Teachers in the Australian city of Canberra have changed their mind in regards to a planned boycott that they had intended to hold against the National Literacy and Numeracy tests known as NAPLAN. The body known as the Australian Education Union had been saying that it planned to boycott the tests due to its worry that the test results would be used to create overly simplified tables that would be released on the Government’s web site which had earlier received a great deal of criticism. The change came after Julia Gillard, the federal Education Minister, made a public pledge to involve the teachers’ union in ongoing discussions about the web site. In her letter to the body, Gillard said that changes would be made to the web site and a committee of experts in education would be assembled in order to ensure that the results from the exams were used in a proper way that was beneficial to students and parents alike and might not reflect so poorly on the abilities of Australian teachers. According to the union’s secretary, the group is now telling its members to administer the tests since they have a promise of what they feel is fair representation.
The union was pleased with the victory obtained via its threatened boycott and said the Government was sensible to listen to the teachers and make sure they had a chance to participate in the decision making process. Gilmour went on to say that earlier no effort had been made to include teachers in the web site that was designed to help parents.
