BRISBANE, April 27 AAP - Teachers may be burdened with extra paper work and bureaucracy under a proposed national performance assessment scheme, the Queensland Teachers Union warns.Queensland Teachers' Union president Kevin Bates (pictured) said Queensland school teachers were already subject to an agreed-upon compulsory performance review.
"We fear it could be a duplication of what already exists in Queensland in terms of class room observations," Bates told AAP.
"We have for many years now conducted annual school opinion surveys of parents, students and staff to get feedback on teachers' performance."
He said he also feared the national system would create additional costs and extra work.
"We don't want to see teachers burdened with extra work that takes them away from teaching," he said.
Queensland Catholic Education Commission executive director Michael Byrne agreed there was a potential to overload teachers.
"There is one initiative after another and that is a big burden on teachers so we need to get the balance right and not over burden them," Byrne said.
Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett told reporters in Brisbane the consultation process underway will look at those concerns.
"We will devote some resources into making sure there is not a significant increase in the reporting and management requirements for teachers," Mr Garrett said.
"All teachers would undergo an annual assessment and teachers would then choose voluntarily if they want to seek additional accreditation (to a higher category of teacher)."
He said teachers who regularly do well in their annual assessments will be encouraged to apply for certification under the bonus payments scheme as a reward for their work with $7500 for a "highly accomplished" teacher and $10,000 for a "lead teacher".
Bates said the government would have to find additional resources to properly gauge the good work Queensland's 35,000 teachers were doing.
"The money could be better spent on professional development," Bates said.
"It is costly for remote schools to send teachers to major centres for professional development courses."
A final framework will be delivered in August for implementation next year.
The draft plan is available at www.aitsl.edu.au.
AAP
