Page 3078 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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So the ACT college business plan 2007-09 identifies activities which affect all players in college education. It focuses squarely on improving teaching and learning and ensuring that there are pathways for all students in colleges in their journey through the post-compulsory education years. This business plan provides us with the framework for ensuring that our already high quality system of education continues to lead Australia into the future. So it is important in responding to Mrs Dunne’s amendment and the comments of Dr Foskey to note that this report has been available for more than a month. It was worked on diligently by my department and college principals throughout 2006. It has had involvement from key stakeholder groups, including the Australian Education Union, the P&C council and a variety of other stakeholders, in its development, and it does represent a significant response to the issues raised in the college review.
So to suggest that the government has not responded is factually incorrect and reflects poorly upon the shadow minister particularly. I will excuse Dr Foskey, as she has advised she does not have an education adviser in her office at the moment. But you would like to think that the shadow minister for education would be paying attention. It was not as if this just snuck out; I did issue a media release, and the report has been on the website for more than a month. It has been talked about and it has been the subject of a motion that Ms Porter put on the notice paper some time ago. When Mrs Dunne said, through a series of interjections, that it was important that the Assembly debate this matter, I agreed with that. I indicated that I would be releasing the business plan, and I did so more than a month ago.
As far as the other aspects of Mrs Dunne’s amendment are concerned, particularly in relation to staffing arrangements within colleges, it is again worth reminding members that the outcomes of the EBA were as the result of a private arbitration process between the Australian Education Union and the government in relation to the way the last EBA went. The government put forward five offers during the EBA negotiations. Had the AEU accepted any of those offers—and I believe they should have accepted many of those offers—then we would not be in the position that we are in in terms of an imposed outcome of 19 face-to-face hours.
The difficulty that we are noting in the college sector, particularly in relation to the requirements around auditing of face-to-face teaching hours, is that, although the previous EBA had a requirement of 18 face-to-face hours per week—so, to put this in some context, that is less than two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon over five days of the week, noting, of course, that colleges have 26 fewer teaching days than high schools and primary schools—teachers in the college sector were not, in fact, working the 18 hours face to face. As a result of various trading of staffing points and line allowances and other matters, it was clear that there was a problem in terms of meeting the previous arrangements as far as the previous EBA was concerned. So the requirement to move to 19 hours in the college sector, as agreed to by the private arbiter and by all parties bound to that process, was for these face-to-face teaching hours to be audited.
The government has shown flexibility in the implementation of section O of the EBA, and we continue to have discussions, following this year’s experience, in relation to
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