QTU Conference Statement 2021
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 126 No 7, 8 October 2021, page no.9
With the 2021 QTU Biennial Conference forced to close early by a COVID lockdown, the task of completing its unfinished work fell to August State Council. Meeting virtually for the first time in QTU history, delegates from state schools and TAFEs across the state worked their way through the outstanding matters, including updating QTU Policy and approving the 2021 QTU Conference Statement.
The QTU’s Biennial Conference recognises and celebrates the achievements of the Union and its members over the past two years. It also helps set the direction and priorities of the Union for the next two years, in combination with the Union’s other democratic structures and processes.
The QTU 2021 Biennial Conference endorses the following priorities for the Union from 2021 to 2023.
- The QTU’s number 1 priority for 2021 to 2023 will be to restore respect for the profession by providing genuine professional autonomy for all members, addressing violence in schools, achieving genuine workload reduction, and providing healthy and safe workplaces that are free from harassment and discrimination.
- Achieving EB outcomes that improve salaries and conditions of members in schools and in TAFE, including the finalisation and implementation of the Promotional Positions Classification Review; achieving a real reduction in workload for all members; implementing the RORRS (Recognition of Rural and Remote Service).
- Ending NAPLAN in its current form and rejecting Online Formative Assessments imposed on school systems by the federal government.
- Addressing and preventing occupational violence and sexual harassment of DoE employees.
- Improving gender employment equity by ensuring that gender does not affect status, opportunities, salary, superannuation, or access to leave.
- Securing genuine support from the Queensland Government for the fully funded provision of the Respectful Relationships program in all state schools.
- Re-establishing a sense of system-ness in education to address HR and resourcing issues, resulting in the abolition of the Independent Public Schools (IPS) program and the achievement of a transparent and supportive teacher transfer and classified teacher relocation process.
- Securing fair federal education funding for Every School, Every Child and active participation in the AEU campaign.
- Maximising permanency and addressing ongoing teacher supply issues and teacher shortages, particularly in rural and remote communities.
- Implementing the QTU’s Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan to increase recognition and self-determination for Aboriginal educators and Torres Strait Islander educators, and supporting national recognition and reconciliation as called for in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
- Preventing and ending discrimination in schools, TAFE campuses and the wider community, including ensuring members have quality professional development to help support students who identify as LGBTIQ+.
- Defending and enhancing the voice of the teaching profession on relevant government bodies, including returning a teachers union voice to the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL).
- Re-establish TAFE as the public provider of vocational education and training and conduct campaigns to secure resourcing to Rebuild with TAFE and improve member conditions to support this.
- Membership growth and retention, building on the Union’s place as the democratic, representative, and powerful voice of the profession in Queensland in both schools and TAFE.
- Continuing to campaign on political and social agendas that support the Union’s strategic objectives, particularly those that benefit our members and the world they live and work in.
This is a summary. The full statement can be found at www.qtu.asn.au/conference-statement