Page 2216 - Week 06 - Thursday, 6 June 2019
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The bill will also allow the government to undertake the kind of workforce planning that the future of education strategy forecasts, such as preparing sector and industry-level workforce plans and ensuring that there are sufficient languages teachers available to provide continuity of language education. Alongside the existing privacy and information management obligations that the institute must comply with, the bill ensures that sharing and use of information as proposed by these amendments protects individual privacy.
For the government to participate in the national strategy, the bill provides that data identifying a teacher may only be shared with a data linkage agency approved by the minister, and an approved agency must not share data in this form with anyone else. Data shared with an approved agency may only be used for a planning and research purpose and must not be used in a manner that will identify a teacher.
An approved agency must meet privacy and information management standards equivalent and relevant to ACT or commonwealth legislation and the Australian government protective security policy framework. Equivalent protections are provided for other sharing and use of information held by the institute, with special exception made for the legitimate purpose of allowing an employer or prospective employer to request information about the status of a registration or permit to teach. The collection of suitable life cycle data at the level of preservice teacher, teacher and school leader will provide sound information to assist in the development of evidence-based policies and programs in education workforce planning and enhancement.
Third, the bill removes a transitional allowance that permitted people without teaching qualifications meeting current expected standards to be registered as a teacher. Through this amendment, the act will require newly registered teachers to hold a minimum of four years teacher education. When the act commenced in 2011 there were a number of experienced and effective teachers who did their initial teacher education when three-year courses were the norm. Consequently the act provided an exception for teachers in this circumstance to access registration to teach. In effect, this provided teachers and sectors with flexibility about teacher qualifications in a time of transition, following the act’s introduction. These provisions also allowed for people with a partial or no teaching qualification to be registered to teach.
The institute has never drawn on these provisions to grant full or provisional registration to a person who is without a completed teaching qualification. It is appropriate to remove these provisions from the act, given that after the passage of the transition period they have not been required and have the potential to weaken the teaching profession. It will remain the case that the institute must, under mutual recognition legislation, grant registration to eligible people who apply for teacher registration in the ACT.
The opportunity for people with partial qualifications or acceptable teaching experience to be considered for eligibility to teach in the ACT will be maintained through their opportunity to access a permit to teach. No currently registered teachers will be disadvantaged by this amendment. The amendment will not affect those
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