Instrumental Music Service

Mr SPEIRS (Bright) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. What steps is the government taking to ensure that private instrumental music teachers are able to continue teaching students at public schools in 2017, as they do at present?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) (14:39): To bring other members up to date, what has occurred is that for some time private instrumental music teachers have been teaching at DECD schools, some during school hours and largely after school hours.

This has been the source of an industrial dispute for some time, and there was recently a consent decision made that required us to stop having the private tutors offering these subjects during school hours, unless certain steps have been worked through on each school site, which ensures that the Instrumental Music Service alternatives are fully considered beforehand and the employment of a teacher is considered beforehand.

We will be taking the remainder of this school year to work through site by site how that will affect different schools. The intention is absolutely that no student will receive any less music education than they do currently, and we will do everything that is required to reach that end point. I want to stress that most of this occurs after school hours and that isn't affected. What we need to do is work through each school site to make sure that those kids continue to get access to music teachers, whether they are private, whether they are IMS or whether they are school-based teachers, and that's what we will do.