Dear Colleagues
At meetings conducted around the state AEU members have voted overwhelmingly to attend stop work meetings to protest about the Tasmania Tomorrow restructure of Post Year 10 education. 86% of members at these meetings have voted to attend a stop work meeting.
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.
As the year has gone on matters have only become worse.
The Secondary College Committee of Management (SCCOM) was responsible for educational research expert, Ivan Webb, being engaged to conduct a study into the affects of Tasmania Tomorrow on our teachers and support staff. He uncovered a staggering array of problems relating to our members’ health, systemic dysfunction and inefficiency. The response from the three CEO’s was woefully inadequate and demonstrated that they did not have the creativity, the imagination and the will to work with us to solve the problems besetting our members and the students under their care.
Enough is enough! The Tasmanian community must be made aware that the Tasmania Tomorrow reforms are in crisis and our leaders are incapable of fixing them and that we are determined to get the outcomes that our members want. We will be protesting about the major problems with Tasmania Tomorrow that are still unresolved 10 months on, and demanding that the staff and resources needed to fix them are made available immediately. We will be demanding that the Secondary Colleges that have not transitioned will be able to stay out and that members in Colleges which have transitioned to Tasmania Tomorrow have the right to vote to return to the DoE if that is what their campus wants.
The Premier must understand that if he is not prepared to listen, we will pursue his government up to the March state election.
The stop work meetings will result in some loss of student instruction time, but the affect will be infinitely less than the time wasted this year, and next year if this mess is not cleaned up.
Regional stop work meetings will be held at the following times and places:
* North West meeting at the Ulverstone Surf Club at 3pm on Thursday 29th October
* Launceston meeting at St Albie’s Hall at 8.30am on Friday 30th October.
* Hobart meeting at the AEU office at 8.30am on Monday 2nd November.
All AEU Secondary College Sector and PY10 members are expected to attend these meetings to support their colleagues.
Greg Brown AEU president Secondary Colleges/PY10
