On the morning of 24 March, thousands of Victorian teachers did something they rarely do—they walked away from their classrooms.
They gathered instead on city streets, carrying placards and a message that was simple but powerful: value our work.
For many, it was not an easy decision.
“I didn’t go into the city, but I didn’t work that day. I was on strike,” says Manisha Beniwal, who has been teaching at Berwick Secondary for three years.
Behind that decision lies a deeper story—not just about pay, but about what teaching has quietly become.
Ask any teacher what their day looks like, and the answer is rarely simple.
“There’s this perception that once you come home, the job ends,” Beniwal says. “But it doesn’t. Some days I have dinner and then work till 10 or 11 at night.”
Planning, marking, emails, behaviour management, meetings—the list keeps growing. And often, the work continues even during school holidays.
“We have a two-week break coming up, but I already have a long to-do list,” she says. “It’s called a break, but really it’s catch-up time.”
For Sunita Kalia, who has been teaching in Australia since 2006, the change has been gradual but unmistakable. “When I started, it was one teacher, one class. Now the expectations are very different.”
Her role today goes far beyond teaching. As a wellbeing leading teacher at Cranbourne Carlisle Primary School, she supports students with complex needs, works with teachers, speaks to parents and manages detailed documentation.
“You support a student, then you document it. You speak to parents, you document that. You follow up again the next day. It’s constant.”
On some days, even the best-laid plans do not hold.
“I thought I’d sit and finish my admin work, but I spent half the day supporting a student who was having a difficult time,” she says. “That’s the reality, no two days are the same.”
In today’s classrooms, one lesson rarely fits all. “You might have a Year 8 class where one student is working at a Year 3 level, and another is ready for Year 10 work,” says Garima Mantry. “You have to plan for both. You have to make sure each student feels they’ve learned something.”
That means constant adjustment—different materials, different approaches, different expectations—all within the same class.
“And then when you’re teaching, you still try to connect with every student,” she says. “If I have 25 students, I try to at least check in with 10 in one lesson.”
Outside the classroom, the work continues—yard duty, meetings and follow-ups.
And then there are the small but important things.
“We teach about 80 to 85 students,” she says. “And we have to know all their names. You can’t just say ‘hey’—you need that personal connection.”
Despite everything, all three teachers come back to the same thing: why they chose this profession in the first place.
“I love being around young minds,” Mantry says. “Shaping young minds is really about shaping the future.”
For Beniwal, it is about those small moments that make the effort worthwhile. “Even if there are just five students in a class who are really engaged, that feeling that you’ve made a difference, that’s enough.”
Kalia says the same. “When you see a child finally understand something after struggling for days, that feeling is unmatched.That’s what makes the job meaningful.”
Here is what the numbers look like. A graduate teacher in Victoria earns about $79,589 a year. An experienced teacher at the top of the scale , someone who has spent decades in the job, earns around $118,063.
In New South Wales, that same experienced teacher will soon earn more than $15,000 extra. Victoria now offers the lowest teacher salaries in the country.
And then there is the private system.
At Melbourne’s Trinity Grammar, an experienced teacher can earn about $146,000 a year. Add leadership roles, and that can go up to $177,000. That is not a small difference. It is the distance between two entirely different economic lives.
But the teachers who spoke after the strike did not just talk about pay. They talked about their actual days—and their nights.
“It’s not just about salary,” Kalia says. “It’s about feeling valued.”
There is also concern about what happens if things do not change.
“If conditions don’t improve, teachers will burn out and leave,” Mantry says. “And then we risk losing good teachers.”
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The strain is already showing.
Teachers speak of growing workloads, rising expectations and a system that still relies too heavily on goodwill.
“We can’t reduce the work,” Kalia says. “But at least it needs to be acknowledged.”
There is also a human cost—for teachers, for students and for families. “I do feel for parents,” Kalia says. “When strikes happen, they have to take time off, and students miss a day of learning.”
But she says the conversation can no longer be avoided. “We need to show what we do and what support we need.”
For now, talks between the government and the union continue. Many teachers still believe an agreement will come.
“It’s just a matter of time,” Kalia says.
“I do feel for parents. When strikes happen, they have to take time off, and students miss a day of learning”
— Sunita Kalia
But there is also a sense that this moment matters.
For all the frustration, none of these teachers speak lightly about walking away. They still show up. They still care. They still believe in the work.
Because beyond the paperwork, the meetings and the long nights, there is still the classroom. Still the students. Still that moment when something clicks.
And for now, that is what keeps them going.
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