Teachers' voices silenced

The final acts of outgoing NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli were among his most contemptuous of teachers in the non government sector. Legislation passed last year following the review of BOSTES reduced the number of elected teachers to the Quality Teaching Committee (QTC) formerly the Quality Teaching Council, from 11 teachers to five.

This reduction was a recommendation from the BOSTES review panel, although no case was made in their report for the reduction, and none of the published submissions suggested lessening the representation of teachers. Several actually recommended increasing elected teacher participation.

The panel claimed to be “strongly of the view that representation of the teaching profession should be retained on a recast Quality Teaching Committee” yet bizarrely and illogically sought to do that by reducing teacher input.

Like most legislation the detail and structural operations are spelt out in the regulations. In the dying moments of his time as Minister, Piccoli quietly released the regulations which would distribute those five elected positions, three to government school teachers and principals, one to teachers in early childcare centres and one to teachers and principals in the non government sector. An additional regulation directed that an interim QTC would consist of the elected teachers who got the largest number of votes in the 2015 election. Piccoli did this knowing that only one of the three electoral colleges he had amalgamated had a contested election. For the other two who were elected unopposed, no votes were cast, so those elected members were excluded.

Thus it is that 19% of the teaching force in NSW will be represented on the QTC and some 16% will not. In effect some 470 schools will have no elected voice. At some time in late 2018 an election will be held and the 35% of teachers employed in non government schools will be able to select 20% of the elected teachers to the QTC. However, the sheer weight of numbers makes it unlikely that a teacher from the sector minority can ever be elected. Democracy coalition style.

The Union appreciated that the legislation establishing the new NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) provided for a representative of the IEU on the NESA Board. Late last year we were invited to submit three names for the Minister to select our representative. While it is unclear that a similar selection process was required of other bodies, particularly employer groups, the IEU did submit extensive details of our three nominees. In late December, from a report in the press, the Union learned that Assistant Secretary Mark Northam had been appointed to the NESA board.

Mark is an excellent choice and his extensive experience and expertise will serve the board well. However, it does the Minister no credit that he did not have the courtesy to advise our Executive of the appointment.

Soon after Piccoli was dumped from the Ministry and new Education Minister Rob Stokes was appointed. The IEU wrote, congratulating him on his new portfolio, advising him of his predecessor’s disrespectful lapse and requesting that our Executive be afforded the respect of official notice of the appointment.

To date silence from the Minister. No acknowledgement of our letter, no advice regarding the appointment and no response to our request to meet with him to discuss issues of significance to our members which lie within his portfolio.

It might be reasonable to conclude that NSW has yet another in a long line of ministers of education who are in fact ministers for government schools.

As Secretary I am determined that the voices of our members will be heard loudly by this government and the alternative government, and that our members and their representatives will not be ignored or treated with disrespect and discourtesy. Only teachers can speak for teachers and they will be heard.