PLATO's 2009 New Year's Resolutions

We resolve to continue the fight to abolish OBE and especially Levelling in all levels of schooling in Western Australia. Concurrently, we resolve to see the WA Curriculum Framework, a document that has both outlived its usefulness and has been used to justify so many of the ills of WA education, removed from legislation.

To these ends, we will continue to remind and lobby the Western Australian Government of its election promises, specifically:

the abolition of ALL LEVELLING K-12; and

a comprehensive review / “audit” of OBE and the Curriculum Framework from which it was spawned.

We resolve to continue our role as watchdog in the development of the National Curriculum. We encourage all teachers to get involved through the various channels open to them. We simply can not afford a repeat, at a national level, of the education disaster that has occurred in WA over the past many years.

We urge a change of the leadership of the SSTUWA, to a consultative one that actually listens to and supports its members.

We support the accreditation of secondary teachers by WACOT to be learning area specific, and will lobby our elected members to put this policy into effect. It is untenable to force teachers, without the necessary training and expertise, to teach outside their areas of experience and competence, especially at TEE level.

We would like 2009 to be a year of celebration. We would like to celebrate:

the end of OBE and levels;

school reports that actually mean what they say;

an Education Minister who honours election promise and listens to teachers;

the purging of the unaccountable bureaucrats who have established a stranglehold on education in WA; and

a new union leadership that treats its members as the respected professionals they are.

Our overriding concern will be for our students and their parents; our stance on educational issues will be driven solely by this and never for personal promotion or benefit. We refuse to pander to the political aspirations of those higher in the system, or to endorse flawed and invalid teaching and assessment processes.

We resolve to maintain the PLATO website and its discussion forum as a source of education news, information, research findings, discussion and debate, open to all educators, parents and students. We will continue to post and link education news stories, as well as relevant documents from education bodies at the State and National level.

We did a pretty good job meeting our 2008 New Year's Resolutions
[IF the State Government decides to honour its election promises !!]