Teachers told to go home

The Australian Education Union state branch said that the teachers may still be paid after the Education Department agreed to review their cases.

Union president Terry Polglase said that the teachers had begun the school year but were then told to leave their school until they renewed their registration. He said concerns they would not be paid had caused considerable stress.

``The department (of Education) however, after union intervention and fruitful discussion, has agreed to review each case individually and where the teacher has been in attendance they will be reimbursed,'' he said.

He commended department deputy secretary Andrew Finch for working on the issue.

Mr Polglase said that it did not have an exact number of the teachers affected as some may not have contacted them yet and others may not be union members, but the number had increased on previous years.

He said that the issue arose when the department altered its registration renewal procedure to email contact only last year and some teachers unwittingly ignored or deleted the emails.

Previously teachers were informed their registration, for one to five years, was due for renewal by mail.

When a school is contacted about a lack of registration renewal by one of its teachers, the individual is required to leave the class and stop teaching until they have addressed the problem.

Registration renewal takes about three days.

Any hours worked by a teacher while unregistered would not be paid under the Teacher Registration Act.