by Tara Ravens, 21st Century News: http://www.21stcenturynews.com.au/underperforming-nsw-teachers-face-sack/
Principals will find it easier to call out bad
teacher behaviour and act on it under a NSW government overhaul that
will see underperforming teachers get the boot.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Underperforming NSW Teachers to Face Sack
From next semester, principals will be given new powers to deal with teachers who fail to attend playground duty, are late for class, don’t to turn up to parent teacher interviews or refuse instructions.
“We simply can’t accept that kind of recalcitrant behaviour,” NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said. The get-tough measure is part of a $150 million package of reforms to boost the quality of teaching in NSW, announced earlier this year.
The crackdown comes ahead of a fresh round of enterprise bargaining with teachers next month. Department of Education director-general Michele Bruniges said it was about dealing with a small group of teachers who were repeat offenders. “We need to be able to call it and deal with it,” she said.
Mr Piccoli described it as “more like a private sector approach to performance management. Parents and teachers have made it very clear to me that they want teachers who are underperforming out of the system,” he told reporters. “It’s going to be a fair process but a tougher process than what exists already.”
Mr Piccoli said teachers who failed to live up to the standards set out in a new code of conduct could be sacked, demoted, fined or cautioned. “There are a range of teachers who are underperforming,” he said. “Those teachers need to know there is a process in place and they face dismissal.”
Mr Piccoli also announced a raft of scholarships worth up to $30,000, with the first ten teaching cadetships to be offered to high-achieving school leavers by the end of 2013. “This is about making sure that we have the best teachers, particularly in the schools were we need them most,” he said.
Announced earlier this year, teaching students will have to sit mandatory literacy and numeracy tests before being allowed into classrooms. School leavers wanting to study at university will also need HSC band 5 results in a minimum of three subjects, one of which must be English.
Meanwhile, new pay arrangements mean salaries will be based on meeting standards rather than employment length.
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