The information in the Weekly Wrap is aggregated from other news sources to provide you with news that is relevant to the education sector across Australia and worldwide. Each paragraph is a summary of the subject matter covered in the particular news article. The information does not necessarily reflect the views of CompliSpace.
The Age reports that all Australian high school students will be taught about coercion in sexual relationships and teenagers will rehearse how to seek, give and deny consent under a new national health curriculum that has the support of the country’s education ministers. The changes, which all education ministers have agreed to but are yet to sign off on, will see explicit references to teaching consent and respectful relationships adopted into the curriculum from foundation to year 10 in an age-appropriate way. A summary of the proposed changes include revisions to the Health and Physical Education component of the curriculum to address the role of gender, power, coercion and disrespect in abusive or violent relationships. Government sources who have seen the curriculum told The Age that the major change in the final draft has involved making that content compulsory rather than optional. ACARA is preparing a final revised version of the curriculum for approval by the ministers at a meeting in April. Chief executive David de Carvalho told estimates that states and territories could possibly begin implementing it from 2023 onwards.
According to an article in The Educator, private school funding in Australia has increased five times faster than that for public schools, a new study shows. The analysis, conducted by Save Our Schools, is based on the Productivity Commission’s report on government services, highlights the growing funding gap between the two school sectors. According to the data, which compared combined Commonwealth and state government funding for schools in 2009-10 to 2019-20, funding for private schools has jumped by more than $3,000 per student over the last ten years, while per student funding in public schools rose by just $703. The analysis also found that while Commonwealth funding of public school students increased by $1,181 between 2010-2020, state government funding dropped over this period by $478 per student. “When you take account of inflation, the funding hasn’t kept up with costs, so that means they’ve been cutting the real resources in public schools – and this has been happening for a decade right across the states,” SOS national convenor, Trevor Cobbold, said. “At a state level it’s also been disastrous for public schools, because state governments are the primary funders of public schools and on average, across Australia, they have cut funding.”
The Australian reports that Indigenous leader Noel Pearson has rejected a “torpedo hit” on his signature Good to Great Schools Australia literacy program, accusing Nine newspapers of misrepresenting departmental advice to a federal minister over the scheme’s funding. Mr Pearson says the “lurid” treatment of the weekend story in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age damaged his work on behalf of disadvantaged remote Aboriginal communities. The article claims “millions of taxpayer dollars were being poured into” Good to Great Schools against advice to then education minister Dan Tehan that funding should be stopped. It also accused a senior manager of the not-for-profit of bullying and humiliating staff, leading to an exodus of people that compromised operations. Writing in The Australian, Mr Pearson defended the program’s outcomes. Mr Pearson acknowledges that results were mixed – “across Catholic and state schools. Across Western Australia and the Northern Territory. At schools with higher attendance and lower. At schools with stable teaching forces and those with annual turnover.” But with all these qualifications, the evaluation found that the program had succeeded in meeting its goals to lift student achievement and to improve teacher skills, he maintains.
According to the Australian Government eSafety Commissioner, eSafety is looking for 20 young people aged from 13 to 24 years to be part of an Online Safety Youth Advisory Council to help inform eSafety’s policies and programs for young people and provide advice to the Government about their experiences online. eSafety will facilitate and support the Youth Advisory Council to share their vision of what a safer online world could look like. In doing this, eSafety is committed to amplifying the voice of the Council and providing the opportunity for meaningful input to policies and programs. eSafety is the world’s first government agency dedicated to keeping people safer online, as Australia’s independent regulator for online safety. eSafety works under the pillars of prevention, protection and proactive change. Applications are open until 14 March 2022, with no experience of working in a Youth Advisory Council required. They welcome applications from young people with a diverse range of experiences, social and economic backgrounds, genders, and cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
The Brisbane Times reports that the NSW Teachers Federation has demanded the state government back down on a planned overhaul of suspension and expulsion policies in public schools, threatening industrial action if forced to implement the changes. Three-hundred teachers and principals belonging to the federation’s council met on Saturday afternoon and unanimously agreed that members would not change their current suspension or expulsion policies until further notice, citing workload and safety concerns. Schools pressured to implement the new policy were authorised to call a union meeting and “commit to an appropriate course of political, media, WHS and industrial action”. Parents and children’s advocates argued the new policy was a welcome shift away from a heavy-handed and punitive approach that did little to set misbehaving students back on course. Under the policy, to begin next term, principals can only send students home immediately if there is a threat to safety. Education Minister Sarah Mitchell has promised extra resources for schools to manage student behaviour, such as additional training and access to behaviour specialists.
Bega District News reports that the number of students at some Sydney schools is surging beyond triple capacity, with claims playgrounds are filled with demountables in western Sydney. Ropes Crossing Public School in Blacktown is equipped for 231 students, but in 2022 has enrolled 899 students - 389 per cent over the school's capacity. At Meadowbank Public School 590 students will attend this year despite the school having the capacity to teach just 162 students - running at 364 per cent of the school's capacity. The story is the same in Carlingford West, at 332 per cent of capacity, and Parramatta East Public School, at 303 per cent. The Department of Education data set provided by the state Labor opposition also shows many schools have upped the number of enrolments by hundreds of students year-on-year. A $2 billion pipeline of investment projects is underway to address future demand in western Sydney, a spokesperson for the NSW Department of Education said.
According to an article in The Educator, a new model for South Australian school students will ensure they have a voice in policy and decision making that is led by young people themselves. Under the state-wide initiative a body of up to 100 students in Years 10, 11 and 12 from across the state will work together to create genuine, student-led change within their own communities. South Australian Student Representative Council (SA SRC) members will be equipped with the trust, resources, skills, and confidence they’ll need to set priorities and actions for making change focused on issues they perceive as being critical and requiring urgent action, including inequality, future job opportunities, climate change and mental health. South Australia’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, Helen Connolly, said that by “coordinating and centralising” issues raised by young people – including those that go beyond the school environment – the CCYP will be able to advocate for meaningful change amongst policy and decision-makers at the state level on behalf of SA young people.
The Examiner reports that over the next few years, it is hoped that Grade 10 classes across Tasmania will have access to greater education around women's health. Run by the Pelvic Pain Foundation of Australia, the PPEP Talk Schools Program is a dedicated program to support teenagers who suffer from severe period pain as well as educating their peers. Launched in South Australia in 2018, the program incorporates the latest science about painful periods, pelvic pain and endometriosis and aims to educate, inform and remove the stigma. In 2021, federal government funding was announced to expand the PPEP Talks program into all Australian states by matching state government funding. Pelvic Pain Foundation of Australia executive director Kirsty Mead said the aim was to offer PPEP Talks to all Australian state, independent and Catholic schools and said that she hoped all students would have access to the course as part of their health education. Ms Mead said the program was officially launching in its first Tasmanian school next week, but she couldn't wait to see PPEP Talk offered statewide.
The West Australian reports that anti-vaxxers have used the Education Department’s email system to impersonate public schools’ boss Lisa Rodgers, forcing her to send a notice to all principals to reinforce her support for vaccinations. Police were notified after an email purporting to be from the Education Department director-general was sent to multiple schools urging teachers to talk students out of getting a COVID-19 jab. Ms Rodgers said “relevant authorities” were investigating the “deeply disturbing incident” in a note to all principals several hours after the fake email was circulated on Wednesday. The bogus message claiming to be from Ms Rodgers read that because she was a mother as well as a director-general she was concerned about the vaccinations of children in state schools. The message urged teachers to inform students about potential complications. The fake email claimed that Ms Rodgers’ daughter had experienced a bad reaction after a COVID jab and suffered “pericarditis, a clot in her lung and pleurisy”. The real Ms Rodgers said her daughter had actually had three doses of the vaccine and was “very well”.
According to a media release from the Government of Western Australia, already-enrolled international students can now enter Western Australia, as part of the continued review of border controls based on the latest health advice. This allows international students already enrolled in a Western Australian primary school, secondary school, university, college, technical college, or other further education course to enter WA as of Tuesday 15 February 2022. This applies to those who are just starting their course and those who have been enrolled and studied onshore or offshore in previous years. Students can either fly direct into Western Australia within the Australian Government-set cap, or indirectly by transiting through another state or territory. Entry is subject to conditions such as seven days of self-quarantine at a suitable premises in Western Australia with the same requirements for household members at the self-quarantine premises.
Reuters reports that Remington Arms will pay $73 million to the families of five children and four adults killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, marking the first time a gunmaker has agreed to a major settlement over a mass shooting in the United States. Twenty students and six adults were killed on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, by gunman Adam Lanza, who used a Remington Bushmaster AR-15 rifle to shoot his way into the Sandy Hook Elementary School after killing his mother at home. Remington Arms will pay $73 million to the families and release all the discovery and disposition material to the public. The settlement will be paid through insurance policies, lawyers for the families said in a statement. The nine families sued in 2014 and spent years in the courts trying to hold Remington liable, despite a U.S. law that protects gunmakers and dealers from most civil litigation and two bankruptcy filings by Remington. The Sandy Hook families found a way around that legal protection for gunmakers by claiming that Remington's marketing of firearms contributed to the massacre.
According to an article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), women in the United States are much more likely to become mothers as teens than those in other rich countries. Teen births are particularly likely to be reported as unintended, leading to debate over whether better information on sex and contraception might lead to reductions in teen births. The authors contribute to this debate by providing causal evidence at the population level. Their causal identification strategy exploits county-level variation in the timing and receipt of federal funding for more comprehensive sex education and data on age-specific teen birth rates at the county level constructed from birth certificate natality data covering all births in the United States. The results show that federal funding for more comprehensive sex education reduced county-level teen birth rates by more than 3 per cent. The findings thus complement the mixed evidence to date from randomised control trials on teen pregnancies and births by providing population-level causal evidence that federal funding for more comprehensive sex education led to reductions in teen births.