Teachers vote to boycott skills tests over schools league tables

THE Australian Education Union federal conference has unanimously voted to boycott the national literacy and numeracy tests.

THE Australian Education Union federal conference has unanimously voted to boycott the national literacy and numeracy tests.

The vote, passed by the union's 150 delegates today in Melbourne, means that the country's 180,000 teachers will refuse to open the test papers for the next round of testing in May.

The union has taken the stand as a protest against the results being used in league tables to compare one school against another.

AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos told the conference today the creation and publication of league tables represented one of the greatest challenges to the profession in the history of education in Australia, and united it in a way never before seen.

The union has given the federal government until April 12 to heed the calls of parents, teachers and principals to introduce appropriate measures to stop league tables, including possible federal legislation.

The AEU will meet again on that date to determine whether to push ahead with the boycott.

“We have made it clear that, in the absence of measures to stop the further creation and publication of league tables, we cannot and will not co-operate in the implementation of this year's national test,” Mr Gavrielatos said “We believe that this action can be averted. We hope that this action is avert...all we're asking for is for the government to introduce measures to stop league tables.”

- with AAP