Government continues to exclude teachers

"The State Government appears to be going out of its way to exclude teachers from decision-making processes," claims Mr Greg Williams, president of anti-OBE lobby group PLATO.

In a letter to all secondary teachers, the Curriculum Council advised them that the next professional development day, to be held at the start of Term 3:

"will (now) be a 2 ½ hr briefing for heads of learning areas or teachers in charge of subjects related to these courses. That is, for every course being offered by a school in 2007, that school may send ONE representative to attend the PD for that course."

"A full day was scheduled originally, not 2 ½ hours, and it was to include all teachers of the new courses. Now, rank and file classroom teachers of the new Year 11 courses, to be implemented next year, are being denied the opportunity to attend, ask questions or make suggestions," Mr Williams said.

"The next professional development day, when all teachers can attend, does not occur until the start of the 2007 school year. By then, the course changes will be a fait accompli, and it will be much too late for teachers to provide input," he said.

On a related problem, it appears that the verification of teacher details may prevent many registered teachers from voting in the WA College of Teaching election of teacher representatives, scheduled for November.

"Dozens of teachers have complained already, on the PLATO discussion forum," said PLATO spokesman Steve Kessell. "It appears that details, such as each teacher's school, sector (government / Catholic / independent) and length of service, were omitted from their database. Teacher have been advised by the College, by post, that if they do not go online and add the missing data by August 11, three months before the election, they will be unable to vote."

"Teachers provided these details, in writing, when they registered with the College last year, and most will assume that the College has recorded them," he said.

"Their database is so poorly designed that teachers even have to add their telephone area codes to validate their details. Presumably one could assume that most WA teachers have a (08) area code," he added.

"Taken together, these two events suggest that the Government wants to eliminate teacher feedback and representation to the greatest extent possible," he said.