Inquiry hears from union on training and recruitment

JENNIFER LEETE reports Federation has made another submission to yet another inquiry into the training and recruitment of teachers.

Late last year then Minister Andrew Refshauge announced that the NSW Parliament's Upper House would be conducting an inquiry into the training and recruitment of teachers.

The Inquiry is being conducted by the Legislative Council Standing Committee on Social Issues, which is chaired by ALP MLC Jan Burnswoods, who used to be a teacher herself.

Federation members may be excused if their response to this is, "what, not another inquiry into teacher training?"

In fact, if we consider both state and federal arenas any librarian would be able to locate reports of in excess of 20 reports in the last decade and a half.

What is particularly interesting about the current NSW Upper House Inquiry though, is that it focuses specifically on the Department of Education and Training (DET) and public schools and in a sense could be seen as an evaluation of DET's policy response to training and recruitment needs.

Federation provided oral evidence to the Inquiry on March 16 when Deputy President Jennifer Leete and Research Officer Wendy Currie appeared before it for more than 90 minutes of comment and questioning.

Federation's evidence followed DET's appearance. DET's four person team included Director-General Andrew Cappie-Wood.

Transcripts of all oral evidence and written submissions will be available on the State Parliament's website (www.parliament.nsw.gov.au).

Federation's evidence focussed on the need for teacher scholarships to be expanded, the need for an expansion of the Teacher Mentor Program from the current 50 positions to 300 positions as well as the need to properly resource teacher induction to ensure the retention of new teachers in the public education system.

One fundamental issue of concern to the Inquiry was whether NSW was facing a potential shortage of teachers. DET took the same line they took in the salaries case before the Industrial Relations Commission, downplaying the seriousness of this issue. Federation emphasised that such shortages were already being manifested in many "difficult to staff" schools.

Federation is currently finalising a written submission to the Inquiry which will be available on the website.

Jennifer Leete is the Deputy President.

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March 2005 contents