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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Thursday, 26 August 2004) . . Page.. 4306 ..

I would like to emphasise to this place the value of a number of the recommendations. Ms MacDonald covered all of them, and covered them well. I would like to emphasise a couple of them. Recommendation 9 talks about making superannuation more flexible. I think that this is terribly important and deserving of serious consideration by both sides of the house so that we might more actively retain experienced teachers. Experienced teachers with years of work left in them are retiring early. If they do not want to retire at the age of 54 years and 11 months, why do we not try to make it easier for them remain?

Recommendation 10 talks about compiling comprehensive data relative to the reasons for separation so that the department will be better able to manage retention strategies. It is a good recommendation. It encourages government and it encourages the department to better analyse the reasons for separations—what is driving some teachers out of the system—and hone management strategies for the retention of those teachers.

Recommendation 12 deals with strengthening the capacity of schools to cope with managing students with special needs. I would encourage the government to look at the recruitment of non-qualified teachers aides. The area of education dealing with students with special needs is one of the more vulnerable areas and more must be done to relieve the burden on teachers. This recommendation goes to the heart of that.

Recommendation 14 relates to mentoring, for me one of the most important areas. I believe that it is critical to build in an extra capacity to lighten the burden on teachers, particularly younger teachers. There is a mentoring system in place. I must congratulate the department on ensuring that a system exists, but it does not seem to be applied so well across all schools, and mentoring is so important.

It is of critical importance in the areas of recruitment and retention to do something about the experienced teachers who are approaching the superannuation threshold and to do something with the level 1 teachers reaching the critical four and five-year mark. The inquiry has pretty much determined that that is where we are losing teachers. I think that our report has covered those critical areas quite well.

I believe that our principals and teachers are under great pressure at the moment, and perhaps have been for far too many years. I believe that support systems within education need to be significantly upgraded. The committee found in this inquiry evidence to support a broader anecdotal view that teachers are, firstly, struggling with a choked curriculum; secondly, not as well supported as they could be by mentoring programs, as I pointed out earlier; and, thirdly, not supported as well as they could be with respect to the challenges of student behaviour and student management.

The committee found in this inquiry that our teachers and principals are dedicated and do demonstrate quite impressive teaching techniques, ingenuity and innovation. Some of what we saw at the schools we visited was quite encouraging. Perhaps the three personal observations that I have listed as concerns—a choked curriculum, mentoring and managing student behaviour—are not conclusively proven in this report, but they are major concerns. There were strong indicators that these areas may be areas that need to be followed up. I believe that the government should do just that.

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