One Step Forward: Two Steps Back? Women and
Affirmative Action: A case study of the Victorian
Teaching Service Research Paper 33 1995-96
Dr Margaret Malloch Consultant to Social Policy Group
Major Issues
The effectiveness of affirmative action programs is currently being questioned in both Australia and
America. A case study of the Victorian Teaching Service illustrates many of the concerns increasingly being
raised.
As the tables in this paper show (also see Appendix 1), while the percentages of women in promotion
positions in the Victorian Teaching Service have fluctuated, women have neither rushed into, nor been able
to obtain, positions of greater status and responsibility in education in significant numbers as a result of
Affirmative Action policies and plans. In the primary division, in 1978, 28 per cent of school principal
positions were held by women; in 1994, 18 per cent. In secondary schools, in 1971, 20 per cent of principal
positions were held by women; by 1994, 15.9 per cent. Women now form approximately 48 per cent of
secondary teachers and 75 per cent of primary teachers. The figures for women in the teaching service as
a whole, and in promotion positions, have remained much the same over the last ten years.
EEO legislation and affirmative action plans have raised awareness of gender equity issues, but go only
part of the way to making changes for women in the world of work. The broader societal context has also to
be considered. The labour market in Australia has always been highly segmented, with women's jobs
almost by definition the lower paid ones. The segregation of women into a narrow range of the work force
has actually increased since equal employment opportunity and affirmative action policies and plans were
introduced. Women still have unequal access to salary, superannuation and permanency of employment.
While EEO legislation and affirmative action plans are not in themselves enough to change substantially the
lives of women, laws and policies which are part of a total package of commitments to gender equity
(addressing issues such as access to education and training, salary, flexible working conditions, health and
child care, taxation and transport, equitable divorce and welfare benefits) would assist both women and
men in our society.
In the case of the Victorian Teaching Service, a decade of EEO affirmative action plans, aimed at women
teachers as individuals, has left organisational structures basically unchanged. A more strategic and hardhitting approach, aimed at changing institutional structures and values, and perhaps even including the
imposition of quotas, appears to be required.
Introduction
The focus of this paper is an assessment of the effectiveness of affirmative action policies, using the
Victorian Teaching Service between 1986 and 1992 as a case study. It was in this period (1986, 1989 and
1992), that Affirmative Action Plans were introduced by the Victorian Ministry of Education. The aim was to
increase the number of women in senior administrative positions and provide improved career opportunities
in the Victorian Teaching Service. Other goals were to identify and remove discriminatory practices and to
redress the impact of past discrimination.
It is argued that the lessons from this case study can be extrapolated to other government ministries, state
and federal, and the private sector.
Background
Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity: definitions
In America recently, affirmative action has come under attack as disadvantaging the majority by providing
preferential treatment based on race and gender. (2) There, affirmative action has been implemented
through the establishment and implementation of quotas. Affirmative action in Australia has been
introduced as part of a legislative framework at both Federal and State levels, with an emphasis on the
establishment of targets rather than quotas, and on changes to processes in recruitment and promotion.
Equal employment opportunity is a broad term covering strategies to improve women's position in the
labour market. (Like 'anti-discrimination' it can also apply to other disadvantaged groups). The idea is to use
proactive measures to open up a greater range of jobs to women as a group, and to ensure that women
can compete on equal terms with men for promotion. Ziller's definition of equal employment opportunity
reflects its application in Australia:
Equal Employment Opportunity refers to the right to be considered for a job for which one is skilled and
qualified. It is the chance to compete with others and not be denied fair appraisal or excluded during this
process by laws, rules or attitudes. Equal employment opportunity is the operation of the principle of
recruitment and promotion on merit. The test for equal employment opportunity is the outcome of selection
and promotion procedures. Only the successful passage of qualified women and migrants through these
procedures...is convincing evidence that equality of opportunity in employment exists. (3)
Anti-discrimination legislation applies to individual cases and forbids such actions as refusing to hire a
woman for a job merely because of a preference for men in such jobs. Action under such legislation is case
by case, and each case must be established retrospectively.
Anti-discrimination legislation is one means towards equal opportunity and the principal means for
achieving this goal is affirmative action. This is defined in the federal government policy paper Affirmative
Action for Women as:
a systematic means, determined by the employer in consultation with senior management, employees and
unions, of achieving equal employment opportunities (EEO) for women. Affirmative Action is compatible
with appointment and promotion on the basis of the principle of merit, skills and qualification. (4)
Affirmative action is defined in the Victorian Ministry of Education Action Plans for women in the Teaching
Service as:
a systematic means, determined by the employer, in consultation with unions of achieving equal
employment opportunity. It is not positive discrimination, is not an introduction of quota systems, but is part
of a total equal employment opportunity policy which enables the redress of past discrimination whilst
ensuring that all employees have equal access to the promotional opportunities on the basis of merit, skills,
and appropriate qualifications. An affirmative action program is a planned, results oriented, management
program designed to achieve equal employment opportunity (5).
These definitions focus on merit. Equal employment opportunity (EEO) is used as a term to describe the
opening up of employment, education and training to women with affirmative action as the means by which
this is to be achieved.
The Report, Halfway to Equal, by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and
Constitutional Affairs, (6) noted that the federal Sex Discrimination Act 1984, and the related Affirmative
Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) Act 1986, have had a significant impact on increasing
equal opportunity and equal status for women in Australia. It noted that while achievements for women
have been significant, there was still a long way to go. It noted also that 'At the time that the legislation was
introduced, public knowledge of and acceptance of gender discrimination was not widespread. Indeed the
passage of legislation was accompanied by a deal of cynicism and even fear as to repercussions.' (7) This
was also the Victorian experience.
The participation of women in the Victorian State Education System
The 'lack' of women in educational administration in Victoria has long been documented and identified as a
problem to be addressed. Schwarz's report, Women in the Education Department of Victoria in 1984 (8), in
which the facts and figures were starkly presented, served as a catalyst.
Systemic and direct discrimination against women teachers in Victoria meant that until 1956 upon marriage
a woman teacher had to resign from a permanent position, and if re-employed, work as a temporary
teacher, at a lower salary. Until 1970, in secondary and technical schools, women teachers could be
principals only of girls' schools, schools for the disabled or one teacher schools. Until 1971, women
teachers did not receive equal pay. Until 1972, women teachers could not be principals of primary schools,
with the exception of schools for the disabled and one teacher schools. (9)
Examples of indirect discrimination included no confinement leave until 1956. Until 1975, married women
were unable to join the State Superannuation fund. Until 1984, permanent parttime work was not available
and when introduced was available only for assistant class teachers. (10)
By 1986, the year of the first Affirmative Action Plan, women in the Victorian Teaching Service had gained
some advances towards equal employment opportunity. Equal pay was won by 1971. From 1972, women
could apply to be principals of the full range of school types. Primary women teachers were placed on a
Common Roll (a listing by seniority in the primary teaching service). From 1974, eighteen months unpaid
confinement leave was available. In conjunction with the teacher unions, working conditions were altered to
make superannuation conditions more equitable: married women were able to become regular contributors
and their partners no longer had to prove dependency in order to inherit. Part time work was introduced.
From 1985, 7 years' family leave became available to teachers, female and male. (11) It could be argued,
however, that these changes to women's working conditions occurred parallel to, rather than as a result of,
the Affirmative Action Plan.
Administrative duties in schools traditionally and historically have been, and continue to be, overwhelmingly
carried out by men. Porter, Warry and Apelt (12) refer to an Australian College of Education survey of the
Australian Teaching Service in 1989. There were at the time 20 per cent more female teachers than male in
Australian schools. However, 13.5 per cent of men compared with 3.7 per cent of women held
administrative posts. In government schools there were slightly more men than women in the 41-50 age
range. There were also more men employed on a permanent basis. There was a bigger percentage of
females teaching infants and primary school children. In all other sectors males predominated. Career
intentions showed an almost equal number of males and females intended to apply for transfers in the next
three years. Twice as many men as women however intended to apply for promotional transfers, and twice
as many men attended training courses related to administration. More women than men attended courses
on school curriculum subject matter and teaching processes, while more men attended courses in areas
such as school improvement and staff appraisal.
In Victorian school administration, the percentage of school administration positions held by women has
showed gentle fluctuations, but no steady increases. In secondary schools, between 1971 and 1988, the
percentage of women principals declined from 18 to 9 per cent and in technical schools rose from 8 to 14
per cent. (13) Women as a percentage of total principals in post-primary schools rose from 11 per cent in
1989 to 16 per cent in 1994, while the proportion of women teachers in these schools remained steady at
about 48 per cent. Women as a percentage of principals in primary schools declined from 28 percent in
1978 to 18 percent in 1994.
Conclusion
The focus in the Victorian Teaching Service has been on individual women to succeed in terms of male
defined criteria of merit. In schools very little has changed. One interviewee described the situation:
I mean when you're in the central administration too, I've found I tend to get carried away with the concept
of having developed a policy and it's over to schools to implement it isn't it. They had to do it, so what's the
problem? And then you get out and realise at the schools and find that they have 523 ways of avoiding
doing it.
I think that what I observed was that very little had changed. I mean it was as though all that work had been
done for nought, it hadn't hit the schools in any real sense... I think the only way we're going to change
things for women, to change men in fact, I don't think you can move one end of this jigsaw without moving
the other. (44)
Since 1992, the Action Plans have been replaced by 'Employment Equity Management Guidelines for
Schools' (published in March, 1994). Each school is to develop an employment equity management policy
as part of the staff management section of the School Charter. The School Charter is a statement of a
school's policies and procedures developed through the School Council, a copy of which is meant to be
lodged with the central education bureaucracy. Mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation are not clear.
To be successful any affirmative action plan must move beyond a focus on individual training and
endeavour within (or despite) an organisational structure which can be antagonistic, or inconsistent in
application of policy, and where monitoring and evaluation have, up to now, been patchy and data difficult
to obtain. Whilst advances in some areas have been made in this past decade, women are certainly not in a
position of having equal access to the full range of positions available within the education system.
In looking at the 'problems' faced by women in the workplace, the broader societal, structural context has to
be considered:
Equal Employment Opportunity is no longer enough, as it has been minimally effective in some areas, and
it has mainly helped already relatively privileged women. There is a better understanding now of the nexus
between family, household, labour market and state and more recognition of the specificity and variety of
women's experiences. (45)
Segal (46) in writing of equal employment in England, made a comment valid for the Victorian and
Australian experience, and that is that 'the legislation which was supposed to improve women's economic
situation has had a limited impact'. Women's jobs, Segal states, are by definition low paid ones. 'The
segregation of women into a narrow range of the worst paid jobs has actually increased since these reforms
were passed.' (47) Affirmative Action policies similarly have not achieved their stated goals. Women still
have differential access to salary, superannuation, permanency of employment and to additional
allowances for administrative positions.
The 1977 Report to the Premier of Victoria, The Victorian Committee on Equal Opportunity in Schools, (48)
stated a belief still pertinent, that it was 'important to view equal opportunity as not merely the possibility of
women achieving in the male dominated and defined promotion sphere, but rather as the possibility of
women making an impact on the whole structure and definition of a profession in which they, after all,
comprise the majority.' Women who do obtain administrative and leadership positions and operate as
isolated individuals can find they are treated as 'solos' or tokens situations counterproductive for the
individual and for other women.
The Action Plans drew attention to the situation of women in the education system, highlighting their underrepresentation in administrative levels. Women began to be encouraged to apply for promotion. The
importance of female role models was emphasised. A 'climate' of change was introduced. Removing
artificial and arbitrary barriers to employment in order to provide employment widens the field to allow
classes of people previously excluded to compete for jobs, but there is no guarantee or likelihood that the
competition will result in participation at promotion levels proportionate to the number of women in the
profession. It is thought that 'hard' that is stronger affirmative action programs giving preference to women
may be necessary to achieve proportional representation at all levels. The example of the Australian Labor
Party's policy of specific quotas for preselection of parliamentary candidates to have more women in
parliament by the year 2002 has been widely cited.
Policies and legislation are not enough in themselves to change substantially the lives and opportunities of
women. Women are not the power brokers in our society. However, laws and policies which are part of a
total package of societal reform (covering issues such as access to education and training, employment,
salary, flexible working conditions, health and child care, taxation and transport, equitable divorce and
welfare benefits), would assist both women and men.
Constantly there are reminders that change is slow and patience required; the need for education,
cooperation and goodwill continues. The decade has been very much one of one step forward, two steps
back.
Your Work
1. Define equal opportunity?
2. In your own words explain Affirmative Action.
3. Read ‘The Participation of Women in the Victorian State Education System’ and outline
the changes that have occurred for women in the Victorian State Education system.
4. Has affirmative action been successful in this case? Explain your answer using examples.
500 -750 words