‘System flaw’ sees teachers stood down


A system flaw has led to several Canberra teachers temporarily being stood down after having their accreditation revoked.

On Wednesday, the Access Canberra system failed to renew the working with vulnerable people checks of seven teachers in time, causing them to be stood down for one day.

ACT Education Minister, Shane Rattenbury, said that while the clerical error had caused an inconvenience, the problem had now been resolved and none of the teachers involved lost any pay.

“A situation did occur this week where seven teachers were temporarily stood down because their working with vulnerable people checks were not up to date,” he told the ABC.

“This was a problem with Access Canberra, [they] have now put a fix in place and apologised to those teachers and I appreciate the quick work.”

Rattenbury added that a fix had been put in place to avoid any repeat of the error.

“This has identified a bit of a flaw in the system, but Access Canberra have now quickly moved to rectify it, and I don't expect to see any repeat of this situation,” he said.

Access Canberra has also changed the renewal process following the incident, so applicants were automatically sent an extension letter.