Page 5844 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 7 December 2011
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surprisingly, he wrote back and, in essence, said: “Yes, we are cutting one staff position—50 per cent of the executive officer support for ESL teachers—but it is no loss in resources. The work of this specialist support officer will be done by other members of the literacy and numeracy section.” This man is the ACT Treasurer now. He must be taking lessons from the federal Treasurer in more obfuscation.
Minister Barr told the union that the one remaining ESL departmental officer will focus on policy, finance and associated processes that support the delivery of programs in schools. So ESL teachers at the coalface have effectively lost both ESL executive officers, but the Greens do not seem to mind that. They have lost both ESL executive officers who have provided a whole heap of assistance and professional development specifically targeted to and for them as ESL teachers. In their place they get less specialised literacy and numeracy section assistance.
But it would not be an ACT Labor government plan without a pilot program promised for somewhere, some time in the future. We have one here as a substitute for what is working here and now, which the ACT education union think should be retained, which the Association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages want to retain and which those on whose behalf the ACT multicultural forum has lobbied want to retain. But does this government want to retain it? No. I quote from the minister’s letter to the AEU:
The Directorate has planned and budgeted for pilot programs in 2012 for school based teacher and co-ordinator support of teachers working with students from refugee backgrounds.
This is not what is needed. The ESL teachers in the classrooms need that central departmental support. They have had it until now, and now they are losing it. The members of ATESOL and the AEU are concerned, and rightly concerned. They are concerned because they know what the departmental officers are currently delivering. They set up, implement and coordinate ESL programs across the public school system for students in classes from preschool to year 12. These officers are the main source of practical assistance, advice and in-service programs on curriculum, teaching strategies and materials, assessment, cross-cultural and community-related issues and a host of related matters. They provide that advice and support to not only ESL teachers but also mainstream classroom teachers, school leaders and administrative staff. The in-school substitutes promised for some time into the future are not going to provide that broad level of support.
ATESOL have suggested that the ongoing reduction in the provision of ESL tuition for new arrivals and the failure to appoint adequate numbers of appropriately qualified ESL teachers have put these officers’ services increasingly in demand. ATESOL argue these officers’ workload is, and I quote, “well beyond the capabilities of two positions, and halving the support will reduce ESL to what could fairly be called tokenism”. But, again, that seems to be okay with the Greens, Ms Hunter.
The president of ATESOL has suggested that the issue of funding ESL support in schools is critical for our multicultural community. Again, Ms Burch would not know about that. She has been asked to take up the cudgel on their behalf, but I do not think she either cares or understands what the issue is. I quote:
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