It is with great excitement and hope that teacher-librarians around Australia have received the news of this long-awaited inquiry commisioned by Julia Gillard, Minister for Education. For too long the situation of school libraries and teacher-librarians has been at the mercy of school leaders with no official definition of standards or conditions in many states and no adherence to standards mandated as has been the case in many schools in New South Wales.
This report will bring to light the huge variance in conditions under which teacher-librarians work: from the budgets they are allocated to provide resources that support the school curriculum and student recreational reading, to the duties they are required to perform, to the premises in which they perform these duties and avail these resources, to the time they are allocated for administrative tasks for the purpose of availing these resources and developing whole-school literacy and information skills programs.
In light of the huge amount of building work that is occurring throughout Australia under the government's Building the Education Revolution banner and many of these buildings being school libraries, the question is being asked as to how these buildings will be resourced and who will be in charge of assuring the buildings won't become 'expensive storehouses' but instead thriving hubs of intellectual and creative activity around which the school beats its teaching and learning rhythm.
More information on this very important situation for all Australian schools can be found on this website's home page.
This report will bring to light the huge variance in conditions under which teacher-librarians work: from the budgets they are allocated to provide resources that support the school curriculum and student recreational reading, to the duties they are required to perform, to the premises in which they perform these duties and avail these resources, to the time they are allocated for administrative tasks for the purpose of availing these resources and developing whole-school literacy and information skills programs.
In light of the huge amount of building work that is occurring throughout Australia under the government's Building the Education Revolution banner and many of these buildings being school libraries, the question is being asked as to how these buildings will be resourced and who will be in charge of assuring the buildings won't become 'expensive storehouses' but instead thriving hubs of intellectual and creative activity around which the school beats its teaching and learning rhythm.
More information on this very important situation for all Australian schools can be found on this website's home page.