Recent news reports:
- Faithful few left to keep Dewey alive in a download world by Natalie Craig in the Sunday Age, May 2, 2010. It begins: Rudd's billions are building thousands of school libraries. But, who will staff them?...More than 90 per cent of teacher-librarians in Australia are believed to be over 40, compared to half of teachers generally. Many teacher-librarians also retire early because of a lack of promotional opportunities. Meanwhile, there are just four tertiary courses nationally to train them, from a peak of 15, and only about 100 graduates a year.
- Teacher librarian numbers in 'death spiral'. Posted April 30, 2010 13:03:00 on abc.net.au. It begins: There is concern over a massive decline in the number of teacher librarians in Tasmanian schools. A Parliamentary Committee hearing in Hobart has been told there are just 29 qualified teacher librarians across Tasmania's 215 primary and secondary schools. That figure is down from 109, 15 years ago.
Australian Government inquiry into school libraries and teacher librarians.
- Inquiry home page
- Read some of the 384 submissions - click here
- Anne Weaver's submission (she is the TL at All Hallows' School in Brisbane and her excellent blog is Reading Power).
- Transcripts of the public hearings will be placed on this page
- After the final report has been tabled in Parliament, you can find it on this page.
Death spiral? Faithful few? I started work as a teacher librarian in my twenties, and now find myself in that 90%. Current research shows over and over again the positive impact on learning that teacher librarians have. It will be most interesting to see the outcome of the Australian government inquiry.
Cheers
Ruth
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