As members may know there has been a re-organisation on the EALD team in the Department of Education. While numerous members of SA TESOL are not directly employed by the SA Education Department the decision to reorganise does have an effect on everyone. The SA TESOL Executive felt that decisions had been made without consultation of SA TESOL members or other relevant teachers and stakeholders.  President Stella Emberson wrote a letter to John Gardner Minister of Education in late November. She received a comprehensive reply but that letter did not address the question of why wider consultation had not occurred nor whether there would be any opportunity to consider contingency plans if a review of this re-structuring showed no learning improvement for EALD learners.

You can read the letter from Stella here: Letter to John Gardner

The Minister’s response is attached here: response from Min Gardner

ACTA has made a submission to the VET review, drawing extensively on responses to the ACTA Adult ESL survey of AMEP and SEE teachers. To read the submission and get a taste of responses to the survey, go to the ACTA website – http://www.tesol.org.au/

Comments are welcome.