A small group of protesters demonstrated outside Albury MP Greg Aplin’s office on Monday in support of six sacked teachers at the Mannus Correctional Facility in Tumbarumba, which they say is already reeling from the forced amalgamation of its shire.
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NSW Teachers Federation country organiser John Pratt has been in contact with the six staff, who received redundancy notices last week and will be dismissed on December 23.
“There is a sense of resignation, and a sense of abandonment on behalf of their local member Greg Aplin,” he said.
But Mr Aplin rejected this, and said he was in close talks with senior correctional education officer Debbie Harris, who has worked at Mannus for 20 years.
“I have taken up the cause that Ms Harris raised with me and she's been well informed with correspondence,” he said.
The Baird government wants to privatise the work of prison teachers, and Mr Aplin argued it was not about cost-cutting but improving the model of service delivery to inmates.
Registered training organisations would be required to offer programs which match the current job market, such as construction or metal work.
Minister for Corrections David Elliot had stressed corrective services teachers accrued 11 weeks of leave annually and, of the hours that were potentially available for teaching in 2015, only 62 per cent were used.
Mr Aplin said prisoners themselves did not take holidays, so there would not be less teaching to inmates.
But Mr Pratt said his union was informed TAFE courses in the prison would be cut from 474 hours to 300 hours annually. “Those people in Mannus will be returning to our communities, and it’s far better to have them equipped for it,” he said.
An education services co-ordinator role at Mannus was being advertised, and Mr Aplin encouraged existing staff to apply for roles the RTO may advertise.
Those people in Mannus will be returning to our communities, and it’s far better to have them equipped for it.
- NSW Teachers Federation's John Pratt