ETAQ E-pistle 04-10
Publicity in The Australian
The edition of The Australian for today, Tuesday, February 23, contained another attack on ETAQ, this time in the editorial. The piece can be found on the paper’s website at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/give-english-students-a-break/story-e6frg71x-1225833196285
This seems to be part of a campaign and I anticipate that there will be more to come. The letter-to-the editor that I have sent in response is as follows:
Double change wasteful
Your leader writer has misunderstood, perhaps deliberately, information on the English Teachers Association of Queensland (ETAQ) website (“Give English students a break”, 23/2). Our concern is not the introduction of the national curriculum in general but that some Queensland high schools may be required to reorganize their Years 11 and 12 English work and assessment programs twice in two years: first to change to a new version of the Queensland Studies Authority’s senior English syllabus, and then potentially again in the very next year to accommodate the senior component of the national curriculum.
Such unnecessary double change doesn’t strike us as a sensible use of teacher time and effort which could be more productively devoted to actual teaching. This is particularly the case as schools will already be busy producing programs for the K-10 section of the national curriculum in English which is scheduled to be implemented first. A sensible solution would be for the QSA to allow schools to remain on whichever version of its senior English syllabus they are currently using, given that both are due to be replaced by the national curriculum in a relatively short period of time.
Annual General Meeting
Members are reminded that the AGM will be conducted on Saturday 13 March in conjunction with the seminar at Stuartholme School. Further details and a committee nomination form can be found on the ETAQ website at http://www.etaq.org.au/?page_id=193
If there are members persuaded by the negative depiction of ETAQ in recent items in The Australian then now would be the time for an alternative nomination for the position of president to come forward. A written nomination would need to reach the Secretary by 6 March.