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2008 Western Australia State Election
Education Policies of the parties and independents
Liberals to form a minority government
with Nationals' support
14 September 2008
© The West Australian [18 August 2008]
Letter from PLATO to all education spokespersons
Political parties' replies to questions from the SSTUWA
The seats to watch [from WA Today, 12 August 2008]
Liberal Behaviour Management Policy
[announced 25 August 2008]
Liberals pledge extra $120m for teachers' pay [in addition to the $755 million the Carpenter Government is currently offering] [announced 24 August 2008]
Liberals promising to build 14 new schools over six years [$300 million] plus an extra $50 million to refurbish and modernise schools. [announced 24 August 2008]Promise to abolish all Levelling K-12 [announced 17 February 2007; reaffirmed August 2008]
Empowering School Communities [announced 14 August 2008]
Greatly reduces the role and authority of Silver City and District Offices.
[No other education policies on its website as of 26 August.]
Pay Offer
"WA teachers will get an extra $120 million in pay from a Liberal Government. The figure is in addition to the $755 million the Carpenter Government is currently offering..." [The Sunday Times, 24 August 2008]
According to The Sunday Times [17 August] and the Labor website, Labor will:
- double "It pays to learn'', the allowance for books and other school necessities, from $200 to $400.;
- increase the allowance for 16- and 17-year-olds in training from $400 to $600 a year and double the uniform allowance from $115 to $230 for students whose parents hold pension or healthcare cards.; and
- make P&C groups eligible for grants of up to $2,500 for school improvement projects.
That certainly will solve the public education crisis... Web
Labor will:
- Invest more than $400 million on school maintenance.
- Invest more than $600 million to upgrade schools.
- Complete and start 36 new and replacement schools over the next four years at a cost of more than $500 million. [Labor website, announced 27 August]
- Spend $27 million plan providing air conditioning for 200 WA schools. [Announced 30 August]
Note: Labor hasn't fulfilled its own policy on class sizes from the last election yet.
Pay OfferAccept EBA-3 or return to arbitration, where Labor will offer even less.
[No other education policies on its website as of 26 August.]
Note: I don't include items like long overdue maintenance [e.g. Morley SHS toilet block] that have been delayed for ages, and then suddenly are addressed to become an "election promise". Web]
from Alston, 18/8/2008
© The West Australian
Articles here
Response to PLATO's Questions
Greens' Education Policies
Statement by Sol Hanna, Greens candidate for Riverton: "OBE has to go"
Highlights:
Salaries & conditions
Teachers deserve a full 24% pay increase - paid immediately and backdated to the end of the previous EBA. But that is not the issue.
The real question is how to restore the salaries and conditions of teachers, assistants, teacher aids and support staff to a level that reverses the growing attrition rate and once again makes teaching an attractive option for well qualified school leavers.
What is needed, among other improvements, is to rapidly develop a plan to progressively improve salaries and conditions over, say, a four year period. The aim should be to ensure that our teachers are among the best paid in the world.
Once the plan is in place with a firm timetable, even before it is implemented, it will help restore morale, encourage teachers to remain in the profession and attract new graduates.
What is required is a Minister for Education prepared to assemble a team of people – a “board of management”, so to speak, comprising:
- school staff representatives and/or union representatives;
- PLATO representatives;
- P&C representatives;
- Professional subject associations (eg: Maths, English, Science etc);
with Treasury input, to develop a transition plan over four, no more than five years.
The following goals would be achieved:
Teachers’ salaries would progressively be increased so that a senior teacher would, as in the past, receive the same remuneration as a backbench MP (currently $129,000). Remaining grades could be structured around this benchmark. Developing a new pay system would require more complexity, of course, but nothing will secure teachers’ pay relativities as effectively as linking them, directly or comparatively, to MPs’ salaries.Education reform
Family First has listened to teachers across the State and strongly believes:
- The Minister of the day should be required to use the Twomey report as the basis for reform and report regularly to Parliament on progress with implementation;
- OBE should be scrapped in all years, and more concrete subject syllabuses reintroduced, so that teachers and parents can return to a more effective, consistent and meaningful reporting and assessment regime...
No education policies on its website
Did not respond to PLATO's Questions
Mary Jenkins, Independent candidate for Cockburn
As a retired TAFE and secondary teacher I have had many letters published on behalf of teachers fight to be recognised, valued and respected. The demise of teachers, nurses and polices' value in respect of wages and conditions has been neglected by governments for too long. We need more independents to voice the concerns of community in respect of education as a life long experience.
Email statement [20/8/2008]
It is difficult for an independent to form policies on everything. However my past support for teachers with letters to the press for 1981 stands on its own. I have supported teachers against OBE and poor working conditions.
When my husband asked what OBE stood for I said "Outward Bound Education" that is what it is. “Out of bounds for students and teachers.”
I believe conditions for teachers are deplorable in many schools. Having spent most of my working life in offices for multinational corporations I was amazed at the crap teachers put up with when I did relief teaching in many schools south of the river.
Teachers are treated like students not as professional people by the autocratic department of education. Teachers do not get the respects they deserve from the department, students or parents in some difficult schools.
If a child is disruptive the class suffers and nothing much is done about it by the department. No wonder teachers leave. What jobs are you expected to take verbal and physical abuse in the workplace?
Unless things change there will be an even greater shortage of teachers in future. Dollars won’t change this! There needs to be a shift in thinking how schools are managed from the top.
Carpenter's policy of keeping kids in school until they are 17 is stupid. This was done to lower the unemployment figures. It shows no consideration for teachers minding kids who don't want to be in school. By 15 many have had enough and it is up to government to provide training out of the schools. TAFE used to do this before it became a sudor university.
Traineeships were a great success until it went private under the liberals. Then it collapsed for lack of support from employers and government. I worked on traineeships at TAFE and many other courses that gave kids a second chance. Now they want at least year 11 or 12 before going to TAFE and the cost of TAFE fees has escalated out of reach for many low income families today. This is one of the reasons why so many youth develop anti social behaviour and drop out completely. Instead of keeping kids in school until they are 17 investment is needed in TAFE by government and employers to give kids a chance in life.
Letter from PLATO to all education spokespersons [12 August 2008]
DearWe are members of PLATO W.A., a concerned group of teachers, parents, students and university academics. Our website http://www.platowa.com is visited by 5000 people each week.
The problems we perceive with education are: discipline, salaries, curriculum, large attrition rate and teachers being seconded to teaching outside their areas of expertise.
We encourage you to respond to the following three questions either by directly contributing to the PLATO website forum or by responding to this email, in which case we will post your response for you.
This email has been sent to all education representatives for all political parties. You response will be posted immediately to ensure readers can respond and provide some useful feedback for you.
1. The EBA2 was accepted by the union executive yet rejected by 90% of teachers. EBA3 is not greatly different for the vast majority of teachers and is expected to be similarly rejected, leading to possible industrial action. What is your party’s proposed solution to this impasse?
2. Each day teachers in some schools face physical assaults and ongoing problems dealing with disruptive and abusive students. This is a significant factor in teacher attrition. What are your strategies for dealing with this issue?
3. Outcomes Based Education is a failed, imported pedagogy. Yet the remnants still remain in our own education system. Will you remove assessments based on levels in all years? Does your party intend to remove the outcome based Curriculum Framework from legislation, and thereby acknowledge the failure of the OBE experiment?
Yours Sincerely,
Marko Vojkovic,
on behalf of the PLATO W.A. committee
Family First reply
[No reply was received from the Nationals]
Updated 9 November, 2008 10:37 PM
