AEU Journal Vol. 40 No. 3 | May 2008

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Official publication of the Australian Education Union (SA Branch)

Vol 40 I No.3

May 2008

AEUJOURNAL SA

It’s Time! for a fair and decent offer for public education

AEU members slam government offer

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FPERAT E SUI D RE N ST’S VIEW

AEU JOURNAL

It’s Time! for a fair and decent offer for public education

Café 43 page 9 Penola High serves up a treat.

Australian Education Union | SA Branch Telephone: 8272 1399 Facsimile: 8373 1254 Email: journal@aeusa.asn.au Editor: Craig Greer Graphic Designer: Jo Frost AEU Journal is published seven times annually by the South Australian Branch of the Australian Education Union.

AEU Journal 2008 Dates Deadline Publication date #4 June 6 June 25 #5 July 25 August 13 #6 August 29 September 17 #7

AEU members slam government offer

Focus: EB2008

Privatisation

pages 12 – 13

page 18 – 19

What do our members think about the government’s EB offers?

Public education enemy number 1.

October 17

November 5

Subscriptions: Free for AEU members. Nonmembers may subscribe for $33 per year.

Print Post approved PP 531629/0025 ISSN 1440-2971 Printing: Finsbury Green Printing Cover Photo: Shutterstock Illustrations: Simon Kneebone Advertise in the AEU Journal. Reach over 13,500 members across South Australia.

8272 1399 journal@aeusa.asn.au

L E T T E R S TO T H E E D I TO R

TOP LETTER

*Winner of TOP LETTER!

Dear Minister Wright, I am still awaiting a reply from your office in regards to my email. Even the Premier at the least has an automated reply to all emails addressed to him.

My previous email asked why you hadn’t managed to present educators with a new and fair offer despite the fact that our current offer expired weeks before. Since then, an offer was presented. Was it fair? I think you know the answer to that. I’ll help: no, it wasn’t.

What was most embarrassing about the offer was the lack of planning involved. It’s as though your team knew that we would reject the 1st offer regardless and therefore made no attempt to even propose how the following issues would take shape. For example: • actual numbers of class sizes in this EB period • reducing workload • the role of the PAC; how ‘curriculum shortage’ areas can and will be identified • how PD and PM will operate I’ll tell you something Michael, as I write this, I worry that you'll have no idea what I’m

talking about. Do you know what the PAC is?

Do you know what PD and PM are? I wonder the same about your negotiation team. We know they have no background in education, they don't understand how schools or DECS operate – if they did know I wonder how much support to your ill-planned, unfair, unreasonable offer they would lend. As for the DECS staff at the negotiation, after they lost the chair, we didn’t hear another word from any of them.

Further indicating your team’s disgraceful lack of knowledge of the education industry was the complete disregard for HPIs (I hope you know who they are) such as Swimming & Aquatics instructors. Other than salary, not one part of the government offer addressed the conditions for them. We know how you and your government feels about Swimming & Aquatics, so I’m not surprised that they were conveniently forgotten. It seems, however, that parents do want Swimming & Aquatics taught in schools and parents, unlike children, can vote, so don’t forget that you have to listen to them.

The longer this negotiation goes on, the more parents will be informed that this EB is about the quality of education provided to this state's children. It is not about greedy teachers wanting a pay rise. This EB negotiation is not, as your team believe it to be,

purely an industrial matter. Teachers are used to working long hours for little to no appreciation. Despite the best efforts of politicians to blame teachers for poor education outcomes, voters know that the people responsible for large class sizes and diminishing resources are politicians. I Brett Ferris, Naracoorte High School

The AEU Journal welcomes all letters. Top letter each issue WINS two bottles of wine.

journal@aeusa.asn.au 3

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R E V I E W : A E U SS O CO N F E R E N CE 2 0 0 8

For copies of the new SSO booklet

SSO Conference a Hit! sometimes funny and sometimes sad, but always uplifting. The book brings together anecdotes from SSOs with a wide variety of roles and responsibilities from all around the state – a bit like our SSO Conference does!

SSOs – Can you eat paint?...contact Maria on: 8272

The annual AEU School Services Officers (SSO) Conference was held during the April school holidays and what an event it proved to be, with more than 140 SSOs in attendance!

The conference warmed up with a dinner held on Monday 14th at Café Mondiali. We were honoured to have Janet Giles, past AEU President and now Secretary of SA Unions, launch the book of SSO stories called Can You Eat Paint? This collection of stories is

1399 4

The Key Note Address at the Conference on Tuesday 15th was given by Dr Jane Bowen, Project Coordinator at Human Nutrition. Dr Bowen was one of the co-authors of the bestselling book CSIRO Total Well-being Diet and her address You are what you eat! Looking after Yourself, certainly gave the audience lots of practical information.

The jam-packed program consisted of a variety of workshops covering a diverse range of topics: everything from financial health, mental health, communicating with students with special needs to speaking confidently in public forums.

The SSOs had an opportunity to ‘balloon’

1 (far left) Mel Calone from the ASU. Groups of members enjoying dinner at Café Mondiali.

7 (left) Janet Giles reading from the newly published booklet SSOs – can you eat paint? campaign ideas to increase SSO participation in the AEU EB campaign. The conference finished with addresses from Chris Field and Mel Calone who have been involved in very successful campaigns for part-time and casualised workers in their unions.

This was possibly the best ever SSO Conference. Its reputation as a ‘must-attend’ event is reflected in the growing numbers of attendees each year. It is gratifying to see how many SSOs are keen to return each year and bring along new members from their worksite. The conference is an excellent way to encourage new SSOs to join the AEU, and is a tangible way of building stronger links between SSOs and the Union. Well done to all involved!

I Katrina Hanlin, Chairperson SSOCC

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AEU PRESIDENT’S VIEW

CE N T R E N E E D S W O M E N ’ S H E L P

Correna Haythorpe

www.2008eba.org

Salaries compared – 8 May 2008 78000 76000 74000 72000

Proposed changes to leadership classifications could mean that pre-school directors would be absorbed as an ‘Associate Principal’ simply because their site is geographically close to a primary school. To cap it off, our SSOs, AEWs and ECWs have been completely ignored. It’s just not good enough!

What about per capita funding? This new funding model targets small (and remote) schools, with up to a third destined to receive less than they do now under current arrangements. There is not a ‘no worse off guarantee’ in the offer. Even Geoff Spring and the Liberals promised that with P21. Schools whose staffing entitlements fall just over a staffing/ enrolment entitlement point have been targeted. The new model simply repeats the mistakes of the existing Resource Entitlement Statement, putting schools and staff under greater pressure.

The government proposes to ‘fix’ that problem by stripping out existing workload protections and common understandings about class size, class formation, subject choice, contact and leadership time. Our claim for work/life balance has simply not been addressed. So far, government negotiators have been very coy about releasing the all detail of their proposals, and for vey good reason – they are unsustainable.

There are two clear messages for us. One is from the WorkCover changes currently being debated. This government has forgotten that working people put them into power. They are prepared to cut costs by removing your rights and entitlements and they don’t care about the broader impact on students and communities.

The second message comes from our AEU colleagues in Victoria. Be prepared for a long and difficult struggle as early indications are that there will not be a quick and easy answer.

For members, we have a range of fact sheets, posters and stickers to be used to establish alliances and understandings with other unions, with parents, parliamentarians and the public. Please contact the AEU if you would like these sent to your worksite. On Saturday 31 May, Branch Council delegates will assess the EB situation and determine what political action may be necessary. AEU members will be advised of this action after Council.

70000 68000 66000 64000 SA Now NT

SA Tas Step 8

Qld

WA*

ACT

SA NSW Vic Claim

*Excludes WA offer of 18% - rejected

the Working Women’s Centre The Federal Government has made a decision not to renew the funding of the Working Women’s Centres around the country. The National Working Women’s Centres provide a vital service to the women in our community and need our support.

The AEU fully supports the work done by the WWC, particularly in SA. We urge our members to acknowledge the efforts of the WWC by sending letters of support, emails and faxes insisting that the Government reconsider this funding cut.

Letters should go to:

Julia Gillard Fax: (02) 6273 4115 or email: (see right)

Attention: Sarah Adams

Your support by attending rallies, in chasing up politicians and the media, in working with parents, remaining strong, active and informed will help us win this battle.

In solidarity!

5

Sarah.Adams@dpm.gov.au

For Info and updates see our EB Blog:

Waking up to the news that Victorian educators recently achieved salary justice after a long struggle was interesting to say the least. AEU members would be wondering how this might impact on our enterprise bargaining negotiations with the State Government. The graph shows how our salary (and the SA Government offer) stacks up against national trends.

On initial analysis, salaries in Victoria show gains of around 15%.

WA has already rejected an offer of 18% (not included in the graph) and their government wants to go to an election, thus an early and improved offer is expected. NT educators have taken industrial action twice and NSW (who already earn much more than SA) is about to start its negotiations.

Recently I was asked if salary negotiations around the country were like “sawing the legs off a chair one at a time.” The answer is yes and SA does not want to be the bottom inch that is always the last to be sawn off.

The SA State Government offer leaves us lagging behind our interstate colleagues. So much so, that the Independent Education Union has publicly declared its support for our case by encouraging its members to attend our rallies in a show of solidarity (as happened in March in Vic). Their next salary outcome will be benchmarked to the percentages achieved by the AEU. Some aspects of the SA Government offer are downright pernicious. Between a quarter and an eighth of TAFE employees will receive no increase at all for one and then two years.

0%!

And for schools, the devil in the detail of the government’s inept, insulting and inadequate offer included an arrangement for some secondary coordinators of small schools to get $3000 less than they do now.

HELP SAVE

email Sarah on:

‘It’s Time’ for action!

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I N T E R N AT I O N A L like any doting mother, was a little worried about her tender age and, like any Aussie in the UK, a little shocked at the greyness of the tiny, uneven concrete playground with no grassed or soft play areas. I was also slightly alarmed that even in supposedly secular schools there is mandatory Christian worship each day. But I consoled myself in the knowledge that it is a ‘good’ school.

Living, Learning and Loving in the UK One parent’s perspective of starting a child at school in the UK.

by Jean Cockram When I moved to the UK two and half years ago with my partner and three year-old daughter, I was more concerned about finding somewhere to live than finding a school. I had no idea when I walked across the tarmac at Heathrow that I would be applying for a school place before my jet lag had worn off.

At my Australian childcare centre, parents were advised to consider delaying the start of school until their children were 6 years old.

This, we were told, is quite common in many parts of Europe and may have educational advantages. It was something I was willing to think about. But in England, all children must start school in the academic year in which they have their 5th birthday, so they all start school at the age of 4, even if they are only 4 years and 1 day old. There is a centralised school admissions process administered by local councils. I had to submit my preferences quickly, before my daughter’s 4th birthday.

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I quickly became aware of a commonly perceived distinction between ‘good’ schools and ‘not-so-good’ schools, and the huge anxiety that engulfs parents as they wait for the letter informing them of the school at which their child has been offered a place.

Our choices were between three local schools, two of which are faith-based (Anglican and Catholic). As someone brought up in a secular education system it took me a while to realise that the faith-based schools are part of the public education system and, although their admission criteria give preference to children who attend church, this is indeed part of New Labour’s agenda of ‘choice’ for parents. I chose the ‘secular’ school, regarded locally as a very good school, and breathed a sigh of relief when I received the letter saying my daughter could have a place there.

I can still vividly remember her first day at school, the way her face shone as she climbed the fence and clung to the bars, so eager to get inside. She was only 4 and a half and I,

My daughter has now completed her Reception year and is half way through Year 1.

It is indeed a good school, with good, committed teachers who I have come to respect immensely. They provide many rich learning opportunities for the children. But my anxieties have deepened, and I have discovered that I am by no means alone amongst parents concerned about the type of education their children are receiving. My family values education highly, indeed we love learning!

But it seems wrong to me that at the age of 5 going on 6 – when many European children have not even started school – my daughter is subjected to mandatory literacy and numeracy hour each day, which she considers ‘hard and boring’. There is no room for play in the curriculum. She has to write down a ‘learning objective’ at the start of each lesson (a prospect that makes my adult heart sink).

She is being asked to learn the abstract concepts of grammar (time connectives, nouns, adjectives, verbs, and speech marks) while she can still barely spell. She is streamed into one of 5 or more ability groups for reading, literacy and numeracy. All the children in her class know exactly where their peers sit in this pecking order. The homework guidelines issued to parents at the start of each term say that I should be supervising her in 30-35 minutes of homework each day, plus unquantified ‘ongoing activities’, some of which I should devise myself.

My fears were realised recently when, on the first day of a new term, a little boy ran out of the classroom at home time and announced loudly and with some glee that my daughter had gone down a group for reading. I couldn’t believe it because her reading seemed to be progressing so well. My daughter was humiliated and refused to talk about it. The teacher later told me that it was based on an assessment conducted the previous term – a single read. She said that she had no choice in the matter and had been instructed to change the children’s groups based on this assessment because if Ofsted (the government’s school inspection body) came in and found that they hadn’t, it could affect the school’s report. What room is there to consider a child’s feelings in such a regime? It turned out that my daughter had been unwell on the day of the assessment and when reassessed at my request she was duly moved back into her original group. But the three weeks this took left their mark on her – she now tells me each morning that she feels sick in her tummy, or her head or her big toe.

The same thing happened to another little girl in the class, an adopted child who has a deep need for affirmation, only she wasn’t

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A E U I N F O R M AT I O N U N I T returned to her original group and she too is still feeling very sad about it.

At the UK National Association of Headteachers annual conference last month, Children’s Minister, Beverly Hughes, was jeered by headteachers over the issue of league tables and constant testing of primary children. The headteachers don’t like it any more than I do. The minister’s response? Parents want to know how schools perform in league tables.

Not this parent! Not if the cost is truly child-centred education that will foster a lifelong love of learning.

I Jean Cockram was born and raised in Adelaide and now lives in Birmingham, England with her daughter Rosa and partner Alex.

7 AEU Legal and Information Officer Anne Walker answers your questions.

Q

I completed my four years of study plus one further year of Honours.

Does this extra year of study effect my salary increments?

A

If your Honours year was connected to your teaching field you will be placed on the next incremental salary step. If you have an Honours degree and believe that you are entitled to go to the next salary increment you should contact John Wheatland (DECS Classifications Officer) email: john.wheatland@saugov.sa.gov.au

The Information Unit receives many calls from members enquiring about the difference between Performance Management meetings and Intensive Performance Support. The following information comes from DECS policy and procedures on managing underperformance.

All DECS employees are entitled to an ongoing process of performance management that “benefits individuals and teams and enables employees to be effective and efficient in their work. Meetings should be regular, collaborative and supportive. The performance management process aims to: • Motivate and empower people to perform their work roles in an efficient and competent manner • Clarify work expectations and provide support to meet outcomes that have been negotiated and agreed within the context of the goals of the work unit and organisation • Provide access to appropriate information and opportunities for knowledge and skill development aligned to the current and future role of each employee • Establish processes that actively and effectively support the ongoing personal

and professional development of each employee in line with their career aspiration • Recognise and value each employee’s effort and achievement in contributing to the goals of the organisation • Provide balanced and objective feedback about performance with a focus on problem solving and continuous improvement If during the course of regular performance management meetings where a pattern of performance concerns have been identified and not adequately addressed, it may be decided that the employee engages in Intensive Performance Support. The aim is to provide more intensive support to the employee in order that performance concerns are addressed and resolved at the workplace as quickly and positively as possible to ensue that ‘an effective level of performance is resumed’. This process would involve: • the performance concerns being clearly identified • exploring the possible causes for the underperformance • negotiation of an action plan (usually between the Principal or alternative Line Manager and the employee) • weekly support meetings and monitoring If the Intensive Performance Support fails to adequately address the performance concerns, a Formal Underperformance process may then commence after discussion with the DECS Performance Management Consultant.

I hope this helps clarify the difference between Performance Management and Intensive Performance Support. Further detailed information can be accessed from the DECS Website or from the AEU Information Unit.

I

For all your questions contact the

AEU Information Unit Monday to Friday 10:30am - 5pm

8272 1399

Woodcroft PS in Guinness World Record Attempt On Friday the 9th of May at precisely 11am 247 Woodcroft Primary School students were part of an Australia-wide attempt to have the most number of children skipping simultaneously for 3 minutes. Our jump rope demonstration team went down to ETSA Park to join hundreds of other jump teams attempting to break the world record. Amanda Rishworth, Federal MP for Kingston, Leon Bignell, State MP for Mawson, Murray Stinson from Noarlunga East Rotary Club and Geoff Rogers, retired principal, all witnessed the event.

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www.decs.sa.gov.au

I have, of course, thought about opting out of the forced march by not doing the prescribed homework. But then my daughter would be faced with more demotions and more loss of self-esteem. The other middle class families in the local area are all doing the homework with their children. Some of them are entering their children into tutoring from Year 3 onwards in order to gain entrance to the elite secondary schools in the public sector known as grammar schools. Others take it even more seriously and have their children tutored to gain access to A-set Maths or English at junior primary school.

Competition between schools is being transferred to children. It seems the world has gone mad. No wonder British children have been dubbed the ‘unhappiest in Europe’ in a recent survey, and a new report by Oxbridge academics has concluded they are being ‘tested to destruction’.

Questions from the Workplace Further detailed information can be accessed from the DECS website @:

So why are children treated like this in good schools? I can only conclude that it is because the government has introduced national tests at the end of Year 2 and Year 6, and schools are placed into league tables based on the results of these tests. My daughter’s school is high in the league tables and presumably wants to stay there.

So while I think she should be allowed to exploit her natural childish love of learning and enjoy her primary education, she has actually entered a learning factory designed to squeeze the love of learning out of her.

Most of the children in my daughter’s class have already achieved results above the national average for Year 1 but still they are pushed forward in search of ever higher numbers to progress in league tables. When I attend teacher-parent evenings, I’m not told about her progress in terms I can understand but only that she has achieved a 1A or a 2C on some continuum that means nothing to me. I’m dreading Year 2 when I suspect the whole year’s teaching will be geared towards producing the desired results in the national tests. I’ve heard that, where they have such assessments in Europe, they occur at the start of the academic year, precisely to avoid this sort of excessive focus.

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E C W I SS U E S

W O R KCOV E R

Early Childhood Leadership

Rann’s WorkCover cuts: AEU members speak out

In summary, the survey results of over 1,400 members that responded were: • Over 80% of AEU members either agree or strongly agree with the statement that “My workplace is potentially a source of physical and/or psychological hazards.”

• Over 60% of AEU members have suffered a work related injury or illness.

• Over a third of AEU members have made a workers compensation claim.

• Over 85% of AEU members know someone in the education sector who has suffered a work related injury/illness or made a workers compensation claim • Over 90% of AEU members either agree or strongly agree with the statement, “I am concerned about being able to support myself and/or my family if I was injured for longer than 13 weeks and had my income reduced to 80%.”

• Over 90% of AEU members either agree or strongly agree with the statement, “I am concerned that if my injury lasted for more than 130 weeks that I may have no entitlement to any compensation for lost income.”

• Over 90% of AEU members either agree or strongly agree with the statement,“I am concerned about cutting injured workers’ entitlements to reduce the average WorkCover levy paid by employers.”

• Just under 50% of AEU members believe that the current system is “about right” while over 25% answered “don’t know”.

Over 15% indicated that they thought the current system was not generous enough.

Only 5% thought the current system was too generous.

Despite unanimous opposition from the union movement and a campaign led by SA Unions, the Rann Government (with the support of the Liberal opposition) is intent on rushing the changes to SA’s workers compensation laws through the parliament.

The changes mean that injured workers will have: • their income maintenance cut to 90% after 13 weeks and 80% after 26 weeks (for many AEU members this will mean they will be over $8,500 worse off in the first year of injury)

• no entitlement to payment for permanent disability unless they meet threshold level of disability • their compensation stopped if they lodge a dispute • no entitlement to income maintenance after 130 weeks unless they can prove they will be totally and permanently unfit for any paid work Over 6 years, injured workers in SA will lose $1.2 billion in payments because of the cuts, and employers will receive a windfall of up to $860 million through reduced levy rates. None of the changes will improve the management of the Workcover Corporation or improve genuine return to work and effective rehabilitation in SA. Now that employers will have low levy rates and many injured workers will have no entitlement to income maintenance after 130 weeks, there will be no incentive for WorkCover to pay for rehabilitation or retraining and no incentive for employers to provide suitable duties.

Workers in all other states other than South Australia have the right to sue for damages if they suffer a work related injury because of the serious negligence of their employer. South Australia will have a second rate compensation scheme and South Australian workers will be like second-class citizens with no right to access common law courts to get justice.

It is a sad day for South Australians when governments, whether Liberal or Labor, put business profits before the welfare of injured workers.

I

Ed Grue AEU WorkCover Officer

ACTION

If you are concerned that Rann is slashing injured workers entitlements to cut costs for employers then we urge you to write directly to the Premier at:

Hon M D Rann Premier GPO Box 2343 Adelaide SA 5001 Don’t forget to send your local Member of Parliament a copy of your letter. Contact details on website (right).

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www.parliament.sa.gov.au/members

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In April the AEU conducted a member survey on the Rann Government’s plan to slash entitlements for injured workers.

To contact Members of Parliament go to:

One of the key components of the government’s offer to the AEU for a new Enterprise Agreement is a revised leadership classification structure for school principals and preschool directors. The proposal outlines a translation of existing principal and preschool director levels to a new two-band structure of leadership. Band A will include existing principals and directors while Band B will incorporate deputy principals, assistant principals and directors into a new classification titled Associate Principal.

The major implication for preschool directors is the potential loss of an identified leadership position in current or newly established integrated sites. With Education Works – stages 1 and 2 – presenting the new concept of education provision and associated leadership structures, it is easy to foresee how preschool director positions have the potential to be subsumed within a school dominated arrangement. This will be particularly evident in cases where preschools relocate onto a new campus where the school is the identified dominant partner.

What is at risk in the offer as it relates to a new leadership classification structure is the loss of early years leadership; specifically the removal of discrete preschool leadership positions and more significantly, early years leadership becoming accountable to school leadership.

Currently, preschool directors, whether they work in stand-alone kindergartens or preschools integrated with school sites, are autonomous leaders with responsibility for centre curriculum and budget implementation, areas that directly affect centre programs and outcomes for children. Preschool directors, like principals, are responsible to district directors. Should arrangements be put in place for new local leadership structures, directors, or principals as they could become, may find themselves directly accountable to the local campus principal.

At stake here is the future of early years leadership. The AEU believes that this level of expertise should remain accountable to DECS in its own right. In recent years we have seen the erosion of discrete junior primary leadership within the schooling sector. Members should not sit idly by and allow the further diminution of early years leadership.

Preschool members, it is time to stand up for the preservation of early years leadership. We must maintain the integrity of early years expertise and provide teacher members with an identified early years career path for specialised leadership.

I Howard Spreadbury AEU Lead Organiser

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S O U T H - E A ST F O C U S

Public Education serves the community at Café 43

1 AEU members Dee Hutchinson and Louise Johnson (above from left). Penola High students working at Café 43 (above).

Tourist town gets a boost from local high school VET program.

John Riddoch Rymill was born in Penola in 1905, studied navigation in Melbourne and became one of Australia’s most distinguished Antarctic explorers. He eventually settled back down in Penola where he and his wife found innovative ways to farm Corriedale sheep and Angus cattle. Later, his family established the highly successful Rymill Winery.

These well known Australians all have historical links with the town’s main industries – tourism, agriculture and viticulture. The tourist trade in Penola has grown in unison with the development of the Coonawarra wine region

The Café 43 project is the brainchild of Principal, Lorraine Young and Advanced Skills Teacher, Dee Hutchinson and is part of the VET in Schools program run by TAFE SA. Year eleven and twelve students who chose to enrol in the VET hospitality course at the school will eventually come away with a Certificate I in Hospitality (Kitchen Operations) and a great deal of practical experience.

There were many challenges in getting the Café up and running says Dee, “Obviously we didn’t have a bucket of money to plough into the project so we sought help from the local community. We are very grateful for the support we receive from local businesses.

They recognise that we’re not in competition with them and that the course may well provide them with future staff.”

Café 43 seats 28 patrons and opens it’s doors once a week. The students prepare and serve gourmet food and great coffee to students, staff and the general public but it takes little trade away from local businesses.

“We were careful not to go into competition with local businesses or to be seen as profiting from ‘child labour.’ The emphasis here is on the training, which gives students a range of industry relevant skills whilst building their self-esteem,” says Dee.

9

www.2008eba.org

Adam Lindsay Gordon visited Penola regularly, as oddly enough, the small town boasted the largest library outside of Adelaide.

Far from tucking himself away in some nook with a book, Gordon spent much of his time on horseback – at one time he served the township as a mounted policeman. Such a vantage point among the lush green foliage and sweeping plains of the region must have been the source of great inspiration for the seminal poet.

and small businesses rely heavily on recruiting and retaining quality local staff.

Keeping young local kids in a small town is no easy task these days, however, pubs and cafés in the Penola region have benefitted from an innovative program at the local high school which sees year 11 and 12 students run the commercially equipped Café 43.

Watch the students in action at:

Australia’s first Saint, Sister Mary MacKillop, revered poet Adam Lindsay Gordon and Antarctic explorer John Rymill are all well-known names associated with the picturesque South-East wine-region town of Penola. MacKillop was invited there by the town’s Scottish founder, Alexander Cameron, to act as ‘governess’ to his children, and went on to establish a concept of egalitarian education which ensured children access to schooling, regardless of their family's income or their social class – an ideal many ‘independent’ schools have long since forgotten.

Crucial to the project has been the hard work of Louise Johnson, Manager of Focus on Youth, a federally funded community partnerships organisation. Focus on Youth supports the project with funding and skills expertise.

“I’ve worked with Lorraine and Dee to help them prepare submissions for funding and connecting them with industry.” It’s been a long road but the results are plain to see.

“It’s a great example of a public school project which is helping to skill young people for the workplace or further study at TAFE,” says Louise.

Two Penola High students have been recognised at VET’s Awards for Excellence and the school is planning on entering more students in this year’s awards. “Our students really enjoy working in the Café. They get some hands-on experience that relates directly to the work they’re doing in the classroom, so it’s a very well rounded educational experience that brings great results,” says Dee. The VET Hospitality Certificate at Penola High isn’t intensive; it runs over the course of the year and the students have time to slowly build their skills and confidence. “In saying it’s not intensive, the students are certainly under pressure when working in the café, which is an important part of learning what it’s like out there in industry. Thanks to this experience, the students who have been through this course are not having any difficulty in transferring to the workplace,” says Louise.

Public schools are often criticised for not providing students with the kinds of skills they’ll need when entering the ‘job market’.

Ignorance plays a large role in such criticisms.

Many of our public schools are involved in initiatives similar to that at Penola High, but I bet few make such a good coffee! Saints and scholars aside, Café 43 is yet another reason to visit lovely Penola town.

I

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W O M E N ’ S O F F I CE R S R E PO RT

Ever experienced a Whirlwind?

Newly appointed AEU Women’s Officer, Tish Champion writes about her new role.

I am the fish out of water!! I didn’t just get off the bus; I think I may have been hit by the bus.

While teaching has evolved into a very demanding and onerous career, it has felt safe and secure for me. I began teaching when I was almost 20 and it had become like second nature. When you do something for long enough you almost seem to be able to do it on autopilot. Yes, the role has definitely grown and increased in terms of expectations, demands and workload but I had grown with it without even realising.

However, after teaching for 21 years with the Department I realised that I was ready to move on to another challenge. Having experienced throughout my teaching career, many of the barriers that face women, (sexual harassment, discrimination, part-time issues and the demands of life and work balance) I felt that I definitely had something to offer to the role of Women’s Officer. I am very excited to be working for an organisation which I have been a member of for 21 years and whom I know works tirelessly for the rights of its members.

On Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th of May, I was fortunate to be involved in the AEU Women’s Contact Officer Training. It was an

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I am looking forward to meeting AEU women during my travels and via the workshops and conferences provided by the union.

Our annual Women’s Conference will be held in Week 8, June 20th and 21st. The theme for the conference is ‘Inspiring Women’. Keynote speaker, author Jane Caro has just published The F word: How we learnt to swear by feminism. There will also be a variety of interesting and relevant workshops over the two days. Please refer to the conference ad (below) for details.

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* U PCO M I N G

EVENT

AEU Women’s Conference

‘08

Friday, 20 June & Saturday, 21 June

9.15am – 4.00pm

‘Inspiring Women’

Keynote Speaker: Jane Caro For further info: Tish Champion P: 8272 1399 E: tchampion@aeusa.asn.au

www.aeusa.asn.au/events

My teaching career reads like an atlas and has given me some amazing experiences. I have taught in London, Cook AS, Amata Magill JP, Fregon Anangu School, Risdon PS Ernabella Education Office, Japan and Henley Beach PS.

excellent chance to meet with Women’s Contact Officers from various sub-branches (see photo page 12). This two-day course is for new Women’s Contact Officers to assist them in their role at the sub-branch level.

The training was very informative and creative thanks to the efforts of Lynn Hall, AEU Training & Development Officer.

To register for the Women’s Conference go to:

Have you ever experienced a whirlwind?

Stepped off a bus and not known where you are? Felt like a fish out of water? Experienced sensory and information overload at an alarming speed? Hi, my name is Tish Champion and I am the new Women’s Officer for the AEU. Last term I was teaching at Henley Beach Primary School; focusing on the students in my class and the myriad of demands which relate to the day to day teaching and managing of a class of 6 and 7 year olds. This week I am attending EB negotiations, commission hearings and conferences. I am reading copious amounts of information relating to women within the Union, absorbing as much as I can about current issues which affect women in education and organising the up and coming Women’s Conference to be held in June.

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E N T E R P R I S E BA R G A I N I N G 2 0 0 8

Government EB Offer Bulk of AEU claim ignored!

An EB offer was made to DECS school and preschool employees on 16 April 2008.

Although very unsatisfactory for schooling sector employees the offer is arguably much worse for preschool employees. The offer purports to cover schools and preschools but is almost exclusively about schools. For schools and preschools alike, the bulk of the AEU Claim was ignored. Branch Executive rejected the offer on 28 April 2008. An offer to TAFE employees made on 3 April was also rejected.

Salary Increases The rejected offer proposed a salary increase to employees in the school and preschool sectors of 3.25% per annum; payable on or after 1 October 2008, 1 October 2009 and 1 October 2010. This offer is significantly less than the 21% claimed by the AEU. Similar or higher offers have already been rejected by Victorian, Western Australian and Northern Territory educators. The government offer places South Australian teachers as the lowest paid in the nation. The offer does not give South Australian Educators wage parity with teachers in NSW, Victoria or the ACT. The offer for TAFE proposed the introduction of a new Lecturer/Lecturer Assistant Classification Structure, with variable salary increases from 0% to 15.1% from 1 October 2008, 0% to 3.25% from 1 October 2009 and 3.25% from 1 October 2010. The higher percentage salary increases restricted to classifications with no, or limited numbers of employees. Educational Managers were to receive three increases of 3.25%.

With South Australian inflation running at 4.5% and food, housing and fuels costs increasing at even higher rates the government offer represents a decrease in real term salaries and a loss of purchasing power.

Work-Life Balance The offer provides for two weeks additional paid maternity and adoption leave (14 weeks paid leave) with provision for return to work on a part-time basis (28 weeks at half pay) but only until the child’s second birthday.

TAFE employees were also offered paid maternity leave of 14 weeks. Specific requirements for adoption leave have not been addressed. There are no improvements to Special Leave provisions.

Funding Model that strips away Student and Staff Rights The proposed school funding model has no educational basis and DECS officers have openly stated that it does not take into consideration class size, curriculum guarantee, educational provision or face to

For EB Info and Updates go to:

face teaching. Staffing guarantees won by AEU members in the 2000 s.170MX Arbitration would not form part of the proposed Enterprise Agreement. This has the potential to increase class size, reduce student/ children’s educational opportunities and increase teacher workload.

The DECS funding model is cost neutral and no additional funds have been provided.

Previous modeling and the P21 experience tells us that this means there will be winners and losers. DECS will not provide guarantees as to resourcing for small schools or area schools.

Student Centred Resource Funding Model is for schools not preschools and will replace Appendix A of the current Agreement which currently includes staffing for preschools. That is, preschool staffing will no longer be protected by the industrial instrument won by AEU members in the 2000 s.170MX Arbitration.

Workload Protections For the schooling sector, the offer proposes to remove reference to the Staffing Allocation Document, which would result in the loss of current workload protections. In its place the Offer proposes a limit of face to face teaching time, ‘on average’, across the school year of 24 hours and 8 minutes for primary and 22 hours and 25 minutes for secondary teachers per week. If the Staffing Allocation Document and FIR are considered this would see an increase in workload for teachers and is less than the Commission was willing to define in the s.170MX arbitration.

The lack of protection and arrogant dismissal of educators concerns shows the Government is not serious about addressing workload and has limited concern for staff wellbeing.

The Workload Protection Arrangements only apply to teachers employed in the schooling sector. Preschool directors, teachers and ECWs have not been considered because according to the Government negotiators preschool employees have hours of engagement and can regulate their own workload by working to those hours.

Preschool Leadership Classification Structure and Translation Preschool directors’ current 3 level classification structure will translate across to 2 levels in the proposed eight level Leadership Classification Structure.

Preschool leaders will be classified as Associate Principals unless they are based in stand alone kindergartens and co-located sites where the title Principal will be applied.

www.aeusa.asn.au

The current classification criteria for preschool leaders may not apply under the new structure. The new leadership structure totally devalues the expertise and experience of preschool directors and has very serious implications for career pathways in the preschool sector.

Attraction and Retention Current country incentive payments will be frozen and over time reduce in real terms.

Country to metropolitan transfers will be reduced through “efficiency measures” through the Priority Placement Pool (PPP). A potentially divisive and undefined individual attraction and retention allowance will be paid to positions identified by DECS in metropolitan and country locations.

The offer proposes to introduce provisions that will be used in limited circumstances for a targeted approach to the payment of attraction and retention allowances in identified areas of curriculum shortage and difficult to staff locations however detail is scant as to how this will occur and whether or not this applies to preschools.

More insults to TAFE Sector 18-24 contact hours would become a “safety net” only, with workgroups having responsibility to determine performance targets through a “consultative” process between educational managers and work team members. The span of hours/time loading is gone! There is the redefinition of “ordinary hours” to 7am – 10pm, Monday to Sunday. There is the removal of the entitlement to a 50% loading for classes between 6pm - 10pm and reduction of the loading for classes taught between 10pm – 7am to 50%.

Many other matters in the AEU claim have not been addressed and whole groups of employees have been largely ignored. The AEU Log of Claims for a new Agreement 2008 is a detailed document that addresses the concerns of South Australian Educators.

Both of these document are available on the AEU website (see below).

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Public Education Awards Postponed Due to unforseen circumstances the AEU has been forced to postpone our awards night until term three. The good news is that members now have more time to nominate their colleagues for an award to recognise their outstanding contribution to public education. Dates for the closure of nominations and the Public Education Awards Dinner will be announced soon. Stay tuned!

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F O C U S | E N T E R P R I S E BA R G A I N I N G 2 0 0 8

Philippa Liddy Fremont Elizabeth City High School Contract Teacher The State Government offer devalues the professionalism of teachers. We are now the lowest paid in the country! There are a lot of things that need to be considered in a better offer from the government: class sizes need to come down, professional development needs to be increased, and teachers need more planning time in order to provide the best possible education for our students. I

Marie McClenaghan TAFE SA South Coordinator English Language Services

1 Women Contact Officers attending the recent 2-day training from left: (back row) Reta Coffey, Joelene Anderson, Marie McClenaghan, Sylvia Trevan, Jennie-Marie Gorman, Denise Wiedenhofer. (middle row) Debbie Pagsanjan, Philippa Liddy, Janet Elliott, Tish Champion (Women’s Officer). (front row) Diedre Le Maistre, Susan Thompson, Lyndal Govey.

Check out the EB blog for news and updates at:

Members irate at government offer Women at the recent AEU Women’s Contact Officer training (above) comment on the government offers.

Deidre Le Maistre Junior Special Class Teacher Aberfoyle Hub School

www.2008eba.org

High cost of living is making it harder for everyone in the community. If we want to attract and retain quality teachers in South Australia, the government needs to show us that we are valued. Better working conditions would enable me to regain some work and life balance. The complexity of the students we teach places additional pressure on the teacher and SSO. I

Debbie Pagsanjan Statewide PRT R–12 Thanks to the AEU in Victoria, everyone knows that 3.25 percent is not fair! Our Labor government needs to support and encourage current and prospective teachers with a salary package which values teachers and ensures their retention.

Ask any parent and they will tell you that they would prefer the child to be in a smaller class. Children can be so much more success-

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ful if they are given closer attention. A curriculum which services the individual needs of students needs to be implemented, along with more support hours to ensure teachers can spend time one-on-one with students. I

Sue Thompson Hallett Cove East Primary R–7 Teacher/Librarian The less-than-CPI increase offered to educators is an insult. It doesn’t recognise the professional nature of teaching or the important role we have in educating young people. The government needs to reduce class sizes to enable teachers to spend more time with individual students and to provide them with the skills they need later in life. If your working conditions were improved it would show that there is some acknowledgement of the very hard work we do.

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Denise Wiedenhofer Para Hills West Primary R–1 Teacher The offer from the government isn’t good.

It devalues the role of teachers, SSOs and educators in general. There are many things missing from the offer and the less-than-CPI increase will negatively affect our lifestyle.

The offer needs to consider a range of things including a reduction in class sizes. This will enable children to feel safe and valued and it will help to engage them in successful learning programmes. Classes with thirty students are just ridiculous and do not allow for individual attention for students.

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I think the offer from the government devalues and diminishes our professionalism.

How does this state expect to attract and retain educators when it treats them with contempt? Our conditions need improving.

This will allow greater work/life balance and will help us to feel supported. I’m sure that my energy and creativity will increase if our incredibly high workload is reduced.

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More comments from members on EB offers.

Gail Kershaw Adelaide TAFE Advanced Skills Lecturer Accounting I’m an ASL1 lecturer and am in the pension scheme.

Ther real value of my retirement income is going to be destroyed if this EB Agreement goes through – I get a percentage of my final income as my pension. I’m also concerned that it’s a precursor to a draconian style of industrial relations. We’ve just elected a Federal Government on the basis of throwing out WorkChoices and here in South Australia we have a state Labor government that is basically administering a WorkChoices style system.

Di Cocks Lecturer - Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy AEU TAFE SA Women’s Officer The poor offer has a distinct effect on morale across TAFE SA. Most people here feel that it’s a complete slap in the face and naturally those here who have been long serving – ASL1s for example – feel that they’ve been totally shunned. New lecturers feel that TAFE isn’t offering a good career path. ASL1 will no longer be something for new lecturers to aspire to. Ninety-eight percent of people in my area are women and are grossly underpaid compared to men in the trades. Many women who have entered the teaching field are feeling that all the effort

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F O C U S | E N T E R P R I S E BA R G A I N I N G 2 0 0 8

Bill Spragg Adelaide TAFE Advanced Skills Lecturer

Reena Cavouras Victor Harbour High School Advanced Skills Teacher 2 International Education I think the offer is tokenism. One teacher came to me the other day and said why don’t we accept it?

I replied by asking “why should we accept nine percent, which is below CPI and would leave us at the bottom of the heap?”

More and more we are expected to be counsellors for students and to give support that is quite separate to teaching. Our workload is increasing all the time. Society has changed a lot but the Department isn’t coming out to the schools to see what’s going on. We’ve had a flood of enrolments but we don’t have the teachers to deal with it. Class sizes here and in some of the local primary schools are quite ridiculous.

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Stephen English

Teacher Brighton Secondary School

Banksia Park International High School Coordinator

The pay offer from the government falls well short.

I’m also concerned about the number of contact hours.

In NSW they have twenty hours face-to-face teaching time specified and ours are going to be over twenty-two. I’m concerned that we’ll see people teaching six lines in one semester. I’ve seen teachers keel over under this kind of workload. Anything that chips away at these conditions is dangerous.

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The union leadership has reflected the views of our members. We’re very disappointed but not surprised at the poor offer.

I think we’ve been dudded over the last few agreements. We need to rally to reduce our workload and to get a reasonable and fair pay offer from the government. If we need to go on strike I think the members will, but it should be the last resort. It’s important that the parents understand what teachers do and we need to make sure we get the message across to the public. I’ve got a bag full of marking sitting here for the weekend – this is quite typical. Our workload is such that it impacts on our lives and we feel that we need to be recognised for this.

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Heather Adams Karrendi Teacher My workload has increased because I’ve been taking on more and more. As a beginning teacher you struggle through, but now I need some sort of balance after taking on quite a lot of extra responsibility. If I am to stay in this job while trying to have a family, the pace will need to drop off. I can’t keep going at this rate. I try to keep my work demands student-centred so I spend a lot of time planning and assessing students’ work.

All of this takes up most of my week and some of the weekend.

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Joe Rosmini Unley High School Year Level Manager Children often laugh when you suggest they should look at teaching as a career. This is quite embarrassing in itself. I’m assigned four lessons to carry out my work as a Year Level Manager, this time is completely taken up with that job so I basically have to do all my marking outside of school hours. I’ve got a family with two young children and it eats into my own time. This is just one example of the amount of goodwill the government manages to extract out of teachers.

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Richard Whaites Unley High School Coordinator I don’t like the way our CEO and our Minister don’t get in there and fight for us. They should be trying to improve our salaries, not toeing the government line.

Class sizes and working conditions are big issues, capping class sizes will deal with behaviour management issues and the outcomes are better everyone, teachers and students. It’s a complex society with complex issues so reducing class sizes is central to good learning outcomes.

I enjoy teaching so I stay in the job, but how do you encourage a student to become a teacher when they can go into mining and earn significantly more money.

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www.2008eba.org

As an ASL1 I’m absolutely disgusted with the offer.

To get a zero percent increase in the first round and end up with a one percent increase over three years is totally unacceptable.

It totally devalues my role at TAFE. Having been here for around twenty-five years, I’ve worked very hard in my role and it seems someone is sitting in an office making decisions without any understanding of what we do here. They seem to be painting everyone with a brush that says we don’t work hard enough.

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Frank Fisher

Check out the EB blog for news and updates at:

they put into professional development is just being overlooked. We spend time on our weekends at expo’s and other events, so there’s a lot of commitment from TAFE staff which seemingly is not being recognised. I

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E N T E R P R I S E BA R G A I N I N G 2 0 0 8

Country Issues The Government’s EB offer has failed to address key concerns of country educators, as outlined in the AEU Log of Claims.

Permanency (AEU Claim 2.5) To improve the attraction and retention of country employees, the AEU has asked for permanency targets. The Government offer has no mention of permanency and DECS officers have blocked negotiations on this matter. We continue to remind the government of their policy on permanent and stable employment.

Relief Teachers (AEU Claim 2.12) A recent survey of schools identified that 61% of sites cannot source TRTs on a regular basis. The AEU claim is to provide incentives to reward TRTs who work in country and hard- to-staff schools. It is disappointing that the government offer does not include incentives for TRTs, particularly when they have reduced PRT access.

The AEU has lodged an application in the Industrial Relations Commission of South Australia to increase the following: • Motor Vehicle – Allowance in Respect of Abnormal Depreciation • Allowance by way of Compensation for Increased Cost of Living Arising from Country Service • Aspects of isolation components of the locality allowances Our submission is that these allowances are to be adjusted in line with the March to March CPI for Adelaide, which came in at 4.5%. The operative date for the increase will be 1 July 2008.

The following is the new rates for inclusion in the Teachers (DECS) Award; the same rates apply for the TAFE (Educational Staff ) Interim Award however the clause numbers will be different.

Motor Vehicle - Allowance in Respect of Abnormal Depreciation (1) In respect of schools other than Yalata, listed in groups 1, 2, 3 and 4 of clause 1 of this Schedule - $3341 per annum (2) In respect of schools listed in Groups 5 and 6 of clause 1, together with Yalata $1400 per annum

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Award Improvements (AEU Claim 2.15.1 and 2.15.2)

The AEU’s claim was to improve travel and accommodation allowances and access to Government vehicles. This was in response to member concerns that allowances did not meet higher costs for country travel, and that few had access to Government vehicles. Again, the offer does not address our concerns.

We are seeking improvements to award conditions such as travel and accommodation expenses; medical and dental treatment and locality allowances. In particular, we are seeking to extend benefits to SSOs, AEWs and ECWs. The allowances paid to teachers working in Yalata, Kangaroo Island and Whyalla also need to be improved. No mention of award improvements are made in the Government offer.

Country Incentives (AEU Claim 2.14.1)

Teacher Selection and Placement (AEU Claim 2.16)

If schools and preschools are to attract and retain quality staff then we need improvements in the current country incentives. The claim seeks increases in quantum, extending the payment for ten years, and the categories

The AEU claim for country teachers is to improve access to the Priority Placement Pool, country-to-country transfers and a better deal for country PATs. Under the Government offer ‘efficiency measures’ will reduce country teachers transfer rights.

Work-Related Travel (AEU Claim 1.5 and 2.15.3)

Professional Development (AEU Claim 3.1)

Locality Allowances to be Increased Dan Farmer, AEU Industrial Officer

of employees who can access it.

The Government offer freezes country incentive payments and reduces them in real terms. It proposes a potentially divisive and undefined individual attraction and retention allowance to be paid to positions identified

by DECS in metropolitan and country locations.

Allowance by way of Compensation for Increased Cost of Living arising from Country Service and some Aspects of Isolation Teacher without Teacher Cohabiting a spouse with a dependent per annum spouse per annum

Group 1

$ 863

$ 1742

Group 2

$ 699

$ 1395

Group 3

$ 514

$ 1023

Group 4

$ 469

$ 910

In addition to the allowances provided above, teachers who have dependent children and who are appointed to schools according to the groups specified in this sub clause shall be paid an allowance or allowances as prescribed below.

A dependent child means any child of whom the teacher is a parent (whether resident with such teacher or not) and who is wholly or substantially maintained by such teacher and either is under the age of 16 or is a full-time student under the age of 25 years.

I Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 $pa $pa $pa $pa For the 1st dependent child 514

417

351

278

For the 2nd and each subsequent dependent child 351

278

215

186

Country members want increased access to high quality professional development and for this to be fully funded for those in regional areas. The Government offer fails to address professional development concerns.

Staffing (AEU Claim 4.16) The AEU is looking to implement an improved staffing allocation mechanism that guarantees country students access to broad curriculum, face-to-face teaching and small class sizes. We don’t want a model that attacks funding to area and small schools. The Rann Government needs to recognise that the cost of education provision in country areas is higher than the metropolitan area and fund it accordingly.

Country educators face many challenges due to isolation, staff availability and a lack of resources. The AEU’s claim sets out to address these issues and we expect the Government to take each and every one seriously. In their offer and during negotiations that have taken place so far, the Government has failed to adequately address these aspects of our Claim. This is simply not good enough and is insulting to our hard working country educators.

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ACTION • Organise to hand out EB2008 brochures in your local community • Talk to non-AEU members in your site about the Government offer and ask them to consider joining the union • Advertise AEU rallies and EB meetings in your school community

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O P I N I O N – TA F E

The ‘Skills Shortage’ – The Real Agenda Executive member Donald Peter expresses opinions on TAFE issues.

Business continues to mouth the mantra of ‘skills shortage’ ad nauseam. In its day, the Howard Government’s solution to the incessant demands from those interests was to spend $550 million creating Australian Technical Colleges, which simply duplicated the existing TAFE system.

“There are enough people out there to recruit and train and bring through the system.”

The Howard Government also progressively reduced TAFE funding by 26 percent since 1997, which resulted in 300,000 Australians being denied a TAFE place since 1998 and contributed massively to the ‘skills shortage’.

This is not an isolated view. A Dusseldorf Skills Reform study found that 23 percent of young adults were not in full-time learning or work. So what is the Rudd Government doing to get this 23 percent of Australia’s young people into full time training and fulltime work? Investing in TAFE to provide training places for these young people?

Acting on his commitment to ‘the market’, i.e. private provision of what historically have been public services (like education), Howard pursued a strategy of decreasing funding to the public provider (TAFE) and increasing funding to the private provider (Australian Technical Colleges). This was simply a replay of what he did with the schools sector.

So what is the Rudd government’s solution to the ‘skills shortage?’ One would expect a Labor government to remedy the chronic under-funding of the Howard years and increase funding to TAFE. After all, Labor’s Julia Gillard acknowledged that Howard’s under-funding of TAFE was behind the ‘skills shortage’ when she said: “For eleven long years the former Liberal government didn’t invest in the skills of the Australian people. That’s meant there is a skills crisis now and we are working hard to address the skills crisis.”

Doug Sedden Managing Director, Accenture Australia

Yes, the Rudd Government does have plans for TAFE; it intends to take on board the recommendations of a report commissioned by the Howard Government. Does a report on public education commissioned by John Howard ring alarm bells for you? It should!

• TAFE competes with all private providers for government funding, i.e. there is no allocation or guarantee of any government funds for TAFE • A two-tiered funding system; public funding of low-level qualifications, no public funding of qualifications above basic entry level. These higher qualifications will be funded by privately generated profits, which means students pay full market rates for all courses above entry level • Allocation of VET places by industry skills councils, which will create narrowly focussed skill sets specific to particular employers, thus reducing workers employment options and wage earning capacity And the list goes on. Quite simply, it will eventually deliver the full privatisation of TAFE. The current openness to these proposals comes from a Labor government for whom one would have thought publicly funded education at all levels was a fundamental tenet.

So when you peel away the rhetoric about skills shortage, education revolution, competitiveness and so on, to look at the realities, you have to ask yourself the question “What is the Rudd government doing to secure a decent working future for young Australians?”

The report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) recommends, among other things:

And given the Rudd government is prepared to carry on the demolition of the TAFE system that equips Australians with the skills to compete with imported labour and to justify the import of foreign labour on 457 visas under the pretext of a ‘skills shortage’, you begin to wonder: “What are their plans for the rest of the public education system?” I

• TAFE pays market rates for the use of its own facilities.

Donald Peter, TAFE AEU Executive

Well, that is the rhetoric. The reality is that they have added 6,000 places to the ‘skilled migration’ (457 visa) programme for 2007-08. This is despite the statement on its electoral website that “Labor believes we must train Australians first and opposes the overseas apprentice training scheme.”

Labor’s justification for importing foreign labour is that there is a shortage of Australian labour. Some independently minded souls question this platitude. Accenture Australia’s Managing Director Doug Sedden said recently that, “There is a shortage of some particular skills but there isn’t a shortage of labour.

There are enough people out there to recruit and train and bring through the system.”

Just ask any 19-year-old in the outer suburbs of any Australian city!

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F U T U R E SACE

In the not so distant future...

Wendy Engliss, Director of the Future SACE Office, outlines what will be happening with the SACE in 2008/2009. ment needs and help them explore the best ways to get staff ready to teach the Personal Learning Plan from 2009.

Schools have also been sent copies of a flyer which teachers can use to introduce Year 9 students and their families to the new SACE.

Other significant future SACE developments in 2008 will include:

For online info go to:

Senior secondary teachers will receive significant support this year to help them prepare for the introduction of the new South Australian Certificate of Education.

Every school with Year 10-12 students is receiving funding to enable teachers to access training tailored to their needs and help schools get ready for next year’s introduction of the Personal Learning Plan (PLP) to students in Year 10 in 2009.

www.futuresace.sa.gov.au

The grants, for professional development and pilot programs, will help train teachers across Government, Independent and Catholic schools. This follows a range of workshops in 2007, involving more than 1000 leaders and teachers, who helped fine tune the new senior secondary certificate as well as receiving an introduction to the Personal Learning Plan.

Teachers seeking more information about the future SACE should speak to their principal and leadership team, who will be working with a future SACE implementation officer.

Questions can also be emailed to: futuresace@saugov.sa.gov.au or see

www.futuresace.sa.gov.au Senior secondary schools have been assigned a future SACE implementation officer, who will help school leaders plan for the introduction of the new SACE and keep them informed about developments The implementation officers will talk to schools about their professional develop-

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• Current subjects will be revised to include performance standards, A-E grading in Stages 1 and 2, and relevant capabilities.

From 2011 each Stage 2 subject will include 30 per cent external assessment. Some new subjects will also be developed • Expressions of interest have been sought for people with particular expertise in education to join advisory groups to provide direction and advice about subject development. There will be opportunities for interested teachers and others to provide advice about draft subject outlines • Brochures and subject information will be developed to assist schools to counsel students entering Year 10 in 2009 • Information technology systems are being developed to support the future SACE • A small number of schools, representative of the range of schools across the State, will help test the Stage 2 Extended Learning Initiative before a draft subject outline is presented to the proposed new SACE Board (to be appointed later this year) for consideration • Subject outlines will be progressively presented to the proposed new SACE Board for consideration. Accredited versions will be available to schools along with induction for teachers A calendar of activities summarising plans for the year ahead is available from your principal or SACE coordinator as well as online at: www.futuresace.sa.gov.au In total, schools across the State will share $4.8 million in professional development and

pilot program grants this year as part of the State Government’s $54.5 million investment in a new certificate of education.

These funds will help teachers prepare for proposed approaches within the new SACE for ensuring all students develop their literacy and numeracy skills.

Further support will be provided in 2009 as schools prepare for the first future SACE subjects (other than the PLP) at Stage 1 in 2010.

Much of the immediate focus is on the Personal Learning Plan, which will be a compulsory subject, normally undertaken in

“Much of the immediate focus is on the Personal Learning Plan, which will be a compulsory subject, normally undertaken in Year 10.”

Year 10. The subject is expected to give students the skills and knowledge to: • identify future options (including further education, training and work) that suit their strengths and interests • choose the right SACE subjects and courses based on their aspirations • review their strengths and areas for development, including literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology skills • identify goals and plans for improvement • monitor their actions and review and adjust plans to achieve their goals The aim is to support each student to achieve the SACE and prepare for further study, work and life.

Students and teachers involved in the current SACE will continue to be supported by their allocated SSABSA Assessment Field Officer (AFO). The first students will graduate in 2011 with the new SACE ‘passport’ to a better future.

I The AEU supports the general principles of the future SACE and its emphasis on equity and access. The success of its implementation will be inextricably linked to a significant input of resources to ensure that teachers are well prepared and confident in its delivery. AEU policy is that major curriculum initiatives such as the future SACE must be accompanied by resourcing that protects workload and provides appropriate ongoing professional development and support.

Pu b l i c E d u c a t i o n We e k 26 – 30 May 2008

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R E V I E W : N E W E D U C ATO R S

WELLBEING WEEK

Wellbeing Week at Reidy Park Primary School

2008 New Educators State Conference For New Educators online info go to:

AEU New Educators celebrate 10 years in true educational style!

www.aeusa.asn.au/topics/2011.html

Each year we spend time at this conference developing community connections across the group of professionals new to public education. This year’s participants really got to show their colours – working in groups linked by geography to build their own community on a birthday cake!

Our keynote speaker, Chloe Fox, State Member for Bright recalled her days as a beginning teacher and the New Educator participants were really pleased to hear that they weren’t alone in facing their everyday challenges. Chloe’s recollection of students, leadership and how a new teacher feels about triumphs and failures resonated with those present. She really ‘got it’. Chloe also explained how the State Government tackles education issues and gave some background on those members of parliament who have knowledge of teaching.

Chloe’s contribution was the highlight of day one and was followed up on Saturday with a fantastic presentation from classroom management expert Lynette Virgona. Lynette is a consultant from Western Australia and has a long history of association with the SA New Educators State Conference – she was back by popular demand! As we have come to expect, Lynette’s workshops were full of really practical advice – from explicit planning around transitioning students to information about using classroom dynamics. The feedback from those in attendance was consistent: “Lynette rocks.”

The New Educators rocked too! There were plenty of workshops to choose from, they included: Dealing with Difficult Situations, Voice Care, Assessment and Reporting to name a few. Once the workshops finished on the Friday night the New Educators continued networking, i.e. they let their hair down with a session of karaoke on Friday night.

Spectacular performances all round with special mentions going to crews from Port Lincoln, Mount Gambier and Kangaroo Island – Public Education Idol here you come!

All-in-all the two day conference broached many subjects, encouraged activism and shared a wealth of information. To cap off a great conference, around twenty-five New Educators signed up to be a part of the New Educators Network for 2008. Welcome to all of you!

Look out for New Educator events coming up this year for teachers in their first 3-5 years.

To register for both or either of the upcoming events below, please email or call me on the contact details provided.

I Sam Lisle-Menzel AEU Organiser | New Educator Focus

* U PCO M I N G

EVENTS

Thursday, 3 July 4.30pm – 6.30pm

FORUM: New Educators in the City Focusing on application writing and Local Selection for Contract staff and TRTs in their first 3/5 years.

Monday, 7 July 9.00am – 4.00pm

WORKSHOP: New Educators, New Leaders For aspiring New Educator leaders and young people already in leadership positions. (Training and development certificates provided).

For info or to register contact: Sam Lisle-Menzel: 8272 1399 E: slisle-menzel@aeusa.asn.au

Staff at Reidy Park Primary in Mount Gambier are finding their own way to deal with the ever-increasing workload placed on educators. By duplicating some of the ideas around the wellbeing of students, the school is holding a wellbeing week for teachers. Barb Munt is the Principal at Reidy Park and says that while it’s a great school with lovely children and a supportive parent community, her staff are under a great deal of pressure and tend to get very tired toward the end of term.

“Teachers have parent interviews every night this week and this comes at the end of a very long term. I think it’s important that we cater for staff wellbeing as much as we do for students, we have fantastic programs for student wellbeing but I think sometimes the staff can be overlooked.”

Rebecca Hunt (pictured above) is the Student Wellbeing Coordinator at the school and it was her idea to focus on the wellbeing of staff and to celebrate the work that educators do. “Part of my role is to run the peer mediator program and to ensure that children get plenty of physical activity. I also work on implementing the child protection curriculum. It’s also important that the staff are considered in all of this, it becomes harder to take care of children if we aren’t well ourselves.”

Like nurses, doctors and other care professionals, educators tend to put everything else before their own health and wellbeing. To address this problem Rebecca decided it was important for staff to spend some time taking care of themselves for a change. “One of our staff members had organised a similar thing at another school – so she planted the seed and I decided to make it happen.” And Reidy Park Primary certainly sounds like the place to be. “I’ve booked a coffee machine for the week, a masseur for a day and we’ll probably do some Yoga. We’ll have a nice lunch provided one day and we’re going to have a staff versus student basketball match as a way of including the kids,” said Rebecca. I

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R E PO RT

Hidden privatisation in

PUBLIC EDUCATION Education International commissioned Dr. Stephen Ball and Dr. Deborah Youdell from London University Institute of Education to research and prepare a report on privatisation in education. They studied educational privatisation in Australia, New Zealand, England, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, India and other countries. Dr Youdell presented a keynote address on their research to the 2008 National TAFE Council AGM and the AEU Federal Conference. This is an abridged version of her speech.

There are a range of policy tendencies that can be understood as forms of privatisation that are evident in the education policies of diverse national governments and international agencies. Some of these forms are named as privatisation but in many cases privatisation remains hidden whether as a consequence of educational reform, or as a means of pursuing such reform.

Forms of Privatisation In some instances, forms of privatisation are pursued explicitly as effective solutions to the perceived inadequacies of public service education. However, in many cases the stated goals of policy are articulated in terms of ‘choice’, ‘accountability’, ‘devolution’ or ‘effectiveness’. Such policies often are not articulated in terms of privatisation but nonetheless draw on techniques and values

18

from the private sector, introduce private sector participation and/or have the effect of making public education more like a business.

Hence, we refer to hidden privatisation.

It is important to recognise that privatisation is a policy tool, not a simple ‘giving-up’ by the state of the capacity to manage social problems and respond to social needs. It is part of an ensemble for innovations, organisational changes, new relationships and social partnerships, all of which play their part in the re-working of the state itself. In this context, the re-working of education lends legitimacy to the concept of education as an object of profit, provided in a form which is contractable and saleable.

These tendencies towards privatisation are having major influences, in different ways, on public education systems in countries across the globe.

‘Endogenous’ and ‘Exogenous’ Privatisation From our research it is clear that there are two key forms of privatisation: privatisation in public education, and privatisation of education: • Privatisation in Public Education or Endogenous privatisation: the importing of ideas, techniques and practices from the private sector in order to make the public sector more like businesses and more business-like • Privatisation of Public Education or Exogenous privatisation: the opening up of public education services to private sector participation on a for-profit basis and using the private sector to design, manage or deliver aspects of public education

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Even where privatisation involves the direct use of private companies to deliver education services, this is often not publicly well known or understood. It is not simply education and education services that are subject to forms of privatisation, education policy itself – through advice, consultation, research, evaluations and forms of influence – is being privatised. Private sector organisations and NGOs are increasingly involved in both policy development and policy implementation.

The sorts of practices introduced by Endogenous Privatisation include: • Quasi-markets • Performance Management • Accountability • Performance Related Pay • The Manager and New Public Management Exogenous Privatisation introduces practices such as: • Public Education for Private Profit • Private Sector Supply of Education; contracting out services • Private Sector Supply of Education; contracting out schools • Public Private Partnerships • International Capital Commercialisation or Cola-isation • Philanthropy, Subsidy, Aid These tendencies might be seen as simply an unintentional international policy drift towards greater levels and more diverse forms of privatisation in and of public services.

Certainly highly influential western governments and international organisations such as UNESCO and the World Bank actively promote privatisation as desirable and necessary for their own economic prosperity as well as for the development of the world’s poorer nations. Indeed, various forms of privatisation are identified as keys to achieving the education targets of the Millennium Development Goals and Education for All. That is, privatisation is written into the processes of establishing universal education in the world’s poorest nations.

It appears that as interested parties intentionally escalate and export privatisation tendencies, these become increasingly ‘common sense’ or orthodoxy. They are taken up as ‘default’ policies. The overall trend which privileges privatisation as a public policy is clearly the result of deliberate promotion and advocacy by key actors and agencies.

Transforming Labour Relations Forms of privatisation in education have provoked a re-working of labour relations and conditions of employment. This brings with it concomitant constraints on the role of education unions and undermines collective bargaining and employment agreements. It creates the conditions where performancerelated contracts of employment and pay can be introduced; contracts can be made more flexible, personnel without teaching qualifications on lower pay and soft contracts can be brought in. Individualised contracts, performance-related pay, flexible contracts and the mix of qualified and other teaching personnel.

These factors come together to differentiate

teachers both inside education systems and even inside individual institutions.

Dr Deborah Youdell is Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London

Student to output asset or liability Markets and competition also create economies of student worth in which students are deemed to be desirable, or not, on the basis of whether they are perceived to be an asset or liability in relation to the performance benchmarks to which institutions must aspire.

In such local economies of student worth those students who are seen as having high levels of academic ‘ability’ and as being easy to manage and teach are highly valued and sought after by institutions. Conversely, those students who are perceived as being of lower academic ‘ability’, or have special needs, or are perceived as presenting behavioural challenges, or who are recent immigrants with additional language needs are avoided.

Where these judgements influence access, they are one aspect of social segregation between institutions and the homogenisation of student populations inside them.

Where institutions continue to be relatively mixed, the judgement of the value of students in terms of performance indicators continues to influence practices. Institutions sort, select and unevenly allocate resources to students in attempts to maximise overall performance. This has been described as ‘educational triage’ where the safe, the treatable and the hopeless are differentiated and unevenly treated (see Gillborn & Youdell 2000).

These processes, driven by the demands of the education market, mark a shift from all students being perceived as learners to a narrow conception of the student and learner defined in terms of external performance indicators.

Educational inequalities One of the most frequent findings from studies of marketised education systems is that institutions that are most successful in terms of published market information (test scores etc.) have skewed or unrepresentative student populations. As these assessments of which students will serve the institution best in the marketplace are inflected by assumptions about the intersections of class, race, ethnicity and gender with ‘ability’, these selection processes can also lead to segregation and homogenisation of populations.

As some institutions secure a desired student population and strong position in the market, others become residualised, with an under-supply of students, and an over-representation of those who have been rejected by or selected out of the higher status, higher performing schools, colleges or universities. These circumstances lock such institutions into cycles of poor performance and student and educator attrition.

Markets and the demand for institutions to compete against each other have, in many contexts, seen increased outputs at the performance indicator benchmark. But these patterns of overall improvement have masked growing gaps between the most

advantaged socio-economic groups and the least advantaged groups as well as between ethnic majorities and particular minority ethnic groups.

Transformation of education from a public good to a private commodity Policy accounts of education matched to the needs of employment and the economy – a human capital approach – argue that this benefits society as a whole by creating a strong economy as well as individual wealth, but it is difficult to see this in practice.

These approaches make education a ‘commodity’ owned by and benefiting the individual and her/his rather than a public good that benefits the society as a whole. This conceptual shift changes fundamentally what it means for a society to educate its citizens.

Conclusion These are not just technical changes in the way in which education is delivered.

Privatisation tendencies provide a new language, a new set of values, incentives and disciplines and a new set of roles, positions and identities within which what it means to be a teacher, student/learner, or parent, are all changed.

Privatisation in its multiple forms is being taken up globally; certain forms of privatisation, such as choice and per-capita funding, have paved the way for further privatisation tendencies such as the use of published performance indicators; the use of for-profit organisations is playing a greater and greater part in education design and delivery; ‘entry’ into privatisation is now taking endogenous and exogenous forms; and much privatisation in and of education remains hidden.

And in many contexts privatisation in and of education are already entrenched and the ‘good sense’ of the market is so widely accepted that moves to privatise sections of public education are openly argued by policy makers and often achieve widespread support.

In this context, education unions have a profoundly important role to play in identifying these tendencies and informing the profession and the public about their effects.

I hope our work is able to contribute to these efforts.

I

For the full text of Dr Deborah Youdell’s address go to:

www.aeufederal.org.au and follow the link to the 2008 Annual Federal Conference.

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I N D I G E N O U S I SS U E S

Report: 29 March 2008

The National Apology to the Stolen Generation Reconciliation moves forward as Rudd apologises on behalf of the nation.

For the full version of Nola’s speech go to:

www.aeusa.asn.au/topics/2008.html

On 13 February 2008, a Parliamentary address was delivered by Prime Minister Rudd. This address – the Apology – was given to the Stolen Generation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their descendents. The AEU SA Branch had nominated Vice President Marcus Knill and myself to attend the Apology in Canberra.

It was a significant turning point in time for all Australians. Although it was exciting and the energy was high, especially amongst my family, friends, AEU officers and the AEU membership. It was a time of high expectations by all who believed that this address was crucial to moving us along as a nation.

But much more, it was a time of healing.

Leading up to this day, it had been an emotional roller coaster ride for me. I am told by my family that my grandparents, Bill and Betsy Foster had played a significant but a courageous active roll during the 30’s through to the 60’s. They were informing many families about the white Protectors who were coming to take their children away from them. This enabled some families to move out. Some were lucky to keep their children because I believe they had heeded to the warnings my grandparents had given them. My Grandpa’s cousin was one of the unfortunate ones who were taken from her mother’s side as a little one. “We were put on a bus with many other children they had rounded up from Tennant Creek and we were taken to Darwin. From Darwin then on to a ship, then taken to a place in Queensland. Not long after, we had to get back on to the ship. We thought we were going back to our families, but, when we got on to the ship again we were taken straight to a mission on Croaker Island where we had to grow up.” Her story goes on about the kinds of grief she had suffered at the loss of her family and the punishment she was to

endure for not doing things the right way. My Aunty had to stay on this Island until she had turned 16 and then had to seek permission to go back to see her mother. Her story still haunts me because she, like other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, would not have known a mother’s love to comfort or a family to protect her; she felt truly alone.

My Grandmother was also very protective of the grandchildren who had stayed with her and Grandpa in the later 60’s. She would roll my cousin in ashes so that he would not fall a victim to the Protectors. There were many more grannies rolling their children in dark mud so they too were protected by their families and would not be taken.

So why an Apology? The past policies such as Protector of Natives and Aborigines Protection Act 1909 with its various amendments mentions he removal of children whether they were of full blood or not. Past Liberal governments chose not to address the saddest part of Australia’s history. Past Labor governments made attempts, some of which the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Communities acknowledged, but that was about all there was. Aboriginal people right across this country wanted something more.

When people heard that an Apology was going to be given by Rudd’s government, there were great expectations, even more so when the date was set on 13 February. Every Aboriginal person that I had spoken with in my current position and within the community knew the Apology had to happen, but it had to be proper, because Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people wanted to take an important step forward in the healing process.

Listening to Prime Minister Rudd on the Sunday program of Channel 9 before the apology was given, he said that an apology needed to be proper and decent. It needed to address the past wrongs of the policies that had written into them to ‘forcibly remove children’. It meant a lot to hear that he knew the importance of an apology.

So then being in the Great Hall of Parliament house the energy was amazing.

When Rudd entered the room, every one was applauding him. This was the moment. PM Rudd in his speech said “Some may ask ‘Why apologise?’ Nungala Fejo’s story and many more like hers ‘cry out to be heard; they cry out for an apology.’ Rudd knew that the apology he had offered on behalf of the government and the parliament couldn’t take away the pain but he knew it was to be.” Let me remind you a little of what the Apology given by Prime Minister Rudd provided. The Apology was: • given to the Stolen Generations as Prime Minister of Australia • On behalf of the Government of Australia • On behalf of the Parliament of Australia • Without qualification • For the hurt, pain and suffering that we, the parliament have caused you by the laws that previous parliaments have enacted • for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these laws embodied • To the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters the families and the communities who lives were ripped apart by the actions of successive governments under successive parliament All of this had gladdened my heart, as a fellow educator to know that schools had organised their classes to be in rooms to watch this historical event, officers and members of the AEU were at Elder park to watch it all on the big screen, people were late for appointments and packing into places to watch. This humbles my heart to know that we care as a nation.

So today, after hearing the apology to the Stolen Generation, I know that the healing has begun. Those who I knew and met in Canberra said that it was great. They now know they can move on, that the healing process has truly begun for them. We as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders know that the challenges lie ahead for us. There are challenges for all Australians in the spirit of Reconciliation.

Therefore, I hope that many of you here today will walk alongside with us to ensure that the federal and local governments keep to their promises. My expectation is that we accept the challenge to close the gap in all areas of learning and set the bar of great achievable success for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and students.

May we dare to make a significant difference in their lives so that they too pride themselves in their achievements.

I Nola Foster, AEU Organiser | Aboriginal Education

Reconciliation Week 27 May – 3 June 2008 20

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R E CO N C I L I AT I O N STAT E M E N T

Reconciliation and Education A Joint Statement by the Department of Education, Employment and Training and the Australian Education Union.

For the full Reconciliation Week 2008 program go to:

big

the events

Sunday 1 June 2008 Reconciliation Public Rally and March Gather at Tarndanyangga to show your support for a Reconciled Australia and march alongside thousands to Elder Park.

Location: Tarndanyangga (Victoria Square), ADELAIDE Time: 11 am March: 12 midday sharp Cost: FREE Contact: Reconciliation South Australia Inc E reconciliationsa@yahoo.com.au P 8302 0493 (Renée Coffey)

www.reconciliationsa.org.au

Reconciliation Family BBQ & Fun Day This public event is an opportunity to celebrate survival and achievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. Once the march arrives at Elder Park, enjoy an afternoon of performances and speeches. Visit community stalls, grab a free BBQ lunch and enjoy the entertainment by the river.

A presentation by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation will be made for the winners of the Premier’s Award 2008 Reconciliation Competition.

Location: Elder Park, King William Road, ADELAIDE Time: 1 pm – 4 pm Contact: Reconciliation South Australia Inc E reconciliationsa@yahoo.com.au P 8302 0493 (Renée Coffey)

We also reaffirm our joint commitment to excellence and equity and the progress of success through Reconciliation.

We make a commitment to Reconciliation in Education through: • improving the participation of Aboriginal students in education and training programmes; • improving the learning outcomes for all Aboriginal children and students; • the development and distribution of a DETE Reconciliation Statement; • the implementation of an AEU Reconciliation Policy; • the development and implementation of Reconciliation curriculum; • progressing self-determination for Aboriginal people by increasing the number of Aboriginal children, students and communities actively involved in education decision-making; • employment practices which value the role and improve the status of Aboriginal people involved in education; and • achieving active participation of Aboriginal people in the decision-making processes of our organisations.

Jointly we support the National Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation vision for: ‘A united Australia which respects this land of ours; values the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage; and provides justice and equity for all.’

Closing the Gap

08 21

Reconciliation Week 27 May – 3 June 2008

The Department of Education Training and Employment and the South Australian Branch of the Australian Education Union affirms to all South Australian educators, parents, communities, children and students that Reconciliation is the way forward and that Reconciliation is everybody’s business.

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N OT I CE B OA R D

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N OT I CE B OA R D

Your China Did you teach at Specialist Stuart High School Global Tours between 1979 and 1983?

Ian Stanford The class of ‘83 is celebrating their 25 year reunion and look forward to catching up with you.

Where: Central Whyalla Football Club When: Saturday, 7 June | 6.30pm For further details contact: Kylie Clayton (Utting)

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www.globaltours.net.au Defend Workers’ Rights. Stop the ‘Rann-sacking’ of WorkCover. see page 8 for WorkCover Action

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