Page 5158 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 27 October 2010

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MR SPEAKER: Order!

MR CORBELL: I am happy to arrange for officials to provide a more detailed briefing to Mr Coe in relation to this matter.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Coe, a supplementary question?

MR COE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, the contractors and subcontractors that were working on stage 2 of the bridge—what projects are they currently working on for the ACT government?

MR CORBELL: To the best of my knowledge, I do not believe that the primary contractor, at least, is engaged in other projects with the ACT government, but I will need to check that and I will provide further advice to the member.

Education—outcomes

MR HARGREAVES: My question is to the Minister for Education and Training. Will the minister please advise the Assembly of studies that he may be aware of that support the need to provide teachers with greater incentives that continue to strive for better outcomes for students?

MR BARR: I thank Mr Hargreaves for the question. Members may be aware that in May of this year Dr Ben Jensen of the Grattan Institute released a very important report entitled What teachers want: better teacher management. Dr Jensen in his report considered the OECD’s teaching and learning international survey, or TALIS. TALIS asked a representative sample of lower secondary teachers across 23 countries about professional development, teacher evaluation and school leadership. First and foremost, the report confirmed what we in this place all know—that is, that teacher quality is the key. The report states:

With an excellent teacher, a student can achieve in half a year what would take a full year to achieve with a less effective teacher.

The impact of this is cumulative. Research shows that students with less effective teachers are more likely to fall behind. We cannot achieve the best outcomes for students without the best teacher quality, and we cannot have outstanding teacher quality without effective recognition and reward of teachers.

It is worrying then that Dr Jensen’s research found that Australian teachers think that systems that recognise and reward teachers in this country are broken. These are the views of teachers, not union executives, not academics and not bureaucrats. These are the views of teachers. Dr Jensen’s report shows that 91 per cent of Australian teachers think that in their school the most effective teachers do not receive the greatest recognition.

Australia ranks fourth from the bottom of the 23 countries surveyed on this question. Sixty-three per cent of teachers report that evaluation of their work is essentially a


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