The new communication system announced yesterday by Minister for Education John Della Bosca is part of changes to staffing arrangements to come into effect next week.

With more than 700 qualified teachers looking for permanent teaching positions in public schools in the New England region, the minister has said the email system would improve the notification of staffing positions.

“Letters have been sent out asking teachers to update their details so they can receive emails from the Department of Education and Training when a permanent job opportunity arises,” he said.

However, Mr Parker said while any form of communication that’s more efficient was better, it would not remedy the effects of the new transfer system – allowing schools to advertise vacant permanent teaching positions to attract the best candidates – which comes into force on April 28.

“I saw statistics earlier this week that showed the number of teachers who have put in for a transfer this year compared to last year has jumped from about 50 to more than 600,” he said.

“This shows there is significant concern among teachers relating to this new transfer system.”

The statistics Mr Parker referred to were for transfer applications submitted in the six weeks leading up to the end of term one last year as compared to this.

An announcement this week from the Minister that the centralised staffing system was to remain alongside the new incentive-based transfer system still, according to Mr Parker, lacked detail.

“The issue before and still is the details as to how the incentive scheme was going to work,” he said.

“We still don’t have specific details, particularly in relation to those difficult to staff areas.”

Mr Parker said as long the scheme lacked detail, teachers would continue to oppose the changes.

“We’ve had a fairly calm period of industrial relations with the Government in recent years,” he said.

“Our last wages deal – which expires at the end of this year – did not necessitate any industrial dispute whatsoever.

“However, failure to implement the appropriate course of action now by the minister augers poorly for this year’s wage negotiations.”

Mr Parker said sending out a couple of press releases over the school holidays would not deter the industrial action scheduled for May 22.

“What the minister needs to do is understand the level of feeling of the state’s 65,000 teachers,” he said.

“If he is unable to address the situation, disputation will go on.”