Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Wednesday, 1 June 2011 COUNCIL 1621
The strength of the Victorian system was such that it
prompted a number of providers who were unwilling to
meet those standards to close their doors. We are not
sure if that will continue under the federal government
scheme. In fact we have some serious concerns that the
federal scheme proposed under federal legislation will
not have the same effect and will not be as rigorous or
robust as the one currently applying in Victoria.
That being said, we have some more immediate
concerns in regard to the transition provisions, which
will require those 500 or so Victorian providers to now
be registered and regulated by the federal body. As I
said, that federal body comes into existence in Victoria
on 1 July. Currently it has no staff in place at all in
Victoria. There is no memorandum of understanding or
agreement with the Victorian Registration and Quality
Authority for the functions of this new body to be
undertaken. There are some unresolved legal and
privacy issues surrounding data transfer between
Victoria’s regulator and the proposed new federal
regulator.
We have something of the order of four weeks to try to
have those matters resolved. I want to assure the house
that my department at both an officer level and a
ministerial level, with some correspondence I have had
with Senator Chris Evans, is trying to stress the urgency
of the need to resolve this matter so that no Victorian
provider is disadvantaged from any transition measures.
We will work diligently on this from the Victorian
government’s point of view, and I urge the federal
government to work with us to resolve this matter so
that no Victorian providers are disadvantaged.
Teachers: short-term contracts
Mr ELASMAR (Northern Metropolitan) — My
question is to the Minister responsible for the Teaching
Profession, Mr Hall. I refer the minister to his
comments reported in the Age of 10 January about the
need to reduce the number of teachers on casual or
short-term contracts, and I ask: have there been any
changes to the school funding formula which underpins
school budgets to accommodate this policy?
Hon. P. R. HALL (Minister responsible for the
Teaching Profession) — I thank Mr Elasmar for his
genuine interest in this matter and for his question. No,
there have been no changes in school resource packages
or funding arrangements that specifically go to address
this question. What has happened is that I have made
some investigations within the department about the use
of short-term contract positions in the teaching service.
While I am still determined to look at ways to reduce
the number of short-term contracts, I can assure
Mr Elasmar that the number of short-term contracts,
which are necessary for teachers who take leave,
exceeds the actual number of teachers who take leave
only because short-term contract teachers are used for a
term at a time, two terms at a time or in some cases
12 months at a time when there is a genuine reason for
a teacher to be on leave. There is also some use of
contract positions to accommodate fluctuations in
student numbers from year to year.
This is a matter on which I am still determined to put in
place any measures I can to reduce the number, but I do
not expect we will have financial implications in a
budgetary sense, and that is why there has been no
specific change in funding for schools for this particular
issue.
Supplementary question
Mr ELASMAR (Northern Metropolitan) — I thank
the minister for his answer. My supplementary question
is: of the 4200 people who graduated as teachers in
2010 how many have been employed permanently by
the Department of Education and Early Childhood
Development, and how many are currently employed
on a casual or short-term basis?
Hon. P. R. HALL (Minister responsible for the
Teaching Profession) — Mr Elasmar would know that
the employment functions are undertaken at a school
level, so there is no central body which employs
teachers and allocates them to schools. Schools
advertise — —
Hon. M. P. Pakula — There would be central
records kept, surely.
Hon. P. R. HALL — There are central records for
purpose of payment. I can give some approximate
numbers, which I am about to do, if Mr Pakula will be
patient in listening to my answer to this question. I want
to make sure the member understands the context of it.
Initially the employment and the basis on which the
employment is undertaken is done at a school level.
What I can say is — and I will seek some specific
information in response to Mr Elasmar’s question —
that I know that something of the order of 2500 of those
4200 graduates are employed in Victorian government
schools. The exact breakdown as to how many of them
have permanency and how many of them are on
fixed-term contracts is something I will take on notice
and get back to the member on.