Unions rubbish Pyne over teachers claim

PUBLIC and private school teachers unions reject a claim by Christopher Pyne that as many as one in seven should be removed.

PUBLIC and private school teachers unions yesterday rejected a claim by opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne that as many as one in seven of their members should be removed from the classroom.

The Australian Education Union and the Independent Education Union were joined by School Education Minister Peter Garrett in ridiculing the figures raised by Mr Pyne, who said 5 per cent to 15 per cent of teachers were not up to scratch.

With almost 291,000 teachers in the nation, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Mr Pyne is suggesting that between about 14,550 and 43,650 teachers are not up to scratch.

Mr Garrett said Mr Pyne pretended he was the teacher's best friend but in fact had no respect for the profession, citing Coalition plans to cut $425 million from Labor's teacher quality scheme.

"It's just another example of Pyne's reckless, ideological approach," he said.

"Making sweeping statements criticising the teacher profession with no evidence to back up his numbers exposes Christopher Pyne as a glib ideologue, whose grasp of the facts is severely limited."

A spokesman for Mr Pyne said the figure was based on conversations and anecdotal evidence from principals, unions and state governments over the past few years around the nation.

"The ability to manage underperforming staff in the workplace is a necessary and common sense element of empowering principals and school boards to run government schools," Mr Pyne said. "The principals I've met regularly raise the issue with me and so I think it is important enough to address within the framework of our plans for school autonomy."

AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said Mr Pyne's claim revealed that the Coalition's real agenda in education was to cut costs.

IEU federal secretary Chris Watt said it was an "extraordinarily silly" figure, and rather than "manage" teachers out of the classroom, supporting them to improve was a better policy.