Det Vic Agreement 2017

In 2017, the Minister of Education commissioned an independent review of VIT`s administration, operations and governance, following serious concerns about its decision-making process. The review made 34 recommendations to VIT, which the Victorian government largely accepted. Vit is currently handling these recommendations and is in the midst of restructuring. The VIT Board recently approved its updated regulatory approach, which responds directly to one of the recommendations of the review. The Victorian Government Schools Agreement 2017 (VGSA) applies to all Victorian education staff. There are two new provisions to support vocational learning for teachers: the agreement was adopted with 87.5% of « yes » votes in the choice of workers. In order to ensure that its reform agenda is well-oriented, we recommend that DETs systematically analyze the information it collects on spot on school professional learning and development plans. This is important because internal documentation shows that four-year strategic and annual planning cycles are TDT`s primary mechanism for supporting the implementation of new VGSA requirements, including professional practice days. However, neither the learning and professional development plan nor the individual PPDs of teachers contain a section dedicated to the organization of their professional practice days. The DET should consider strengthening the link between the professional and development plan and the professional practice days of teachers during negotiations on the next enterprise agreement.

It is essential that the VIT framework is intended only for internal use and that it does not emphasize the importance of a strong professional culture of learning. In contrast, the Queensland College of Teachers` Continuing Professional Development Policy and Framework (2017) is publicly available and explicitly expresses the value of professional learning and its basic principles. This framework integrates professional learning as an important regulatory requirement for teachers and disseminates important information in a clear and concise manner. For the first time in a generation, we have a proposal for an agreement that puts in place important measures for workload and contracts. We encourage DETs to continuously advise SEIS to confidently fulfill their responsibilities for four-year strategic and annual planning cycles – in particular their commitment to helping schools integrate professional learning into their PSPs and IPAs. In 2017≠-18, DET SEILs offered various training courses to improve their skills, demonstrating a commitment to workforce development. We also advise DETs to consider whether, on average, 25 schools represent an adequate workload for SISIs, as stakeholders have made it clear to us that the broad reform agenda places an increasing burden on regional staff.