Thursday 8 August 2002

Mr Denis Fitzgerald, Federal President of the Australian Education Union said today,

"Dr Brendan Nelson has managed to insult every practising teacher in Australia by failing to include the representative voice of the teaching profession in his announcement today of his Teacher Education Review.

The Review now runs the risk as being seen as tainted, narrowly ideological and tracking a politician's timetable. The Australian Education Union, which represents 156,000 teachers from all parts of Australia and from every section of the teaching profession, has been excluded from the Review. Dr Nelson is carrying on the tradition of his predecessor, the disgraced Dr David Kemp who wilfully refused to listen to the voice of the classroom and the views of the profession in his policy deliberations.

However, Dr Nelson has insulted every teacher in Australia in one day. It usually took Dr Kemp a whole week to manage such a feat.

Teacher education in Australia is facing unprecedented challenges. These include:

• The potential downgrading of universities which specialise in training teachers;
• Equipping teachers for the changed curriculum and social realities in Australia;
• Incorporating modules on Indigenous education in undergraduate courses;
• Aligning training needs with the changing demands of employing authorities;
• Preparing teachers with appropriate behaviour management strategies;
• Matching training with the realities of today's classroom experiences.

Whilst members of Dr Nelson's Review Committee would of course be distinguished in their own fields teachers across Australia will find it curious that an organisation such as Catch-22 Asia Pacific is offered a seat on the Review whilst the representative voice from the nation's classrooms has been silenced.

Today as the Minister announced his Review, over three million children were being taught and nurtured by the nation's classroom teachers. Sadly, Dr Nelson is not interested in what those teachers know."