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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Thursday, 26 August 2004) . . Page.. 4303 ..

can get there the resources they need if their school does not have them. If, say, a primary school is focusing on green insects out in the wild, a teacher can contact the teaching and learning centre or get on line to find out whether the centre’s library has that information. The centre is well utilised for professional development. The committee would like to make sure that as many teachers as possible are able to utilise it.

Recommendation 9 relates to the Department of Education and Training investigating the provision of superannuation arrangements that will enable teachers and principals who wish to remain longer in the profession or to work part time to do so without financial detriment. Superannuation is a major issue for teachers of the age of 54 years and 11 months. How do we keep those people involved in the teaching system and therefore not lose their skills? The answer to that was not necessarily clear to the committee, but the committee believes that that must be looked at in relation to making it easier for teachers to keep their hand in.

Recommendation 10 is about the Department of Education and Training and the Catholic Education Office, in consultation with schools, compiling on a regular basis comprehensive data relating to teachers, teacher work force trends, and the reasons for separation from the profession. Surprisingly, that is not being done to a wide extent. The committee thinks that it is important to know why we are losing teachers from the profession and how we can encourage them to stay in it. The way to do that is to get the data.

Recommendation 11 reads:

The Committee recommends that the Government work with the University of Canberra and Australian Catholic University Signadou to make the impact of different kinds of disabilities a key focus in the educational theory and practice components of teaching courses.

The committee did not have a specific reference concerning disabilities, but it received five submissions on this issue and heard that the increase in the diagnosis of children with autism spectrum disorders as well as other disabilities is having an impact on teachers and learning environments. We need to make sure that we are catering for that. I know that the Department of Education and Training and the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services do what they can, but we need to make sure that we support the people who are teaching those students as well.

In recommendation 12 the committee recommended that the government provide teachers and support staff who currently teach students with disabilities with appropriate training in the specialist skills needed to work with such students through the development of a professional development module and that the government invest further in the recruitment of qualified teacher aides for deployment, as needed, in those schools with special needs students. That relates to what I was just saying.

The committee recommended in recommendation 13 that the government raise the profile of the teaching profession in the ACT through a positive media campaign in conjunction with key stakeholders. I acknowledge that that is not necessarily going to be an easy thing to do, but I think that it is absolutely vital that we put out the message that

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