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Department of Truth?


In light of the hearings currently underway at the Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission, IBAC, parents must be wondering how the Department of Education can be trusted. I mean, who would really bill the DEC for their wig? Why would principals purchase coffee machines for their own home? What printing was actually done? Was the turf ever laid? And who will pay for this shocking misappropriation of public education funds?

In response to emerging findings at IBAC Operation Ord,  Gill Callister, head of Victoria's Education Department, relayed a video message to all staff saying 'I think you have every right to have a sense of betrayal' and 'The public deserves to be outraged.'

'I am confident that we can rebuild public trust in who we are and what we do, ' Callister said. But how confident can the Department really be?

The revelations from IBAC go directly to trust-the trust that parents place in a school to care for and educate their child, and the trust that the public places in Department officials to professionally and legally administer taxpayer funds.

 In a recent Sunday Age report 'one Education Department source who is closely watching the hearings and whose education program was denied funding by Mr Allman told The Sunday Age: "Every child at a state school has been betrayed in the most fundamental way."' John Allman has since been sacked as a result of revelations coming from IBAC. He may now be remembered as the bloke who apparently ditched a bundle of DET documents in a bin outside Bunnings.

We have seen with the IBAC inquiry that schools have apparently had funding for programs refused, while the top dogs ordered wine and coffee machines with the Department's money. Parents are learning just how badly they have been let down in matters of financial accountability: lunch clubs, booze, birthday parties, false invoices and travel. Funds were allegedly diverted from schools and siphoned into the pockets of a collection of cronies and family members. 'Banker schools' held funds for a number of schools, millions of dollars of which were apparently misappropriated. New revelations emerge each day. Beyond what has been uncovered, how can we trust that other matters within the Department have been handled with integrity? 
State schools deserve accountability. Photo Anna Sublet

The main concerns this sort of inquiry raises for parents are issues of transparency, accountability, duty of care and the integrity of education on offer at our schools. Did the best person for the job get the job? Are the precious funds being spent wisely? Are our kids getting the best education possible? Such questions are now clouded by suspicions of behaviour which most people would never have considered possible in the Department of Education.

Parents in the recently named Education State should be able to trust DET officials. Not just with money, but that other more important element: educating our children. We have been shown over the course of the IBAC hearings, that in the Department of Education, a commitment to truth and accountability is plainly in need of some revision. It's time to take out the trash.


See also Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie's comment in The Age on the overseas 'business' trips billed to the Department.


Follow #IBACOrd on Twitter

POSTSCRIPT post IBACOrd. The hearings finished on Tuesday 30th June:

IBAC findings lead to crackdown on corrupt practices, more oversight, new audit provisions, and training for principals and school councils, writes the Age. The end of the IBACOrd investigation is not the end of it.

Richard Baker sums up the worth of the investigation.

Analysis by Henrietta Cook, Education Editor at The Age.

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