Offer to work with Government to overhaul Tasmania Tomorrow experiment

Posted by Michael on Apr 23, 2010 in News | 0 comments

I am interested in exploring Minister Thorp’s offer to work constructively in addressing the significant problems with David Bartlett’s failed Tasmania Tomorrow experiment.

It’s the first sign that the government may have heard the message from parents, students, teachers, industry and now the voting public.

However, I am sceptical about the Minister’s talk of confidential meetings with college “focus groups” and what such meetings are really capable of telling her that we don’t already know!

The strong message we received from the community is that Labor got it wrong both in policy and the implementation of that policy.

If retention was the goal – it has failed. Tasmania’s retention rates have gone backwards since 2004. And anecdotal evidence is that they continued to fall under Tasmania Tomorrow, while absenteeism went up. There were also major problems with resourcing, information management, staffing, weakening of pastoral care and sidelining parents with the abolition of College Associations.

One of the fundamental problems with Tasmania Tomorrow – and it was the same with Essential Learnings – is that there was not enough consultation about it with teachers in the classroom. It is all very well for Education bureaucrats to dream up new structures, but I know many teachers despair of new policy being imposed which took no account of their actual experience in day-to-day teaching, and the needs of their students. Surely the teachers themselves are some of the best judges of what works, and what doesn’t.

The Tasmanian Liberals went to the last election promising to overhaul the college reforms; returning all colleges to their proper and proven function of giving year 11 and 12 students education choices in both academic and technical fields. Additionally, we believe that the best way to tackle low retention rates is to focus on the critical middle years and high school.

The Tasmanian Liberals stand by our opposition to the current structure of Tasmanian colleges and will work to return all colleges back to their proper function of offering both academic and vocational/technical training education from 2011; while largely retaining the Skills Institute which we accept has been a worthwhile change.

Michael Ferguson MP
Shadow Minister for Education and Skills
Friday 23 April, 2010