[Offtopic] Points to consider including in VIT Review Response

[Alexakos, Zach Z]

Very Good Stephen, 

 

But you forgot to include 

 

VI.  create glossy magazines once a year that contain images of happy,
shiny people and cost a heap of money, and are absolutely information
useless!

 

 

Zach Alexakos

 

 

________________________________

From: offtopic-bounces at edulists.com.au
[mailto:offtopic-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Stephen Digby
Sent: Sunday, 26 August 2007 10:59 AM
To: com. au Off Topic Edulists.
Subject: [Offtopic] Points to consider including in VIT Review Response

 

Needs to be emailed to vit at hlbvic.com.au <mailto:vit at hlbvic.com.au>
prior to 5pm on Tuesday, 18 September 2007. 


Feedback and Recommendations


I. the appropriate objectives for the Institute in the light of
government polices and changes in all educational sectors since its
establishment;

Create new structures:

*	VERB - Victorian educational Regulatory Board: Registration of
Teachers, Approves and accredits pre-service teacher education courses,
Misconduct Investigations. Run by government. Paid from general revenue.

*	VEI- Victorian Educational Institute: Promotion of the
profession, Works with teachers. Paid from voluntary membership. Run by
members elected by membership. 

II. the effectiveness of the Institute in achieving its original
objectives;

*	VIT has destroyed the little goodwill it has at its inception
through its unwillingness to represent "the profession" in any real
sense: 
*	VIT made no protest re. the imposition of registration fees and
criminal record checks on teachers, revealing itself to be a government
cipher 
*	the manner and timing of its demands for money have alienated
teachers 
*	the wasteful style of practice most prominently in relation to
its expensive and self promoting "communication" expenditure further
alienated teachers 
*	VIT made insignificant contributions to public debates re.
educational issues where "promotion of the teaching profession" is
needed. e.g. VELs reporting and assessment systems, new curriculum
structure, teacher stress, assaults on teachers etc 
	It thus reveals itself o be another arm of government rather
than a body representing the profession - an arm of government that
teachers substantively pay for ! 

VIT has irreversibly lost support from teachers and nothing short of a
major re-organisation in terms of structure, purpose and personnel could
begin its recovery

VIT Purposes:

*	Registration of all teachers: Achieved but only at the cost of
near universal alienation of teachers due to: 

	*	the timing and manner that registration was organised, 
	*	the high level of charges, 
	*	the use of fees collected for purposes considered by
teachers to be wasteful and unnecessary (e.g. glossy publications,
ineffective "promotion of he profession etc etc) and 
	*	the absence of any attempt by the VIT to pressure the
government to pay for functions that are clearly the employers
responsibility (e.g. registration, police checks, pre-service course
evaluation etc etc) 

*	Promotion of the profession: Pitiful performance on most issues
reinforcing the strongly held conviction that the institute only parrots
the policy of the employers and the government. 
	Virtually no worthwhile contribution to important community
debates on such issues as assessment and reporting, teacher stress and
safety from assault, curriculum changes under VELs etc etc 
*	Works with teachers: Documents produce supposedly to "work" with
teachers were verbose and full of jargon ("edu-speak") and looked and
smelt like a fait accompli.
	Importantly, VIT made NO attempt to provide any shared
communication with the profession.
	One would think, after spending unknown sums on a website that
there would be a discussion forum (as seen on so many news and community
sites !!) where teachers could share responses and communicate to VIT
and with each other.
	NO ! As befits an organisation that gives consultation only "lip
service", responses to feedback go into a magical black hole which
generates an invented consensus view.
	People attending public hearings have no idea what becomes of
their contributions. The website contains no record of what was said. 
*	Supports teachers in their first year of teaching with a
structured induction program: Done. BUT the people who actually make it
work are in schools. The contribution of the bureaucratic and verbose
"support" materials to the success of the program is very small. Why not
provide funding direct to schools to support induction activities !! 
*	Approves and accredits pre-service teacher education courses
that prepare teachers: No idea what has been achieved. Annual report
mentions the organisation of a conference and cyclical review of 6
courses which were all approved.
	The process described seems to be just another paper shuffle
(2007 Annual Report p.20). If the VIT was really serious about this
role, it would have implemented or required some real review procedures
such as direct feedback from teachers trained by the institutions and/or
from the schools where they work. Accreditation of new courses should
presumably be built on objective data about the performance of existing
courses so that improvements can be targeted at existing and emerging
needs rather than "ivory tower" fads unrelated to the real world of
classroom practice.
	Experienced teachers who have worked with beginning teachers
have a distinct impression that the skills provided in pre-service
training are not well matched to the demands of actual classroom
teaching. Reports on individual teachers do not elicit this as they are
heavily weighted towards supportive suggestions about the individual
teachers practice rather then the pre-service course itself.
	The VIT should provide (or insist on) opportunities for all
beginning teachers to evaluate on the adequacy of their pre-service
courses at 6 months, and 18 months after commencement of teaching. This
could easily be conducted at zero (YES zero !) cost through online an
questionnaire and open forum for teachers to share impressions and
experiences. 
*	Investigate and make findings on serious misconduct,
incompetence or lack of fitness to teach: No idea of how well the VIT is
performing this task. 

III. the most appropriate structures for achieving the objectives
identified under point I;

*	Regulatory functions such as registration of teachers and
investigation of misconduct as well pre-service course review should be
conducted by a government department at no cost to teachers. 
*	Promotion of the profession and development of recommendations
regarding professional practice should be undertaken by an organisation
with voluntary membership.
	Most teachers already have the option of membership of such an
organisations in the form of their union and voluntarily pay
considerable membership fees. 

IV. whether the Institute or a successor body has a role to play in this
future environment; changes that may be required to its functions,
structure and legislative mandate; and

*	VIT, in its present form and with its present management, should
be scrapped because it has no credibility with teachers in relation to
its independence, its management of registration and police checks, or
its promotion of the profession 

V. the appropriateness of the fee structures and operating costs of the
Institute.

*	As the dominant purpose of the institute is to regulate teachers
rather than to assist them, the costs of the institute should be born by
the employers and the state. 
*	IF the government insists on passing on the cost of regulation
to teachers, then the organisation should be run as an efficient
administrative structure devoid of the fat of self promotion and the
pretence that it is serving any other purposes 
*	The VIT Budget Report for 2005-6
(http://www.vit.vic.edu.au/retrievemedia.asp?Media_ID=1061) indicates
that the organisation can't even remain within it's income of about $8
mill and overspent by $253000 
*	the organisation makes no attempt to separate expenditure
relating to its separate functions - registration, promotion, standards
development, induction, teachers course approval, misconduct
investigations.
	It is highly likely that this conceals the fact that the
organisation spends the vast bulk of its funds merely administering
itself as a sinecure for fat cats. This is certainly the near universal
belief of teachers in schools. 
*	The expenditure on communications is identified 1.5 mill but not
explained in terms of publication types purpose, web site etc.
	Virtually all teachers would assume that the lions share of this
expenditure falls under the umbrella of self-promotion rather than
fulfilling any of the VIT aims
	On receiving expensively produced VIT communications in schools,
teachers universally sigh with exasperation in the realisation that the
pamphlet has been produced mainly at their own expense - and then
consign it to the bin. 
*	If the government decides NOT to listen to teachers and to scrap
the VIT in its present form, it could AT LEAST par the organisation back
to its bones so that the registration cost is minimised and "optional"
activities such as promotion and communication are eliminated. 

It would be far better to remove the confusion of purposes, the secret
cross subsidy of activities, and the huge legacy of antipathy developed
by the current VIT, and create new structures:

*	VERB - Victorian educational Regulatory Board: Registration of
Teachers, Approves and accredits pre-service teacher education courses,
Misconduct Investigations. Run by government. Paid from general revenue.

*	VEI- Victorian Educational Institute: Promotion of the
profession, Works with teachers. Paid from voluntary membership. Run by
members elected by membership. 

====================================================
Stephen Digby, Learning Technology Manager
mailto: admin at cheltsec.vic.edu.au
Cheltenham Secondary College www.cheltsec.vic.edu.au
Ph: 613 955 55 955  Fx: 9555 8617 Mb: 0431-701-028
====================================================
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ways of their own, discredit the routine: as churches and monasteries
persecute youthful saints.   Ralph Waldo Emerson 

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