DET corrects record about 2000 award

By Jennifer Leete

New Department of Education and Training Director-General Andrew Cappie-Wood has written to Federation to make a correction to the record of Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) proceedings in the salaries matter.

The DET argued in submissions to the IRC, on the final day of hearings, that work value increases resulting from major changes such as the HSC, School Certificate, annual school reports and expansion of statewide testing programs had already been "paid for" with salary increases in previous salaries rounds. The letter from the Director-General acknowledges that the inclusion of those matters (in Clause 18 of the 2000 Award) was a political settlement.

In addition, progress has been made in achieving payment of a flow-on of the 5.5 per cent interim increase to our members covered by minority awards, including backdating to January 1. However, members in Corrective Services have not yet achieved this and have taken industrial action.

In considering progress and the extent to which conditions set by the February Council had been met, on February 19 Federation Executive February decided to lift the ban on ELLA and other tests as well as on on-line entries for School Certificate, preliminary and Higher School Certificate courses. All other bans in schools and TAFE, as previously notified, remain in place.

Executive has determined that there will be no 2003 annual school report.

Federation has had a number of inquiries about the lifting of the ban on "on-line entries". In particular, members have asked whether this means the Federation has accepted that data entry is part of the work of teachers. The answer is absolutely not. The on-line entry process is a blatant attempt to devolve the data entry process to schools, thus saving the Office of the Board of Studies from the associated labour costs.

In acknowledgement of this many schools have dealt with the on-line entries through engaging additional casual clerical staffing, usually to work with the appropriate member of the teaching staff. Federation encourages members in all schools to pursue this approach.

On the matter of the ban on the construction of portfolios of student work for reporting purposes, members are reminded that both DET and Minister Refshauge have confirmed that portfolio based reporting is not a requirement.

The ban concerns the use of portfolios "for reporting purposes". The ban does not affect in-class assessment of student learning. Students can still take their classroom work books and materials home for parents to see.

The report of Professor Ken Eltis, Time to Teach: Time to Learn, released in November 2003, provides a detailed strategy to clarify, rationalise and make more consistent the whole area of outcomes based syllabuses, assessment and reporting. This will involve changes to K-6 syllabuses and new assessment and reporting frameworks for schools. One of the terms of reference for Professor Eltis's work was to have regard to the need for a manageable workload. Federation, along with principals and the parent groups, are represented on a reference group which is considering the implementation strategy for the Eltis recommendations.

Jennifer Leete is the Deputy President.

Corrective Services teachers stop work for flow-on