My partner’s colleagues are always off sick. Is it wrong to speak up?

Opinion

November 6, 2026 — 5:12am

My partner is a learning support assistant at a primary school. On any given day, about 20 per cent of rostered assistants are on sick or personal leave.

Although teachers on leave are replaced with relief teachers daily, assistants are not. My partner and other attending colleagues have to continuously cover the duties of absent colleagues. It’s not part of the school’s strategy to run on reduced staff – the day runs smoothly only if everyone is present. My partner is feeling fatigued with the constant extra duties, which they have been undertaking for a long while.

Since sick leave and personal leave are taboo subjects, and my partner would never raise or discuss it with colleagues, what are their avenues for discussing the issue with the school management without coming across as unwilling to do the extra work? What could the school even do about it?

Dr Meghan Stacey, an Associate Professor and ARC DECRA Fellow at the University of New South Wales, told me it’s no secret that schools, to a great extent, run on the goodwill of staff.

“Learning support staff, like teachers, are attracted to their work because they see it as inherently worthwhile and valuable, which quite frankly makes it an easy target for exploitation,” she says.

“This is a huge problem, and one that education systems have only recently started to show a serious interest in tackling. But while teacher workload has been getting some well-deserved attention in media and policy recently, the plight of learning support staff does not tend to get as much airtime.”

As is so often the case with topics raised in Work Therapy, this is clearly a system problem.

Stacey says this is concerning for exactly the reason you mention: while teachers are usually replaced if they can’t attend work on a given day, learning support staff may not be. This is true even though they play an essential role at schools across Australia.

“The first thing I would say is that this situation does not seem to me to be the fault of the partner’s colleagues. As the writer says, sick leave and personal leave are ‘taboo’ – they are a fundamental right and entitlement,” she says.

“But perhaps more importantly, if around 20 per cent of support staff are away on any given day, then this indicates a problem that is bigger than any one individual. And, given problems of attrition and retention in the education workforce, the problem is likely to be happening in other schools, too.”

Such high proportions of learning support staff using sick and personal leave points to a lack of proper funding. Such circumstances lead to fatigue among learning support assistants, as you say, as well as stress and the possibility of burnout.

Because allocation of money is at the heart of the problem, Stacey says that writing to your local member and agitating for fairer funding arrangements may be a good starting point. The obvious downside, of course, is that such change can happen slowly.

Regarding what, if anything, the school can do, Stacey says it depends: “Some funding for support staff is tied to particular students and should be used primarily for that purpose. Other funding is more generalised.

“If they have a good relationship with their principal, the writer’s partner could speak to them about any possibilities within the budget for hiring more support staff to share the load. This might have the bonus effect of making work more manageable, reducing leave-taking before it can become a problem for other staff.”

But Stacey acknowledges the budgets of many schools are stretched pretty thin as it is. With that in mind, another option is joining a union.

The right union will depend on where you live and in which educational sector your partner works. If your partner were a school learning support officer in a NSW public school, for example, the Public Service Association might be the best option.

I commend you for taking an interest in this subject and seeking a way to make a difference in your area or at your partner’s school. But as is so often the case with topics raised in Work Therapy, this is clearly a system problem.

As Stacey says, for a broader change to happen, those responsible for that system need to seriously consider the structural issue at the heart of the question you’ve raised.

“There’s clearly a need to better understand and appreciate the complex work being done in schools and how these institutional ecosystems function. Material supports must catch up soon, to enable staff such as the writer’s partner to do their crucial work,” she says.

Send your questions through to Work Therapy by emailing jonathan@theinkbureau.com.au

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Jonathan Rivett is a writer based in Melbourne. He's written about workplace culture and careers for more than a decade.

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