Page 386 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 2019
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information sharing, communication, trust and collaboration between agencies, service providers and across jurisdictions. For the ACT government, the safety and welfare of children and young people in our education system is paramount. This is why we listened to these reviews and why we are making changes.
This bill will provide more clarity about child safety in our schools and place the ACT on the front foot in creating solutions to these problems. As I have said, the bill amends two acts: the Education Act 2004 and the ACT Teacher Quality Institute Act. Through an amendment to the TQI Act, the ACT government will enhance the robustness of teacher registration decisions. This will be achieved by allowing the ACT Teacher Quality Institute to require a teacher employer to provide certain information to the institute to protect child safety and welfare.
The bill proposes amendments to the act that make it clear to employers that notifying the institute of investigations into a teacher’s conduct or disciplinary action taken is authorised under the provisions of the TQI Act, and that they have a positive obligation to do so, as the outcome of these investigations can be relevant to a teacher’s registration status.
The bill strengthens the requirements around working with vulnerable people registration as a condition of teacher registration through an amendment to the TQI Act. This ensures that teachers are required to always maintain a current working with vulnerable people registration if they wish to retain their teacher registration status, closing a loophole.
The bill also proposes an amendment to the Education Act which will commence work on the implementation of agreed recommendations of the royal commission in non-government schools. The bill enables regulations to be made to specify the criteria and conditions that non-government schools must meet in order to be registered as a non-government school in the ACT. This approach allows for ongoing implementation of the royal commission’s recommendations over time and allows for sustained engagement and participation by the non-government school sector over the longer term.
Through an amendment to the Education Act, we will also enable the cross-jurisdiction sharing of information about children and young people in relation to their education in certain circumstances. This implements a recommendation of the Glanfield review and other reports so that when a child is un-enrolled from a school, and the school has had concerns about that particular child, the Education Directorate should confirm the move with the family and confirm enrolment in the new jurisdiction.
The ACT government is committed to working to share information with other jurisdictions, to ensure that children at risk stay safe and connected within the education system. We have stepped out first in making this amendment to our law to make it clear to other states and territories that we are ready to work with them on this important change. As the government’s future of education policy is implemented, some big changes to our education system identified in it will be supported through
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