Opposition accused of politicking over education issues

24/3/94

The State Opposition has been accused of playing politics at the expense of the quality of education for Western Australian children.

Education Minister Norman Moore said today that education quality could only suffer because of the Opposition's persistent distortion and misrepresentation of important education issues such as the flexibility in schooling project.

The project was a follow-on from the Federal Labor Government's national project on the quality of teaching and learning which the WA Opposition now seemed to be acting against.

Mr Moore said the Opposition and elements of the State School Teachers' Union appeared hell-bent on a campaign of blatant misinformation.

The Opposition's latest determination to have a trial period school flexibility regulation disallowed in State Parliament, and the union's threat to institute work bans, were destructive and against the interests of teachers and school communities.

"The irony is that Labor and the union, during the previous Government's tenure, had supported giving greater flexibility to school communities to make decisions, but now they appear rigidly against any such idea," the Minister said.

"It appears that they have had a change of heart in parallel with the change in seating arrangements in Parliament."

Mr Moore said the flexibility in schooling project would be trialled in about 20 schools this year, was school-driven, non-compulsory and aimed at allowing schools to be more responsive to local needs.  The program would have no impact whatsoever on teachers' award conditions.

Examples of requests put forward by schools to run more flexible teaching and learning programs (not possible under the existing rigid rules and regulations) included:

·       a senior high school which wanted to have Year 7 students based at the high school, instead of the primary school, for a program to focus on adolescent experiences;

·       a primary school call for multi-aged classes from Years K-3 to enable the school day to be better planned to avoid lunchtime disruption;

·       a senior high school which wanted to run an extra timetabled session with a neighbouring high school after traditional hours, where teachers and students could change campuses.

"To claim these requests, and the pilot program, are an unprecedented challenge to teachers' basic award conditions, as the Opposition is doing, is simply knee-jerk political hyperbole.

"It is time for the Opposition and the union to put aside narrow-minded party ideology and to give priority to what the Government is attempting to provide, and that is a better quality of education for WA children."

Media contact:  Ross Storey 321 1444 / 222 9595