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In today's West Australian (29 Sep 10), Bethany Hiatt describes some of the current problems with WACOT. According to its website, "The WA College of Teaching registers all K-12 school teachers in Western Australia and aims to raise the status of teaching by recognising, promoting and regulating the teaching profession." Hiatt's report follows the release of a government report on the WACOT Act.
Now don't get me wrong! I'm as disinterested in the government report as the next person! But I did think that I should at least look at it...
At least, I thought, I should look at the section on "the relationship of the College with the Minister" and "the appropriateness of the organisation’s governance arrangements". This should be interesting, I thought. A report to a minister as to whether or not a group should be under the control of that minister... A report written by one of that minister's underlings. I can see where this one is going, I thought!
Actually, I may have been wrong...
As far as I can tell, the report is going nowhere at all.
The report writers decided to base their analysis on a report by someone called Uhrig, a commonwealth government report into the corporate governance of statutory authorities and office holders. And on an equally fascinating model from Webbe and Weller, a "Public Interest Map for Government Bodies".
At this point I was beginning to see several major problems with the WACOT review:
- It assumes that a professional registration body must be managed by government. This ignores the examples of, for example, doctors and engineers.
- It is not a review of the Act. It starts from scratch and tries to determine what should have been done.
- The WACOT review reaches no practical conclusions.
- Then, on a more practical level: However the report is stored -- it is not searchable. So -- without reading the entire report -- I could not search to find why Uhrig and Webbe and Weller were selected as the ultimate authorities.
As a past academic I have seen plenty of waffly reports. I understand the need to justify lack of original ideas with plenty of references. Still, it would be nice to have found a one-page overview of recommendations. Or even, some recommendations to do something.
Okay, I just skimmed the report. There may be actual gems hidden behind the academic research smokescreen.
Having now exhausted my interest in the actual WACOT report, I'll move on to my own solution for one of WACOT's outstanding problems.
Registration of teachers
Why should a teacher be registered? Here are some possible reasons:- to ensure they are suitable qualified
- to ensure that convicted paedophiles do not become practising teachers
- to ensure that teachers are able to communicate in English
What happens if a teacher is charged with being a paedophile?
Some people would say, Get them away from children -- immediately! Others would say, Even teachers are innocent until proven guilty! What does WACOT say? Nothing, as far as I can tell from the website...
WACOT needs a registration status of "under review". No need to say why, just "under review". This could be a teacher whose new qualifications are being checked... whose record of Professional Learning is being confirmed... who has been accused of abusing children...
The WACOT site allows principals to check the current status of a teacher. Is the teacher Registered, Provisionally Registered, Limited or Associate. To each category add a status, "confirmed" or "under review".
A principal finds that a potential new teacher is "Registered" but "under review". What do they do? They contact WACOT and discuss the reason for the teacher status being under review. In a private and confidential discussion the principal can then -- with all available information -- decide whether or not to employ the teacher.
The essential WACOT registration will be quick: here is my application, here is my supporting paperwork, here is your "under review" registration. Or, just as effective, Yes you are a registered teacher but the new situation has put you "under review".
The "under review" status flags a possibly relevant situation -- without presupposing guilt or innocence; without waiting for final checking of paperwork. Whatever the situation is, it is flagged: people who need to know, can then find out.
Many situations are shades of grey. WACOT needs to recognise this, and allow for a shade of grey in its teacher registrations.
Agamedes Consulting. Support for your thought: email nick leth at gmail dot com |
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