they’ll be offered further work at their current school.
Ms Berry noted in her letter that the current budget situation had been caused by “system-level management issues”, and so all staffing “debt” that had accrued by the end of the 2026 school year would be written off.
“No school will be asked to pay back money where it has been notionally overstaffed,” she wrote.
Speaking further with Region, Ms Berry said she understood the angst both the school and wider public would be feeling about this situation, especially given the ACT Budget’s bottom line and the fact directorates had been asked to find savings.
“There’s a fair amount of distrust … and we’re trying to overcome that,” she said.
“This is a confronting issue both for the directorate, and for schools and principals, to [deal with] … we need to work on our relationships to get through this and [work together].”
She stressed any budgetary savings would be found at a directorate level, not within schools.
“At the very start of this work … I made an assurance to our schools that the Education Directorate will cover any overspends. That is still the case,” Ms Berry said.
“We are not taking money out of schools, we are not cutting budgets.”
The letter from Ms Berry was received by the AEU less than 24 hours before it was to hold a member meeting, expected to be attended by more than 100 people.
AEU ACT president Angela Burroughs flagged the commitments as a major victory.
“We warned that ACT Labor’s budget mismanagement was putting 470 teachers or 720 school assistants on the chopping block. [Now], we have secured written guarantees that protect these vital education jobs,” she said.
“These commitments avert the immediate crisis, but we cannot accept that 84 per cent of our schools are operating over budget. The independent review must address the structural issues that created this mess in the first place.”
Shadow Education Minister Jeremy Hanson said the pivot from focusing on staff salaries and resources as the potential budget issue to looking within the directorate amounted to blaming public servants.
“She is the Minister responsible for education in the ACT yet today she is blaming her own public servants and Directorate. I think that shows just how bad the situation is,” he said.
“Blaming the public servants in her own Department is just wrong and the Minister really should be taking responsibility for the mess that has occurred under her watch.
“Clearly it has been happening for a while, and again the fact it has reflects poorly on the capacity of the Minister to do her job.”
Region put these comments to Ms Berry, who responded that these were “easy” comments for the Opposition to make.
“Blaming each other does not create a strong system,” she said.
“We’ve accepted that, moving forward, we need to work together more.”
