Staff and a union have demanded La Trobe management back down on proposed changes that could affect the university’s Bendigo campus.

NTEU Bendigo sub-branch secretary Cathleen Farrelly was concerned only two of the 32 School of Education members’ positions were matched under the proposals.

She said it could impact on teaching at the Bendigo campus, with students in regional areas sometimes finding it difficult to access online modules.

Dr Farrelly characterised proposals to send teachers to town for intensive classes over days or weeks as encouraging a reliance on “fly in, fly out” teaching.

She acknowledged the arrangements could go the other way, with people in Bendigo travelling to the university’s other campuses to teach.

“But when people are committed to the country, have their families here and live locally they often don’t apply for jobs that may be located in Bundoora,” she said.

“When you are committed to living in the region there are very few professional higher education jobs. We want to make this campus the best.”

A university spokesperson said staff members would be “strongly encouraged” to apply for new roles, many of which could be done from any of a number of campuses.

While it was too early to say what the outcome of that process would be, the spokesperson said existing education course offerings would stay the same.

“We are proposing different roles to meet that need. The total workforce across the network will remain largely the same,” the spokesperson said,

Earlier

Staff are preparing to demonstrate in Bendigo today amid concerns about proposed changes to La Trobe University’s School of Education.

It comes as La Trobe considers remodelling how it delivers primary and secondary teaching courses across its campuses, including at Bendigo.

The National Tertiary Education Union’s Cathleen Farrelly said the proposals were a “major cause for concern for all residents of Bendigo”, fearing locally-based staff could go.

The university has proposed cutting positions at its School of Education from 54 to 50, with a further two to become fixed-term.

However, the union fears changes could cut much deeper.

Dr Farrelly said that under the proposal 94 per cent of positions would be spilled and that 23 staff members at the Bendigo campus could potentially be lost.

She said many of the proposed replacement roles would not be campus-specific, meaning staff could be brought in from other campuses including Bundoora.

“The impact on students is likely to be significant, with the proposal of FIFO (fly in fly out) lecturers who would visit the regional campuses for intensive teaching in two week blocks, with the rest of the course being online,” she said.

Related: La Trobe proposes changes to teacher education courses

La Trobe head of campus Rob Stephenson said no decisions had been made on staff numbers at Bendigo campus.

“There’s a proposal that is out for discussion and in fact closed on Tuesday, so no decisions have been made about that at this stage,” he said.

“A lot of the positions are open for expressions of interest from other staff, some will be advertised. I’m not in a position to give you an indication of where that will finish up.”

Mr Stephenson said the Bendigo campus was an important hub in the School of Education and there was “no threat” that that would diminish under the proposed changes.

“What we have said is that we want the opportunity to bring expert staff, from wherever they are, to teach into programs,” he said.

“That might be Bendigo-based staff going to Bundoora or Shepparton (campuses) to teach particular programs.

“It might be block-mode subjects where we bring students together for an intensive over a short period of time. We’ve seen that that has worked very well in some of the other programs we offer.”

The university had proposed the changes in the midst of what it said was falling enrollment numbers for education courses, as well as by recommendations from the Gonski 2.0 report for classroom teaching to be tailored to individual students rather than entire classes.

Mr Stephenson said the hope was to renew and refresh educational offerings.

“We think that is really important, that we have the skills within the university that will deliver the types of programs our regional communities want,” he said.

“We want our graduates to meet the needs of schools around the district and regional Victoria. This is part of what the university needs to do to make sure its courses are up-to-date and always relevant.”

The NTEU is calling on the university to drop its proposals and instead work with the union on improvements the School of Education.

“Not only could we avoid redundancies, but our ideas would give our students improved choice in courses, and we would retain highly-experienced staff on regional campuses who would be available to support students,” Dr Farrelly said.

More to come.

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