Page 384 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
have access to all the information they need to make robust and well-informed decisions.
They also want to know that we take our duty of care towards their children and young people seriously, that we will take the time to follow up if we are concerned about a student who is unenrolled from a public school, and work with other jurisdictions to ensure that they have access to education.
As noted, the bill makes amendments to the Education Act and ACT Teacher Quality Institute Act, or the TQI Act, to make sure that these expectations are met. The ACT community can have confidence that this government and this minister are doing what is required to keep students safe at school.
The release of the recent reports that I mentioned before has highlighted the importance of ensuring that the youngest members of our community are protected and that schools are safe and secure environments for them. The ACT government is committed to implementing the recommendations of the royal commission and the Glanfield inquiry. The amendments in this bill will enable this important work to occur. Implementation of strengthened protections for children and young people in schools should not be negotiable. The bill makes sure they are not.
I note that experience with the operation of section 67 of the current TQI Act has shown that the process regarding the obligations on employers of ACT teachers to notify the institute in situations where there may have been a breach by a teacher of their conditions of registration has not necessarily always worked as it was intended. Since 2011 circumstances have occurred where a teacher employer has notified the institute of a situation fitting the requirement of reasonable grounds for believing the teacher has contravened a condition of registration but has not provided further information.
Some teacher employers also currently interpret section 67 as meaning employers can only provide information about a teacher once an investigation regarding that teacher is fully completed, including the report and giving the teacher the right of reply. On the basis of this interpretation, employers have not notified the institute about a teacher who is under investigation on the basis that they do not have reasonable grounds for believing the teacher has contravened a condition of registration. It is only when the investigation is totally finalised that employers believe they can form reasonable grounds that the teacher has contravened a condition of registration.
We also understand that instances in the history of the TQI Act have occurred where a teacher employer instigates an investigation, the teacher is informed and then resigns, the investigation is consequently terminated, and the institute is not notified. The institute has no information and is therefore unable to make a decision about the teacher’s registration status. A possible result of the institute’s lack of access to critical information is that the teacher who may pose a risk to children is free to work in another ACT sector or another jurisdiction.
The bill remedies these operational problems by making it clear to employers that notifying TQI at the beginning of a process examining a teacher’s conduct is
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video