AEU Secondary Colleges Teachers Demand Investigation
The press release yesterday about the motions passed at the Elizabeth College Association’s controversial meeting is not supported by the minutes of the meeting. The minutes were released late this afternoon.
Peter Jarvis, the Association Chair, said that two motions were passed when in fact there was only one.
President of the Secondary College PY10 Sector of the AEU, Greg Brown, said: “We have to seriously question why the motion was misrepresented the way that it was. Doing this sort of thing can give a meaning that was not intended at the meeting. Minutes are kept so that things like this cannot be misrepresented.”
The media release from Graeme Young, Elizabeth College Principal, and Mr Jarvis is inaccurate and is not a true record of the motion, and yet based on this, David Bartlett has supported them and the College Association.
The Motion passed at the meeting was:
The EC association endorses the college making the transition to Tasmania Tomorrow in 2010 in the expectation that the educational programmes of all students, including those enrolled in the polytechnic, are enhanced in the changeover. The association is also concerned that staff welfare is a high priority.
The Association motion clearly speaks of “expectation” but Graham Young and Peter Jarvis’s media release does not.
“This is an extraordinary statement from the Elizabeth College Association,” Mr Brown said. “It appears that this group is hoping that student’s educational programs will be enhanced. Their motion is saying that they are not sure that they will be though. There are a lot of parents at the same time last year who were hoping or anticipating that their children’s education would be enhanced by Tasmania Tomorrow too. Twelve months on their hopes have been dashed but Elizabeth College’s Association is still hoping.”
It is ludicrous that a school association can pass a motion saying that students’ outcomes will be enhanced when there is so much evidence to the contrary. It is ludicrous to pass a motion expecting teachers’ welfare to be of a high priority when the evidence is clear that the health and welfare of teachers are in crisis because of the transition.
“The Elizabeth College Association should talk to the 40 plus teachers and support staff at the Hellyer campus who sought counselling before May this year. Would they like to talk to the teachers there who are on anti-depressant medication,” Mr Brown said. “I am happy to organise a visit.”
School Associations are made up of community members. They are not required to be educators or academics but only to represent and promote the school. Associations are not endowed with the same wisdom and knowledge that teachers in schools have about the education and welfare of students and their colleagues. School associations are not meant to be vehicles through which people like David Bartlett, the Education Department CEO, John Smyth, and college principals can drive through their own ideologies and agendas.
Mr Brown said: “The Association members have clearly been indoctrinated by the spin that has been directed at them. Members of the Association have contacted me today, disassociating themselves from the tiny group of six who supported the motion. They are upset by the press release that they feel does not represent what occurred at the meeting.”
“They reported that the only information they get about Tasmania Tomorrow is what the Principal gives them and that only one perspective is ever given.”
One Association member said: “I feel that all we are there for is to rubberstamp the principal’s views. And the only person who was brought in to talk to us was Mike Brakey (CEO Academy) and you know whose vested interests he was supporting.”
Each school association is there to promote its school. It is not there to dismantle it. The Elizabeth College School Council is not operating in the best interests of its community.
Its members have never sought information from the Australian Education Union, nor from the colleges that are determined to stay out of Tasmania Tomorrow to better understand what is going on. More importantly they have never asked the colleges that are in the middle of the trouble and upheaval to explain what is wrong.
“They have shown no interest in becoming better informed so that they can make an educated decision. They have preferred to get their information strategically presented to them by the principal,” Mr Brown said. “And to think that David Bartlett supported this today!”
“Elizabeth College deserves better than this. And that is why 60% of teachers voted to delay entry into Tasmania Tomorrow until 2011.”
Gregory Brown AEU President Secondary Colleges/PY10
