South Australia has moved ahead with education reforms aimed at improving school performance, but the details are yet to be announced. The changes, which will affect both government and non-government schools, were announced by Minister for Education and Child Development, Jennifer Rankine, in a press release. Among the most notable changes are performance reviews that will be administered to all schools.

The changes announced include:

• higher performance targets for schools;
• stronger oversight of individual school performance (reviews every four years);
• closer monitoring of poor performing schools;
• more sophisticated data collection techniques; and
• annual partnership reviews which involve clusters of schools having their region's performance assessed by the Department of Education (with weaker performing schools being supported by strong performing schools).

Under the plan, parents, students and school staff will also have a say in the performance of their school.

In relation to the external reviews, Minister Rankine is quoted by ABC News as saying 'we're not talking months, we're talking about an external reviewer and a high performing principal going in, talking with [staff, the principal, and parents], looking at the data... benchmarking those, setting the performance targets, and also monitoring any improvement'.

ABC News further reports that the reforms will be introduced over the next four years, starting with a program of 135 randomly selected primary and high schools.

The Minister has not yet released details of the regulatory changes required to implement these reforms, or the details of any scheme. At the time of publication, no response was received to questions sent by School Governance to the Department of Education. Even a careful reading of the Minister's press release reveals no specific details, regulatory changes or guidance on how and when schools will be required to meet these new obligations.

Whilst the Department's press release is to be commended for its focus on performance, it should be considered in the context of the regulatory limbo in which non-government schools currently exist in SA, which sees SA being the only Australian State or Territory which does not prescribe a clear set of registration standards for non-government schools.

The history to this is that the Education and Early Childhood Services (Registration and Standards) Act 2011 (SA) (Act), which came into force in January 2012, created the Education and Early Childhood Services Registration and Standards Board (the ‘Board’).  The role of the Board is to provide regulation of the provision of education and care services in South Australia, ensuring quality education services and maintaining high standards of competence and conduct by providers. It is responsible for approving early childhood services and registering schools.

Notwithstanding its mandate, it appears that to date the Board has been focused on the bedding down of the Early Childhood National Quality Framework and has yet to turn its attention to the development of registration guidelines for non-government schools.

When contacted in September 2014 by School Governance, about the expected timing of the introduction of the regulations, the Board could not give any indication of the timing of their introduction.