intersecre

I’ve received the following correspondence via friends in the literacy and ESL fields. It’s from the Australian Council for ADult LIteracy (ACAL).

TAFE Qualifications
The Department of Education and Training made a recent decision, without warning or consultation with the field, to reduce the minimum qualification needed for teaching in TAFE from a graduate teaching qualification to a Cert IV. The Council is most concerned about this move which is only likely to undermine the quality of provision and exacerbate teacher shortage rather than easing it.   The Cert IV qualification can be obtained in a couple of weekends and focuses on training, assessment and reporting.  It does not even begin to address issues around learning, pedagogy or classroom management.
Whilst at present TAFE Institutes also require a professional qualification (such as a BEd) in addition, it is not unlikely that in future this may change as the central curriculum unit is removed by the TAFE restructure. This is likely to make teacher salary rates vulnerable, which will make the field even less attractive to new entrants. In the UK unqualified assistants are already being used because of the teacher shortage.
If there was a shortage of doctors, would the government respond by dropping the qualification to a FirstAid certificate? Obviously not! What is required is attractive salaries, career paths, working conditions, research, PD, and professional status to attract young educators into the field and rebuild the adult literacy/numeracy infrastructure.
It should be noted that this debate in no way diminishes the value and contribution of the large numbers of volunteers working in adult literacy.  Volunteer tutors bring a different and special approach to literacy provision; but a supposedly professional teacher with only a pseudo-qualification in training and assessment is surely the worst of both worlds.

So much for an “Education “Revolution”……
Adult literacy and numeracy has been ignored by the Rudd Government’s much-publicised education revolution.  With the usual focus on school literacy, adult literacy and numeracy issues have not figured on the Federal government agenda, despite powerful recent data from the international ALLS survey.
Both ACAL and the NSW council have written to minister Julia Gillard to raise adult literacy issues such as:
•    the need for a national adult literacy policy
•   the literacy/numeracy needs of people who are not jobseekers
•    the renewal of the ageing LN workforce
•   the massive issues around the LLNP program, its coercive nature and its reporting requirements
•   the dire implications for programs and provision if sustainable recurrent funding is removed and made contestible.
The response has been extremely disappointing to date. Council hopes that discussions with Senator Ursula Stephens at the upcoming ACAL forum in October may help to start a more productive dialogue with the government, and some real progress and development in the field.

When I started out in adult literacy in the early 90s you required not only a B.Ed but also post-grad quals in adult literacy. Now it seems you need no more than to sit through several days (of often tortuous) training in the most basic training techniques. We used to teach this stuff to adults wanting to run hobby courses. It’s pretty much a case of “well I can read and write so I can teach others to do it too”.

Having said that though the ELLN field certainly needs to evolve and embrace new methodologies. But what its all about is having an effective kitbag of tools and techniques to draw on to tackle some of the toughest teaching anyone will ever do.

[image : unknown ]

Still trying to decide whether this is politically correct or not – Rusty Is A Homosexual.

I think the message within the sub-context is powerful and timelyconsidering the abhorrent persecution of individuals in Australia who choose to live in same-sex relationships.

Yet again I’m thwarted in my attempts to connect via the WIAOC09 Ning.

Likewise it would seem that Wesley Mission Australia are also denied such democratic pleasures to deliver, as they see it, a 200 year old mandate to ensure social inclusion of the most marginalised members of our Australian community.

With news yesterday that employment agencies in Australia are to be wound back to Government controlled ’skilling’ programs such as the feared CES, we can be assured that such ratification will only reinforce the commercial interests the Australian government has in compliant egg laying chickens.

Gone it seems is the conversation around ‘knowledge economy’.

Priority it seems now is Ministerial sandwiches . After all, Rudd is a human too with a short fuse and an equally violent ( suppressed ) temper.

As I argue the point that surveillance is not our issue over at EDUPOV  others seem less inclined to accept the moral dissuasions of the worlds biggest state.

Either way we are in for interesting times.

[ image: AP ]

It struck me today looking through an interactive SMH picture show that we have little to complain about in our “developed” Western ivory towers.

I was moved to tears at the site of a baby crying looking for it’s dead mother in a refugee camp in the Congo. Likewise, I was moved to tears to see the elated faces of the Muslim devotees returning from some far-flung pilgrimage on a relatively over-crowded train.

Such simplicity and yet such complexity humbles me. I feel lucky to be alive….

Here is an excerpt that was sent to me today to cheer me up from my constantly thwarted attempt to reach things through the firewall .

“……A man in a hot air balloon, realizing he was lost, reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended further and shouted to the lady “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am”

The woman below replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude..”

“You must be in IT,” said the balloonist.

“Actually I am,” replied the woman, “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct but I’ve no idea what to make of your information and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip.”

The woman below responded, “You must be in Management.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist, “How did you figure that out?”

“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made promises, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now….. somehow, it’s my f***ing fault…”

Looking down for a moment she noticed a shadow of a third person standing on a hill not 100 yards from where the were swapping anecdotes.

“YOU OVER THERE ! ” shouted the balloonist trying hard to get the unknowns attention. Turning slowly the shadow morphed into a teacher complete with mortar board and cane.

” OVER WHERE ? ” was the retort. ” You only shout and holler when you need something and most of the time drink from my coffee cup without permission. You are belligerent, false and have very little idea of anything beyond what we prop you up to receive on stage “.

” What on earth can I help either of you with if, on one hand you control that which my learners access and on the other hands demand countless reports of what little we have done with it. ?”

The IT manager looked sheepish and the balloonist looked both angry and puzzled.

“What’s he talking about ? ” snorted the balloonist.

“I demand we conduct an immediate enquiry into what this person is saying…..” and with a burst of hot air dissapeared so far up ……into the ether that the IT manager and the Teacher we left to contemplate how to greet each other next.

As ‘Admin’ no doubt.

Author Unknown….please inform us if you know otherwise as DOCS and the RSPCA are looking for both subjects

if one day educators could say this to their IT department ……

[image: ian boyd]

It never ceases to amaze that in departments where the core business is education and highly skilled and capable teachers are employed to do just that, we continue to hand the decision making powers around educational technologies to IT people. What’s wrong with our senior Managers to allow this to occur!
Of course we have to balance needs and security – that’s a no-brainer. But instead of simply blocking doors let’s demand solutions – they exist, if the motivation is there to make them happen.