Victor Kozlov arrived at his Melbourne secondary school at 6.30am yesterday to prepare for the day ahead. By lunchtime, he had taught four periods, supervised 40 students during lunch detention, and fielded three parent emails before heading home at 6pm. Neither the detention nor the evening admin work was counted on his official timesheet. It was a typical day, though for Kozlov and thousands of Victorian colleagues, it may soon be a day off.
On 24 March, Mr Kozlov will join the first statewide strike by Victorian public school teachers, principals and education support staff in 13 years. A Fair Work Commission ballot concluded 12 March delivered a decisive mandate: 98 per cent voted for protected industrial action. The union is expecting more than 10,000 people to rally in Melbourne's city centre, with thousands more stopping work across the state.
The flashpoint is money. After eight months of negotiations with no initial offer, the Victorian government tabled a proposal in recent weeks: an 8 per cent pay rise for teachers and principals from April, with 4 per cent for education support staff, followed by 3 per cent annual increases. The Australian Education Union called it inadequate and lodged a counter-demand: a 35 per cent increase over four years, plus immediate relief from unpaid overtime that averaged 12 hours a week across the sector.
The gap between the two positions masks a deeper problem. Victoria does not simply have a pay negotiation going awry; it has a systemic teacher shortage driven by the lowest salaries in Australia. An experienced Victorian teacher will earn $118,063 by October 2026, compared to $133,422 for an experienced NSW teacher. At entry level, the disparity is sharper still: $79,589 in Victoria against $92,882 in NSW. That is $13,293 a year, or roughly $255 a week, a sum that matters enormously when young teachers are weighing mortgage stress and housing insecurity.
The research on teacher retention is unambiguous. In surveys conducted by the AEU, only three in ten Victorian public school staff intend to work in government schools until retirement. Nearly four in ten are uncertain whether they will stay at all. Those figures represent a quiet exodus of expertise and institutional knowledge, classroom by classroom.
The government's offer, modest as it is, comes against a backdrop of constrained funding. In 2023, the Allan Labor government delayed raising Victoria's school funding to the national standard of 75 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard until 2031, effectively removing $2.4 billion from anticipated investment. In late 2024, the government signed the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement with the Albanese government, which restored some federal commitment, but the state-level shortfall remains acute.
The union has broadened its claims beyond pay. It is demanding action on workload. Teachers report that administrative demands have grown, preparation time has shrunk, and the accumulation of small pressures has made it difficult to focus on teaching itself. This is not a union talking point; it is the lived experience of classrooms across Victoria. Parents and principals alike have flagged the pressure.
For students like the Year 9 cohorts preparing for exams or Year 11 students managing final assignments, the March 24 strike will mean disrupted timetables. Schools are requesting families make alternative care arrangements. The disruption is neither trivial nor welcome, but the union is signalling it sees no alternative after months of negotiation without progress.
The tension also exposes a political choice embedded in the budget. Australia funds schools through a complex mix of state and federal contributions. When Victoria chooses to cap its own funding commitment until 2031, it is not an accident of forecasting; it is a deliberate deferral of investment. Other states have made different choices. Queensland recently offered teachers an 8 per cent pay rise alongside ongoing negotiations, and Catholic schools offered 13 per cent. Victoria's offer, while not negligible, sits at the lower end of contemporary settlements.
The question now is whether the March 24 action will shift that calculus. Union leadership has not ruled out sustained action beyond the initial 24-hour stoppage if negotiations stall. The government has signalled that the 8 per cent offer is near the limit of its flexibility within current budget settings. Both sides appear to be preparing for a prolonged standoff.
For teachers in Victorian classrooms, the strike represents something broader than a pay claim. It is a statement that the sector has been neglected relative to other Australian states, that their workload is unsustainable, and that investment in public education has become a secondary priority. Whether that message resonates beyond the education sector depends partly on how Victorians perceive the fairness of teacher compensation, and partly on how disruptive the action becomes. What is certain is that for Mr Kozlov and thousands of colleagues, the choice to strike marks the point at which silence felt more damaging than disruption.