Beware the new Workplace Learning Policy

By Wendy Currie

Unfortunately, some presenters of training for the new Workplace Learning Policy and associated documents have characterised these as agreed documents. Federation has not agreed to it, particularly as there are some serious issues arising from it.

Federation was never consulted about the 2001 policy, but certainly had a lot to say about its contents, especially about issues relating to occupational health and safety, child protection, teacher workload and duty of care. The union sought legal advice about one matter in particular and subsequently included advice about it in a mail-out to workplaces and in Education. That issue was the supposed requirement that vocational education and training (VET) teachers be an emergency contact person when students are on mandatory work placements out of school hours.

As a result of the importance of the issues arising from the Workplace Learning Handbook, Federation approached the Department of Education and Training (DET) on the basis that future editions of the handbook needed to be negotiated with the Federation.

There was a surreptitious attempt by the DET to launch a new version of the handbook a couple of years ago, without any reference to Federation. The union managed to have the draft that was being discussed at meetings across the state withdrawn, on the grounds that the contents were not only highly contentious but also had legal and industrial implications.

In mid 2004, DET and Federation met to discuss a new draft handbook (now called Policy and Associated Documents). Federation had grave concerns about its contents and conveyed these in writing to DET. The draft was extensively rewritten, and the process of consultation with Federation continued.

The significance of Federation's concerns about the mid 2004 draft should not be underestimated. They included:

• risk assessments/minimisation of host workplaces and whose responsibility this is
• emergency contact persons out of school hours, including during weekends and school holidays
• perceived attempts to shift responsibility for occupational health and safety (OH&S) issues from the DET to schools/principals/teachers and the consequent exploitation of teachers' fears of legal ramifications and goodwill
• duty of care
• confusion about responsibilities, including those of the host employer, the school/principal, the teacher, private registered training organisations when public school students are involved, TAFE, and local community partnerships including work placement coordinators
• failure of the draft to clearly establish the DET's overriding responsibilities
• workload.

Federation had not seen the current document until members rang to inform us. It is not the same as the last draft we were given months ago, and its contents are totally unacceptable.

During the consultations, Federation was successful in gaining improvements, particularly in relation to risk assessments of host workplaces, the development and implementation of risk minimisation strategies in the workplace, and a clear delineation of responsibilities relating to OH&S and other matters.

With regard to emergency contacts, the new policy is an improvement over the old one, but is still unacceptable.

For year 11 and 12 students, after representation from Federation, the draft policy dated January 28, 2005 required teachers only to be the contact during school hours. It is to be regretted that by early May, the DET had had a meeting with the Federation of P&C Associations of NSW, following which the wording was changed to "normal business hours".

In relation to years 9 and 10 students, the Federation opposed the proposition in the January draft that a member of the teaching staff must be the contact out of school hours, including evenings, weekends and holidays. Federation equally strongly opposed teachers being expected to be the contact during normal business hours, as they new policy says. Notwithstanding this opposition, Federation fears that parents/carers will misunderstand the current document. "Normal business hours" are not defined. During professional development activities, teachers have been told that parents will not be expecting teachers to be the contact before 8am or after 5pm.

The new document refers to work placements/experience during "regular weekday working hours", weekends if this is "an essential requirement of the industry" and prohibits 14 year old students' placements being outside the hours of 7am to 6pm.

It is certainly the fact that the normal business hours of many businesses are not between 8:30am and 5pm. Parents will make their own assumptions about the hours the teacher is available to deal with an emergency. These assumptions will often be incorrect.

There are some other specific concerns with the new documents, in particular with the Mandatory Student Placement Records, not the least of which is that parents are asked to make themselves available in the event of an emergency only during school hours. It is incomprehensible that they are not asked to do this during the whole time the student attends the workplace.

There is no provision for the parent/carer of a student in year 9 or 10 to agree to be, or to nominate, a contact person at a time when a teacher will not be available.

If this section remains as it is currently worded, parents/carers signing it will be under a serious misapprehension about their responsibilities and those of the school/college.

Notwithstanding what is said in section 1.4.8 of the document about the DET's vicarious liability, Federation advises members that they put themselves at considerable risk by volunteering to be the emergency contact out of school hours because they are essentially placing themselves on-call and agreeing to be available. In addition to the responsibilities associated with this, the additional workload is unacceptable.

Federation has written to the Director-General and is issuing advice to schools that:

1. Principals/nominees should not sign at the bottom of page 1 of the student placement record.
2.Teachers should not agree to be the contact out of school hours.
3. Teachers should only agree to be the contact during school hours if they will be in a position to receive a phone call and to act quickly in an emergency.
4. Teachers who are organisers of workplace learning activities should not sign at the bottom of page 3 of the student placement record.
5. Teachers should not undertake workplace visits or phone calls, either pre-placement or during the placement unless resources are available, such as the provision of time.
6. Teachers should not undertake risk assessments of host workplaces or sign off on risk minimisation strategies.

Wendy Currie is a Research Officer.