Education : journal of the N.S.W. Public School Teachers Federation

Call Number
Nef 331.8809944 EDU
Created/Published
Sydney : The Federation, 1919-2021
Issue
Vol. 76 No. 17 (27 Nov 1995)
Images
28
View Catalogue

Contents

Education JOURNAL OF NEW SOUTH WALES TEACHERS FEDERATION 1
Departmental restructuring: the jackboot falls 1
The secretive cuts 1 , 4
TAFE STRIKE 1
Teachers to be called to action on salaries 1
This edition 1
NEWS Presidential Officers elected for 1996-97 2
Ray Cavenagh to retire as Deputy President 2
Community Aid Abroad, in conjunction with the Australian Conservation Foundation, Asia Link and the Evatt Foundation, present a major conference on: Taking Australia into Asia trade, investment and human rights 2
Officers 2
Executive 2
Teachers rally to save TAFE 3
Campaign to keep TAFE public heats up nationally 3
New contributions to Stewart House up $36,000 3
Proposed Act will take IR into the 21st century 4
Chaplaincies abolished 5
Nominated transfers to retain incentive status 5
Our Fed Reps 5
Review recommends more money for private schools 5
Department confirms pathways pay 5
Is the Corbett approach the best way to abolish corporal punishment? 6
D&T survey shows erosion of skills 6
Casuals discrimination complaint to be lodged 7
Advertising 7
Board of Studies Report 8
Advertising 8
Active partnerships Aboriginal members and the union 9
Evaluation 9
Remote teachers in WA asked to sign individual workplace agreements 10
School poster competition for World AIDS Day 10
Trade unionists jailed in Turkey 10
In Brief 10
Issues arising from school cleaning review 11
Recommendations from the Review 11
Advertising 11
The HSC and the public debate 12 , 13
OH&S – the role of the workplace committee 13
International Day for Tolerance 13
1995 The year in Education 14 , 15
MERCURY 16
Many thanks, to many people 16
Advertising 16
Services for Federation members Do you really need a Pentium? 17
Preferred seating Exclusive free CD offer for Miss Saigon 17
The President Writes 18
LETTERS to the Editor 18
Don't ignore Aboriginal diversity 18
Inexcusable errors 18
Teach respect, not fear 19
Bus subsidy cut 19
Good-bye valentine 19
Compassionate transfers for executive staff 19
Art School moratorium Justified 19
Let's get road freight back on track 19
Carbon copy Dear Mr Aquilina 20
Dear Mr Carr 20
Correction OC classes 20
Advertising 20
Chalkdust in your veins? We need you! 20
Journal deadlines for 1996 20
The results of competition in the VET sector YET competition on the North Coast: very hospitable for some 21
TAA 4 not necessary for promotion 21
RETIRED Retired Teachers Association 21
Advertising 22
VIEWS What about the TER? 23
postcard from AMERICA 23
TEACHERS and the LAW Reduced benefits for injured employees 23
Policy by stealth: career education and the restructuring 24
Advertising 24
Enhancing Federation policy on integration 25
A day in the life Of... a teacher in charge of a hospital school fear 25
REVIEWS Theatre Past and Coming Attractions 26
DT SMITH 26
SHOE 26
THOSE WHO CAN’T 26
CHEAP WINE It’s that time of year again 26
Advertising 27
INSIDE 28
SEASON'S GREETINGS 28
An open-and-shut case 28

Text

Education  

JOURNAL OF NEW SOUTH WALES  

TEACHERS FEDERATION  

AGREEMENT NO PP255003 00104  

VOL. 76 NO. 17 November 27, 1995  

Departmental  

restructuring:  

the jackboot falls  

by Ray Cavenagh  

All the falsehoods and  

deceptions of the restruc-  

turing process are starting  

to be shaken out as plans  

are revealed, job descrip-  

tions emerge, and positions  

are won and lost.  

The process began as  

cost-cutting exercise. With  

the political impossibility of  

cutting teacher numbers,  

the system had to be recast,  

yet again.  

What is pain for one is  

opportunity for another.  

The pain is for the  

Departmental administra-  

tive staff, mostly at the  

lower levels, shed after  

years of valuable service.  

The pain is also for highly-  

skilled teaching service  

staff replaced, relocated,  

or restructured out of job.  

There will be further pain  

for schools and teachers as  

well.  

The opportunity is for  

senior bureaucrats to  

demonstrate the kind of  

world they believe teachers  

should inhabit.  

Having failed to imple-  

ment his version of the  

Scott/Metherell “perform-  

ance management” agenda,  

the Director-General has  

built performance model  

right through the new  

system with the shift  

moving from the tyranny of  

the “performance agree-  

ment” to the tyranny of  

numbers.  

The new system is about  

audits the District  

Superintendent is to audit  

and monitor, and “ensure  

that specified student stan-  

dards are achieved”, what-  

ever that means. The QA  

person is to instruct schools  

“in the statewide require-  

ments for reporting of  

school performance”; the  

consultants are to “monitor  

the outcomes of literacy/  

numeracy programs and  

report to State Office.”  

Basically the District  

Office work is about audit,  

and the audit is about  

numbers Basic Skills  

Test numbers, School  

Certificate numbers, HSC  

numbers, and also the  

numbers which might arise  

from the “specified student  

standards.”  

When taken up with the  

Director-General and the  

Minister’s advisers they go  

to ground. “It hasn’t been  

worked out yet,” “we’re not  

too sure”, “Federation is  

exaggerating”, and they  

give no information.  

Following the unilateral  

pre-emptive changes made  

to QA at the beginning of  

1995, changes which placed  

more attention on audit  

than improvement, Feder-  

ation issued series of  

warnings to the  

Department and the  

Government, beginning  

with Annual Conference in  

July. There was no sensible  

reply, and very successful  

bans were applied.  

These bans will stay in  

force until the Department  

and the Government are  

prepared to come to an  

agreement with Federation  

about the new system, and  

its central focus. The longer  

it takes for them to come  

totally clean with the teach-  

ing service, the longer it will  

take to resurrect QA.  

Ray Cavenagh  

is the  

Deputy President.  

The secretive cuts  

by Sue Simpson  

At recent meeting of the  

Parliamentary Estimates  

Committee, Minister Aquilina  

indicated that in 1991, when  

the ALP thought it might win  

office, he devised plan where  

“the regions would be abol-  

ished and that the clumsy,  

three-tiered, top heavy struc-  

ture would be replaced with  

much flatter, streamlined struc-  

ture that would divert millions  

of dollars from administration  

to the schools and the areas  

that actually mattered.” No  

mention was made of this  

during the election campaign.  

In 1995, Mr Aquilina and  

the Director-General, Ken  

Boston, have misled teachers  

and administrative staff about  

the nature of the Department’s  

restructure. In his August 10  

memorandum, Mr Boston  

claimed: “The number of staff  

directly supporting schools will  

be substantially increased.” He  

went on to assert: “The consul-  

tancy service across all eight  

key learning areas, which now  

totals 80 people, will be  

doubled.” At the Estimates  

Continued Page  

TAFE  

STRIKE  

See page  

Teachers to be  

called to action  

on salaries  

by Denis Fitzgerald  

Time is running out for the  

State Government on the  

question of teachers’ salaries.  

For government that said so  

much, both before and after  

the election, about the status  

and salaries of teachers, they  

have delivered nothing except  

platitudes.  

Only recently, the Premier  

repeated previous sentiments  

when he declared to Alan  

Jones that he wanted to “put  

to them [teachers], the sort of  

propositions that might enable  

us to lift teachers’ remunera-  

tion to what it is in Canada, for  

example, where teachers get  

roughly twice what teachers in  

New South Wales schools get.”  

We are still awaiting these  

propositions.  

Settlements in other areas  

of the public sector (which  

average out at around per  

cent per year) are simply not  

acceptable. Not even close.  

The recent State Budget had  

forward estimates for the next  

financial year running at an  

inflation rate of 4.3 per cent  

while the CPI currently is aver-  

aging 5.1 per cent.  

Federation’s salaries camp-  

aign is about real and  

substantial increase in the  

value of teachers’ salaries, and  

it forms part of Federation’s  

campaign to raise the status of  

the teaching profession.  

Federation will discuss and  

negotiate with this Govern-  

ment until all possibilities have  

been exhausted, but we fear  

that economic rationalism has  

descended so thoroughly on  

the Government that they are  

either unwilling or incapable  

of delivering real increases in  

teachers’ salaries via negotia-  

tion.  

Our existing enterprise  

agreement is due to expire. All  

teachers will receive at their  

workplace information from  

Federation about the sort of  

lobbying and pressure they  

should engage in to maximise  

the message we must transmit  

to the Government.  

We may well have to  

engage in stop-work action  

early next year in order to fully  

inform all our members and to  

make clear our determination  

to the Government.  

The tiny salary settlements  

happening elsewhere in the  

public sector would, in effect,  

lead to reduction in the real  

level of teachers’ salaries.  

The time is approaching  

where we will all have to stand  

up for the salary and status of  

the teaching profession.  

Denis Fitzgerald  

is the  

President.  

This  

edition  

For the last edition until 1996, we’ve gone rather risque and thrown in centrespread: seasonal feature of Greg Gaul  

cartoons and the news in ‘95. This edition also sees the demise of one of our regular features; Ray Cavenagh’s final  

column appears on page 16.  

Our next deadline is January 30 and please, articles of no more than one thousand words.  

Cite

Citation options:
Work identifier

http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-715162820

APA citation

N.S.W. Teachers' Federation & New South Wales Public School Teachers' Federation. (1919). Education : journal of the N.S.W. Public School Teachers Federation Retrieved May 23, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-715162820

MLA citation

N.S.W. Teachers' Federation and New South Wales Public School Teachers' Federation. Education : journal of the N.S.W. Public School Teachers Federation Sydney: The Federation, 1919. Web. 23 May 2025 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-715162820>

Harvard/Australian citation

N.S.W. Teachers' Federation & New South Wales Public School Teachers' Federation. 1919, Education : journal of the N.S.W. Public School Teachers Federation The Federation, Sydney viewed 23 May 2025 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-715162820

Wikipedia citation

{{Citation
  | author1=N.S.W. Teachers' Federation.
  | author2=New South Wales Public School Teachers' Federation.
  | title=Education : journal of the N.S.W. Public School Teachers Federation.
  | year=1919
  | section=volumes.
  | issn=0013-1156
  | issue=Vol. 76 No. 17 (27 Nov 1995)
  | location=Sydney
  | publisher=The Federation
  | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-715162820
  | id=nla.obj-715162820
  | access-date=23 May 2025
  | via=Trove
}}

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