Catch up programs for the disadvantaged
(but not using the willing retired workforce!)
For the disadvantaged students who have fallen behind due to the interruption of normal classroom teaching during our COVID pandemic the Grattan Institute released a paper "Catch up programs for the disadvantaged" on June 20 2020.This paper is available on another link on this website.
(In fact you can sign up to Grattan Institute's papers by just googling Grattan Institute to get to their website. They are are non-aligned think tank on many Australian issues.)
Having read part of the paper, I was struck by the thinking behind it.
Giving students a leg up after their learning being less than what it ought to have been sounded noble.
The costing nationwide at $1.3 billion included training for tutors and other non-teachers in literacy, numeracy and social/emotional/well-being areas. This training would give the tutors skills to enable a short (12 week) small group on up to three days a week in each area.
Tutors would be part-time teachers or pre-service teachers who obviously would benefit from using this approach in their schools. They would already have connections to the school communities established or could hope that their connections would become real through ongoing jobs later on.
My beef with this is that CRTs were not specifically mentioned in this. Many experienced teachers with life long skills in these areas were left out of the plan.
I have been a Reading Recovery teacher and a tutor in maths and literacy over many years. I am not employed by a big tutoring company, have had fewer days (just 2) this year as a CRT, not attended the schools that I volunteer for breakfast and after school homework. I am ready and willing to help. even to take my caravan somewhere and stay 12 weeks in a community that needs my help.
I suspect that I am not alone. Just having enough dollars to keep me feed and watered would be enough. That flies in the face of my long-standing union belief that you get fair pay for a fair day's work. But I am happy to contribute to putting the nation back together for our own good.
Yes, I would like pre-service teachers to get $6300 and spend most of it and wouldn't say no to being paid a fair wage if I were employed to share my expertise. I would spend that money in that local community. That would be fair.
