Tasmania Tomorrow Protests Teachers Vote to Stop Work

Australian Education Union
Secondary College/Post Year 10 Sector

Secondary College teachers throughout Tasmania have voted overwhelmingly to attend stop work meetings in protest about Tasmania Tomorrow.

The ballot was conducted during the past two weeks at Union meetings in the four remaining secondary colleges and the four colleges that entered Tasmania Tomorrow this year.

Teachers were asked to vote on the following motion: This sub-branch of the AEU will attend a stop work meeting when it is called, in support of members in those colleges that went into Tasmania Tomorrow in 2009 and colleges that may be transitioning in 2010.

Statewide, 86% of teachers voted to attend the stop work meetings.

84% of members in the four colleges that joined Tasmania Tomorrow in 2009, voted to attend stop work meetings.

The results clearly demonstrate that there is an enormous amount of opposition to Tasmania Tomorrow, the Premier, David Bartlett’s grand plan to revolutionize Post Year 10 education throughout the state.

Secondary College’s President, Greg Brown, said: “Clearly, David Bartlett’s much hyped educational reforms are in tatters. Everything that my members have been saying throughout the year has been true. Now they are fed up and are demanding that action is taken to undo the damage that has been done to teachers, their students and the Tasmanian PY10 education system.”

From the start of the year, long lists of problems have been identified. They include: the waste of resources, the negative affects on teachers’ health, top heavy administration, the loss of pastoral and educational support for teachers and students, the reduction of student access to the curriculum, an explosion in student absenteeism and declining student retention, and increasingly the emergence of an upper and lower class of both teachers and students.

“It is encouraging to see that so many members in the four colleges that have not yet gone into Tasmania Tomorrow are prepared to stand by their colleagues in the beleaguered Year 11 and 12 campuses,” Mr Brown said. “But perhaps a more significant aspect of this ballot is the fact that 84% of those who are inside the system, experiencing it every day are saying that they are prepared to stop work to make David Bartlett listen.”

The AEU Secondary College Executive will meet next Tuesday to decide on the date and venues for the stop work meetings.

“There will be three meetings,” Mr Brown said. “One in Hobart, one in Launceston and one in the north west, probably at Ulverstone.”

Greg Brown
AEU President
Secondary Colleges/PY10
Greg Brown