Community Alliance Party

Education Policy statement by Jane Tullis, 9 September 2008

The Community Alliance Party recognises the central place of education and training in our society. We support a fully funded, high quality, free and accessible public school education system in the ACT, alongside the existing non-government school system, as well as a publicly funded and well-resourced TAFE sector. The Community Alliance values the profession of teaching and supports a significant review of the remuneration and reward philosophy for teachers. We want to restore the teaching profession to a place of honour in our community.

At the very core, the Community Alliance Party values the children and young adults who, when ‘well educated’ (i.e. when they can appreciate their own worth, and understand, enjoy and contribute to the society in which they live) will shape the future of not just their local neighbourhood but the ACT community and beyond.

1) The Community Alliance will develop schools as true neighbourhood centres

The Community Alliance recognises that it takes more than a family to raise a child; it takes a community. Schools are the obvious focus for many communities and we will induce the Department of Education and Training to regard school facilities in this way. Our aim is to provide opportunities for more community involvement in schools.

As you will see in the coming weeks, we have identified many opportunities for greater community use of school facilities in many areas: in music and the arts, in the use of space by local community groups, in sharing of IT facilities, in intergenerational activities, in a range of activities that aims to bring communities together.

For too long, governments have seen schools as single-purpose facilities, available to children and teachers from 9am to 3pm, with some pupil-free time tacked on either end. Many communities do not agree and, in the last few years, they have expressed their views on this issue loudly and clearly. As communities come together, we hope to rebuild the respect and appreciation that we need for Canberra's social cohesion.

2) The Community Alliance Party will re-open Flynn, Cook, Hall and Tharwa primary schools and will consider other schools on a needs and community desire basis

The Community Alliance will re-open Flynn, Cook, Hall and Tharwa schools as a matter of urgency because of the obvious social and educational benefits. The tremendous value of these schools is self-evident from the strength and commitment of those communities in lobbying on their schools' behalf. This extends far beyond the families of those children who attended the schools. The Alliance views community and neighbourhood schools as a vital part of our societal infrastructure. Social capital cannot be measured in mere financial terms.

Flynn, Cook, Hall and Tharwa, you might feel forgotten, but the Community Alliance knows your name! The Community Alliance will also make a priority the urgent review of Section 20 of the Education Act to ensure that the wording is water tight as far as the need for genuine consultation and cost-benefit analysis PRIOR to the possibility of future school closure. The current majority government should be ashamed of exploiting legal loopholes to close community schools.

3) The Community Alliance Party will reduce the gap between low and high achieving students in ACT schools

We will investigate the achievement gap between low and high achieving students in ACT government and non-government schools as a matter of urgency, so that all students can reach their individual and full potential.

While the Alliance supports smaller class sizes in general, we do not believe that small class sizes are a panacea. Greater autonomy will therefore be given to public schools to best target the resources according to their greatest needs.

The Community Alliance Party rejects the establishment of league tables, believing that, contrary to the current Federal proposals, this type of simplistic ranking can never fully take into account the wide variety of contributing factors to so-called academic success ratings. This type of ideology pits schools against each other. As seen in other countries, it promotes intellectual dishonesty and manipulation of results in order to make a school appear better than its neighbours.

Given that for one child educational success may be measured in terms of having learnt to tie his shoelaces, and for another memorising her 57 times table might be a waste of her intellectual capability, it is a serious abuse of trust and emotional wellbeing to create such artificial measurement standards let alone base the future of a community on them.

4) The Community Alliance Party will provide assistance for children who have individual learning and developmental needs

The Alliance recognises that students have individual learning and developmental needs and will seek to provide education services on that basis. This includes providing prompt, sensitive, and early detection and remedial assistance for children with learning difficulties.

Currently, assistance is provided on a dollars-available basis rather than needs. It is inappropriate to assess a child as ‘high need’, only then to give assistance on Tuesdays and every second Thursday. This is something that must be redressed.

Consistently with our policy of community involvement, this is an area we would particularly like to focus on, with a view to encouraging and equipping parents and other members of the community to be as involved in their children’s education as possible. We are prepared to provide training to parents and other community members to support special needs teachers in the classroom if that is what it takes. We know that some families are struggling, and need respite rather than more work. This policy does not seek to coerce anyone into something they can’t manage. Rather, it is a way of helping people to be involved in schools for the benefit of their children, their entire family, and the wider community.

5) The Community Alliance Party will address behavioural management issues to make schools safer for students and teachers

A difficult area is the undermining of a teacher’s authority, in the eyes of the students, the families, and the wider community, with the consequent disintegration of class discipline and engagement within schools. Teachers are being derided, threatened, and even assaulted whilst their ability to respond is severely curtailed. Moreover, they are then expected to continue teaching in a class when a major incident has occurred. The Community Alliance Party will strive to revive a sense of value in our teachers and protect them within their work environments.

This will inevitably mean that we will have to tackle the hard issue of student behaviour management and take unacceptable behaviour seriously. We recognise that the problem is not the fault of any one individual or group, as many teachers want to deal with incidents of extreme violence appropriately but are unable to do so under the current system.

We will talk to the teachers and the counsellors who are forced to deal with such incidents on a daily basis. Perhaps the amount of paperwork required to report and respond to student violence needs to be reviewed. Perhaps more counsellors or more resources are needed to help behaviourally challenged students. Whatever is required, we will do our best to find a way to deliver.

Consistently with this, the Community Alliance Party does not support the current Labor Government’s plan to open three new ‘achievement centres’. These are aimed at re-integrating students with a history of extremely violent or difficult behaviours into mainstream education, but co-locating them within existing high schools is a major flaw. The Community Alliance Party believes that these types of centres for difficult students are absolutely essential, but that they must be physically separate from the mainstream educational environment. Attendance at these centres cannot be on an ad hoc basis but must be for a minimum of a full school term, with further assessment to take place prior to any well-supported transfer back into the mainstream system.

6) The Community Alliance Party will ensure that teacher remuneration will be negotiated and finalised prior to the expiration of the current EBA, and will reflect comparative professional pay scales

The Community Alliance Party believes that the morale and status of the teaching profession has been consistently undermined in recent years through prolonged EBA negotiations, enforced mobility, and school closures.

In terms of teacher remuneration, how can it be fair that a public servant with limited responsibility for people’s lives can receive a pay rise more easily than a teacher in charge of 30 precious children?

Not only does the Community Alliance fully support the AEU’s proposal for a single UCA (ACT Education Union Collective Agreement) in the next EBA round (inclusive of both TAFE and School sectors); but the Community Alliance also fully supports salaries reflecting the professional status of a teaching career. Teachers should never be forced into the position of playing salary catch-up with their counterparts in other professions.

However, neither should they be competing against one another in some type of 'better than you' performance pay. The ability to accurately and fairly implement any Accomplished Teacher reward scheme, free from possible cronyism and abuse requires significant resources and an independent review body. The very subjectivity of an individual teacher's performance makes it almost impossible to achieve without degenerating into a tick-a-box process. Therefore, this process is best developed in conjunction with the teachers directly, and the Community Alliance will ensure genuine consultation on such a sensitive proposal before even suggesting options.

7) The Community Alliance Party recognises the TAFE sector as a valuable public asset and will promote teacher recognition and career pathways, along with increased recurrent funding and protection from privatisation

The Community Alliance fully supports a single UCA (Union Collective Agreement) for TAFE and school teachers, including career path reviews. The Alliance supports increased recurrent funding to TAFE. We do not support HECS in TAFE.

The TAFE sector provides an important and often a second-chance educational opportunity for people and as such it must not be commercialised and lost from government control. The Alliance will fight to ensure that the ACT TAFE sector does not go the way of several other states in relinquishing its services to the private sector.

Summary

There are several prongs to the Community Alliance Party's Education and Training Policy Launch. We want to restore the teaching profession to a place of honour in our community, reduce the gap in educational outcomes across the entire education sector, and address equity issues, including those between school and TAFE sector teaching staff.

As part of our approach to education, we have identified many key areas that need urgent review once government changes after October 18th.