Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

– suicided in despair of what was happening in education upon his
retirement in 1984.
Here are some of the publicists who were intimately acquainted with my
case.
Case of the teacher who wasn’t kept in
Tony Abbott, The Bulletin, 1987
Doctor Fredrick Toben has achieved what many thought impossible. He
has been sacked for ‘incompetence’ as a teacher in an Australian school.
Despite the quoted desire of NSW Education Minister Rod Cavalier to
weed out ‘malingerers in the staffroom’, dismissal is not a threat our
teachers normally face. Educators contacted by The Bulletin said that any
dismissal was rare and dismissal for alleged incompetence almost
unknown. The picture which emerges is of teaching authorities who take a
benign, almost parental view of their employees’ failings.
Most teachers dismissals follow significant criminal convictions. Others
occur only after the failure of an elaborate counselling process. In Australian
schools, complaints against teachers are normally handled by principals. If
not resolved, they are referred to the department of education.
The Victorian Ministry of Education, which employs 55,000 teachers,
dismisses ‘three or four’ for incompetence each year - usually when ‘an
element of senility’ is involved. An official of a Catholic education office in
Victoria, employing about 1000 teachers, said that he had ‘never written a
letter of dismissal’.
As a spokesman for the NSW Education Department - which employs
nearly 48,000 teachers and has dismissed ‘a very few’ - put it: ‘If someone
has successfully passed teachers college, there are usually personal reasons
for sub-standard performance…Quite often, with a particular group, a
person may not feel comfortable…We would usually transfer such a
person to another school where there was more motivation and security…’
Only when subsequent inspection shows no improvement and when a
teacher declines to resign, may formal disciplinary proceedings be
instituted - possibly leading to dismissal. Most teachers resign at this point.
Fredrick Toben stubbornly refused because he had done nothing wrong.
Toben’s troubles began in 1983 when the Goroke Consolidated School
principal, Ray McCraw, withdrew approval for his permanency
application. McCraw said that Toben’s classes had deteriorated.
Toben said that McCraw felt threatened by his qualifications - Arts
degrees from Melbourne and Wellington universities, a doctorate from
Stuttgart University and 17 tyears’ teaching experience in Australia, New
Zealand, Germany, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
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