Mrs BRAHAM - 1996-05-22
At present, a primary schoolteacher teaches in the classroom for 26 hours and 40 minutes per week - that is, for 5 hours and 20 minutes per day. Can the minister confirm that the latest government offer to the Australian Education Union would reduce that actual teaching time to 24 hours and 40 minutes per week?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I can confirm that that is the offer made by the government. The offer that was made by the Minister for Public Employment to the president of the Australian Education Union yesterday indicated that that would be a fully-funded 2 hours. In making this offer, the government was not saying simply that it would give the teachers another 2 hours out of the week off work, out of the classroom. That was certainly not what was offered.
I would like to put this into context. At the present time, teachers are paid for 36 hours and 40 minutes per week, as is any other person working in the public service, and they are paid to work 46 weeks per year - that is, they enjoy 6 weeks annual leave, as does everybody else in the public service. Within that period, they are required to work core hours to conduct direct classroom teaching. At the moment, the requirement is 26 hours and 40 minutes per week, for 40 weeks of the year. The balance of 10 hours per week, plus an extra 5 weeks a year of what we call stand-down time, is compensation for time similar to flexitime, if you like, for other work teachers do outside of the classroom on lesson preparation, marking work, marking assessments, preparing class materials etc. The dispute has been about whether the time offset for those other activities is sufficient. Teachers argue that they should have more time for them. We have offered an additional 2 hours a week for teachers in primary schools. It is important that I note that primary school principals and teachers had a valid point. For far too many years, the system had treated primary schoolteachers as second-class citizens compared to secondary schoolteachers.
Members interjecting.
Mr HATTON: Do not blame only this government. This situation was brought about largely through the unions and through the whole education system seeming, for years, to regard secondary education teachers as being somehow better than primary schoolteachers. I take credit for the fact that, since I have been Minister for Education and Training, we have put the positions of primary school principals through the Job Evaluation Scheme and we have removed the difference between primary and secondary principals. The JES process has changed that. They are all assessed now on the same basis and the salary equivalents are now fair. We have changed the principle that a 3-year-trained teacher can go only to a certain distance for the rest of their school career. Experience and additional training do count, and
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they can go beyond that. Certainly, they have to do a period at sixth level before they can progress, but the principle has been established. I am quite proud of that. It is important. With long-term teaching, there is a closing of the gap. At the same time, there needs to be recognition of the additional study and learning of a 4-year-trained teacher. We have sought the middle ground and we believe we have found it. The union may not agree that we have come far enough, but we believe we have found the middle ground.
In relation to the 2 hours, the offer yesterday was not only to give the teachers 2 hours more - to allow them to share information, discuss problems with students, discuss curriculum development, learning strategies or school plans - but also, and more importantly, to give them more time to focus on improving the quality of education. What we propose to do with the 2 hours of non-contact time - that is, the 2 hours out of 26 hours a week that the teacher is not physically in front of the students in the classroom - is to fund the establishment of 3 specialist schools: the NT School of Languages, the NT School of Sport and the NT School of Music. Those 3 schools will provide specialist teachers to the primary schools to run those specialist education programs for the students. Things like language, sport, physical education and music will no longer be part of the school-based curriculum. They will be part of the common curriculum and will be required learning. I believe that, in those 3 areas, our standard of performance and quality of education has not been good enough. They are fairly specialised areas of education and learning in the school system and we will provide the specialist resources, such as the PE teachers, in the primary schools. We will provide the LOTE teachers, the language teachers, and the music teachers in the schools. That 2 hours a week is about equivalent to the nominal proportion of the 26 hours 40 minutes of the school week that would be spent on those 3 programs.
Mr Bailey: Why could you not have done this 10 months ago instead of putting the education system through so much chaos?
Mr HATTON: It is interesting that the union knocked this back last night.
Mr Bailey: No. It knocked back the overall package.
Mr HATTON: This was part of the package. I have been working on this program for 4 months. While the union has been worried about wages, we have been reviewing our primary education program.
Ms Martin: It should not worry about wages?
Mr HATTON: I did not say that. I said that wages are all it has been worried about.
I will advise the constituents of another initiative that we have under way to address our continuing concerns about what is called an 'overcrowded' curriculum. The head of our curriculum and assessment branch refers to 'the crocodile curriculum'. If someone is attacked by a crocodile, everybody in the community says that we should teach kids to avoid crocodiles. Suddenly, a new program is introduced. Palmerston Town Council has problems with dogs. It produced a program on becoming a responsible pet owner and expected us to run it in our education system. These programs are added to the curriculum and it drives the teachers crazy. There is no considered analysis of what they are expected to teach in a fixed period.
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The teachers are going crazy as they attempt to jam in all of these extra programs. I have said that this is to stop. We will review, across the curriculum, the totality of what is expected to be taught and whether it is too much. The teachers need to get down to core business and focus their activities on that objective. We have started the process of setting that in place. That is a major concern that primary teachers have in relation to the delivery of quality education. It has nothing to do with enterprise bargaining negotiation, but it is a concern that teachers genuinely hold. That is how we will address the 2 hours release time.
With 24 hours and 40 minutes per week core classroom teaching time, the counterbalancing offer is that they should be there for that time. We are saying that there will be no more pupil-free days. As far as possible, in-service and professional development work is to be done outside the core teaching time, eliminating the need for students to continue to have relief teachers while teachers are attending in-service courses here, there and everywhere. For that 24 hours 40 minutes per week, the teacher will be in the classroom, except for reasons of sickness or other unforeseen circumstances. For the other 2 hours, specialist programs are to be run in the school. Other activities are to be undertaken in the other time - the 12 hours per week or 5 weeks a year - for professional development, in-servicing, school planning and other processes.
Ms Martin: How will you fund it?
Mr HATTON: The Minister for Public Employment has just announced the money that is available. We had included most of the money already, in previous offers, for between 2 hours and 1 hour funding for a school. As he said, there is another $0.6m a year towards the 2 hours per week.
Ms Martin: To cover the Territory?
Mr HATTON: Yes. That is how it will be done. The funding has been made available to implement what I believe is a very important and exciting initiative.
In relation to sport in education, we have already done considerable work on developing a Territory model for the Moneghetti report that evolved into Vicsport. We were aiming to bring the program in from the beginning of 1997, but we may examine whether we can accelerate that process. It will be important to bring specialist PE teachers into the School of Sport, specialist LOTE teachers into the School of Languages and appropriate music teachers in to implement this program. It is an exciting development in education that also meets a demand from the union.
Page 1405
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I can confirm that that is the offer made by the government. The offer that was made by the Minister for Public Employment to the president of the Australian Education Union yesterday indicated that that would be a fully-funded 2 hours. In making this offer, the government was not saying simply that it would give the teachers another 2 hours out of the week off work, out of the classroom. That was certainly not what was offered.
I would like to put this into context. At the present time, teachers are paid for 36 hours and 40 minutes per week, as is any other person working in the public service, and they are paid to work 46 weeks per year - that is, they enjoy 6 weeks annual leave, as does everybody else in the public service. Within that period, they are required to work core hours to conduct direct classroom teaching. At the moment, the requirement is 26 hours and 40 minutes per week, for 40 weeks of the year. The balance of 10 hours per week, plus an extra 5 weeks a year of what we call stand-down time, is compensation for time similar to flexitime, if you like, for other work teachers do outside of the classroom on lesson preparation, marking work, marking assessments, preparing class materials etc. The dispute has been about whether the time offset for those other activities is sufficient. Teachers argue that they should have more time for them. We have offered an additional 2 hours a week for teachers in primary schools. It is important that I note that primary school principals and teachers had a valid point. For far too many years, the system had treated primary schoolteachers as second-class citizens compared to secondary schoolteachers.
Members interjecting.
Mr HATTON: Do not blame only this government. This situation was brought about largely through the unions and through the whole education system seeming, for years, to regard secondary education teachers as being somehow better than primary schoolteachers. I take credit for the fact that, since I have been Minister for Education and Training, we have put the positions of primary school principals through the Job Evaluation Scheme and we have removed the difference between primary and secondary principals. The JES process has changed that. They are all assessed now on the same basis and the salary equivalents are now fair. We have changed the principle that a 3-year-trained teacher can go only to a certain distance for the rest of their school career. Experience and additional training do count, and
Page 1403
they can go beyond that. Certainly, they have to do a period at sixth level before they can progress, but the principle has been established. I am quite proud of that. It is important. With long-term teaching, there is a closing of the gap. At the same time, there needs to be recognition of the additional study and learning of a 4-year-trained teacher. We have sought the middle ground and we believe we have found it. The union may not agree that we have come far enough, but we believe we have found the middle ground.
In relation to the 2 hours, the offer yesterday was not only to give the teachers 2 hours more - to allow them to share information, discuss problems with students, discuss curriculum development, learning strategies or school plans - but also, and more importantly, to give them more time to focus on improving the quality of education. What we propose to do with the 2 hours of non-contact time - that is, the 2 hours out of 26 hours a week that the teacher is not physically in front of the students in the classroom - is to fund the establishment of 3 specialist schools: the NT School of Languages, the NT School of Sport and the NT School of Music. Those 3 schools will provide specialist teachers to the primary schools to run those specialist education programs for the students. Things like language, sport, physical education and music will no longer be part of the school-based curriculum. They will be part of the common curriculum and will be required learning. I believe that, in those 3 areas, our standard of performance and quality of education has not been good enough. They are fairly specialised areas of education and learning in the school system and we will provide the specialist resources, such as the PE teachers, in the primary schools. We will provide the LOTE teachers, the language teachers, and the music teachers in the schools. That 2 hours a week is about equivalent to the nominal proportion of the 26 hours 40 minutes of the school week that would be spent on those 3 programs.
Mr Bailey: Why could you not have done this 10 months ago instead of putting the education system through so much chaos?
Mr HATTON: It is interesting that the union knocked this back last night.
Mr Bailey: No. It knocked back the overall package.
Mr HATTON: This was part of the package. I have been working on this program for 4 months. While the union has been worried about wages, we have been reviewing our primary education program.
Ms Martin: It should not worry about wages?
Mr HATTON: I did not say that. I said that wages are all it has been worried about.
I will advise the constituents of another initiative that we have under way to address our continuing concerns about what is called an 'overcrowded' curriculum. The head of our curriculum and assessment branch refers to 'the crocodile curriculum'. If someone is attacked by a crocodile, everybody in the community says that we should teach kids to avoid crocodiles. Suddenly, a new program is introduced. Palmerston Town Council has problems with dogs. It produced a program on becoming a responsible pet owner and expected us to run it in our education system. These programs are added to the curriculum and it drives the teachers crazy. There is no considered analysis of what they are expected to teach in a fixed period.
Page 1404
The teachers are going crazy as they attempt to jam in all of these extra programs. I have said that this is to stop. We will review, across the curriculum, the totality of what is expected to be taught and whether it is too much. The teachers need to get down to core business and focus their activities on that objective. We have started the process of setting that in place. That is a major concern that primary teachers have in relation to the delivery of quality education. It has nothing to do with enterprise bargaining negotiation, but it is a concern that teachers genuinely hold. That is how we will address the 2 hours release time.
With 24 hours and 40 minutes per week core classroom teaching time, the counterbalancing offer is that they should be there for that time. We are saying that there will be no more pupil-free days. As far as possible, in-service and professional development work is to be done outside the core teaching time, eliminating the need for students to continue to have relief teachers while teachers are attending in-service courses here, there and everywhere. For that 24 hours 40 minutes per week, the teacher will be in the classroom, except for reasons of sickness or other unforeseen circumstances. For the other 2 hours, specialist programs are to be run in the school. Other activities are to be undertaken in the other time - the 12 hours per week or 5 weeks a year - for professional development, in-servicing, school planning and other processes.
Ms Martin: How will you fund it?
Mr HATTON: The Minister for Public Employment has just announced the money that is available. We had included most of the money already, in previous offers, for between 2 hours and 1 hour funding for a school. As he said, there is another $0.6m a year towards the 2 hours per week.
Ms Martin: To cover the Territory?
Mr HATTON: Yes. That is how it will be done. The funding has been made available to implement what I believe is a very important and exciting initiative.
In relation to sport in education, we have already done considerable work on developing a Territory model for the Moneghetti report that evolved into Vicsport. We were aiming to bring the program in from the beginning of 1997, but we may examine whether we can accelerate that process. It will be important to bring specialist PE teachers into the School of Sport, specialist LOTE teachers into the School of Languages and appropriate music teachers in to implement this program. It is an exciting development in education that also meets a demand from the union.
Page 1405
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016