The IEU Federal Secretary endorsed the following statement on Teacher Performance at its meeting on Thursday 16 August 2012:
Teacher Performance
Teachers in Non-Government Schools are Not Underperforming
The Independent Education Union notes that its members are committed to providing the highest standard of learning opportunities to students in non-government schools and as a profession, they support quality teaching.
The IEU rejects the notion of one in six teachers are underperforming and needing to be managed out of the profession.
The fact is, there are not underperforming teachers ‘sitting around’ in the nongovernment sector.
Nongovernment schools have teacher development and review systems in place that have worked and continue to work very effectively.
The IEU members support well resourced teacher development programs.
Accordingly the IEU calls for a commitment of adequate resources, in particular time and expertise, to properly and seriously support improved teacher development elements including teacher induction, teacher mentoring, per-service training and ongoing professional development.
The IEU notes that to date no government or opposition has addressed the fundamental issue of adequate resources despite rhetoric from all parties about a ‘teacher quality’ agenda.
The IEU also notes that authors of teacher performance frameworks like AITSL have consistently abrogated their responsibility in delineating the necessary resources to implement teacher development and review programs.