A Guide for Educational Managers: Instruction and Assessment: what is the AEU view?

A guide to assist managers in dealing with workload scheduling has been circulated by DFEEST.  The document generally restates Award provisions; however several points can be made regarding the Guide:

• The Appendix incorrectly states that “the weekly allocation of scheduled hours of instruction and assessment is 24 hours.”  Clause 5.3.2 of the award reads “the benchmark hours are based upon provision of educational programs to clients normally undertaken in 18 – 24 hours per week or 720 – 960 hours per institute year.”
  
  
• The Appendix lists other activities to be taken into account in determining a lecturer’s maximum hours of instruction and assessment.  The process of workload scheduling is new and will take some time to establish agreed standards.  Managers are required to negotiate the range of duties and responsibilities undertaken with individual lecturers. Clause 5.6 of the Award sets out the dispute resolution process for when a lecturer considers that they have an excessive workload.
  
  
• The issue of the 60/40% delivery from one semester to the next, and 25% variation from week to week has been raised by members. This flexibility has been carried over from the previous Agreement and is not new; however its implementation requires accurate monitoring to ensure that annual maximum hours are observed.