Federal Education Minister Continues to Ignore Reports

“There have been many parliamentary Inquiries held over the last twenty years which go to the heart of the critical issues in Australian education including teacher training” said Independent Education Union of Australia Federal Secretary Lynne Rolley.

“The federal government has also commissioned research work into quality teaching and learning, quality and equity in schooling and the effectiveness of schooling in accord with the National Goals of Schooling,” she said.

“These have produced scholarly reports based on quality research, guided by Committees broadly representative of the education community”

“Unfortunately Professor Bates and Dean of Education Willis are absolutely correct in their assessment that the federal government has ignored these many excellent reports” said Ms Rolley.

“Instead what we find from this Education Minister is an ideologically driven education agenda.”

“Minister Bishop’s agenda including notions like popularity based performance pay, summer schools and compulsory year 12 testing in all states are not only a light-weight intellectual contribution, they also run the risk of harming educational opportunities for our students.”

“An audit of the reports and inquiries conducted by this government in the last decade would give insight into how well-founded recommendations by serious researchers have largely failed to have been implemented.”

“And yet these recommendations may well have made a difference to teaching and learning outcomes for a generation of school students,” said IEUA Federal Secretary Lynne Rolley.

Contact:  Lynne Rolley                                Chris Watt Assistant

Federal Secretary                                         Assistant Federal Secretary

03 92541830 0419571227                          02 6273 3107 /  0419259143