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.
According to an article in The Conversation, last Thursday morning, the Australian Federal Court delivered a landmark judgement on climate change, marking an important moment in our history. The class action case was brought on behalf of all Australian children and teenagers, against Environment Minister Sussan Ley. Their aim was to prevent Ms Ley from possibly approving the Whitehaven coal mine extension project, near Gunnedah in New South Wales. The Court dismissed the application to stop the Minister from approving the extension. However, before making those orders, the Court found a new duty it never has before: the Environment Minister owes a duty of care to Australia’s young people not to cause them physical harm in the form of personal injury from climate change. It found this harm is real, catastrophic, and – importantly from a legal perspective – “reasonably foreseeable”. In decades past, courts have considered climate change to be a “speculative”, “future problem”. That is no longer the case.
The Australian reports that, in a first for Western Australia, a director of a small shed-building business has just been sentenced to serve actual jail time (not a suspended sentence) after the tragic death of a worker. Broadly speaking, industrial manslaughter is categorised as an offence where an employer owes a duty to a worker, breaches that duty and is reckless or negligent, and by that breach, causes a death. The ACT introduced industrial manslaughter laws way back in 2004, Queensland in 2017, and the Northern Territory in February last year. NSW has an industrial manslaughter Bill before Parliament now, but also beefed up its existing laws before Victoria, in June last year, and these include prison terms. Western Australia is due to implement industrial manslaughter laws next year, but the recent decision was made under existing legislation, which was amended in 2018. The decision clarifies a common misconception; that employers can only be jailed for the deaths of their workers where a special industrial manslaughter law exists.
According to an article in Monash University’s Lens, we’re not good at talking directly about menstruation. Hidden behind our embarrassment is a cultural stigma that results in gender inequality and causes real harm to women, girls and those who menstruate when they miss school, work and recreation activities. Last Friday, on international Menstrual Hygiene Day, the authors considered the challenges that menstruating school students face in Australia. We’ve made progress since 2019, with the removal of GST from sanitary products, and the Victorian Government commenced the rollout of free sanitary product dispensing machines in every Victorian Government school, with NSW and SA set to follow suit in 2021. Studies in the UK and Scotland suggest that providing free products alone is not enough, with feedback from students indicating that there are a range of other factors that influence their attendance at school when menstruating, such as the stigma associated with menstruation, and hygiene practices.
The Age reports that an expert on school closures and child mental health has lambasted the Andrews government for imposing a blanket return to remote learning, arguing it is a disproportionate approach that risks doing long-term emotional harm. Murdoch Children’s Research Institute group leader Fiona Russell led a study of COVID-19 school closures last year that recommended a traffic light system that would permit schools to stay open in areas where community transmission is low. The report recommended that schools be closed “as a last resort” and a staged mitigation strategy be adopted to open where safe, through measures such as physical distancing, masks and class bubbles. Professor Russell said she was extremely disappointed that the report’s recommendations had not been adopted, suggesting chief health officers had failed to put in place a COVID plan for schools six months after the last extended lockdown. Professor Russell said teachers should also be vaccinated as a priority.
The Educator reports that in a new study, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) suggested that a high proportion of Australian students enter primary school lacking in foundational literacy and numeracy skills, leading to educational lapses in Year 4 maths. The Trends in the International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) of 2019 found that Australia ranked 23rd in Year 4 maths among 64 participating countries and eight benchmarking systems. By contrast, Aussie students placed 9th in Year 4 science and 7th in Year 8 maths and science. According to ACER, an analysis of TIMSS student, teacher, and principal questionnaire data suggested an important factor behind Australia’s poor Year 4 maths achievement may be the low proportion of Australian students who begin primary school with foundational literacy and numeracy skills – such as recognising and writing letters of the alphabet, reading and writing some words, recognising numbers higher than 10, and doing simple addition and subtraction.
The Educator reports that across Australia, education departments have been ramping up support for early childhood education as a growing body of research shows the long-term benefits of early childhood education on children’s cognitive development. In April, the Victorian Government launched the “Free Kinder” initiative. This followed an announcement by the NSW Government in November 2020 that it would invest $120 million in funding for community and mobile preschools in 2021. However, leading voices in education have pointed out that while positive work is being done at the state level, the [Federal] government must commit to long-term investment in preschool if any meaningful difference is to be made. On 11 May, this call was heeded when Treasurer Josh Frydenberg handed down the Federal Budget 2021-22 and announced a $2 billion commitment to guarantee every Australian child access to preschool, and for the first time, ongoing Commonwealth funding.
According to an article in The Conversation, framing the controversy as whether or not students should be allowed to take knives to school oversimplifies a complex issue. This issue is not just about knives in schools. It is also about what it means to be a secular school in a multicultural and multi-faith Australia. There is a long history of controversy over wearing religious symbols in Australian schools, both religious and secular. Controversies like the kirpan ban often occur due to a fundamental disagreement about what a secular education looks like. Western secular democracies have taken two different approaches. Australian secular education means a space where religion is one of many options. In France, secular education means it is religion free. Canada, South Africa and the United Kingdom have adopted a similar approach to Australia. Instead of an outright ban, the NSW Government and Australian schools more generally need to find ways to safely accommodate this important religious symbol. This does not mean there should be no restrictions.
The Australian reports that people in NSW could pocket an extra $2000 a year and enjoy a better quality of life if the Berejiklian government agrees to remove a raft of regulatory roadblocks that are hampering growth in key sectors such as education, infrastructure and housing, a report has found. NSW Productivity Commissioner Peter Achterstraat said the agency’s white paper, Rebooting the NSW Economy, contained 60 recommendations aimed at increasing productivity, reducing debt, and providing a pathway to higher wages and better living standards. In preliminary recommendations released last year, the Commission found that despite higher funding and recent reforms in NSW, “student outcomes are getting worse. Students are now more than a year behind their counterparts of 20 years ago. Throwing money at the problem does not work. School reform must stop tinkering at the edges.” The paper says NSW should also focus on boosting vocational education and training by implementing faster tradespeople courses.
The NSW Department of Education has announced that a new consent package is being developed for NSW schools, focusing on support for teachers and engagement with parents. Minister for Education Sarah Mitchell announced the new suite of initiatives on Sunday as the first major step following the Statement of Intent signed by all three school sectors earlier this year. To support teaching of respectful relationships, a new range of curriculum-aligned teaching and learning resources – aligned with the Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) curriculum – will be created for teachers. The Department of Education has also partnered with the Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations of NSW and, as a first step, will hold the first webinar for all public school P&Cs next month. The resources will be available to all teachers in the coming school term. Parents will receive more information on the webinar and survey via their P&C or local school.
The ABC News reports that South Australia's Chief Public Health Officer has approved a plan to bring back Adelaide's international students by letting them serve two weeks' quarantine at Parafield Airport, in the city's north. The City of Salisbury council has told the ABC that existing buildings at the airport will be used to quarantine incoming students. Last year, a plan to bring international students back was quickly dropped when the government faced a backlash over the slow process to repatriate Australian citizens instead. This new plan still needs to be endorsed by the Federal Government. A State Government spokesperson said Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier had approved the international-students-arrival plan because it met all the protocols and requirements of the Commonwealth. The spokesperson said "International education is a significant part of South Australia's economy, contributing over $2 billion in 2019, partly spent with our education providers such as schools and universities, and also providing a boost to our retail, hospitality and tourism sectors."
The CBC News reports that the age of consent varies across the country. In Saskatchewan, for example, anyone age 13 and older can legally choose or refuse a vaccine without parental involvement. Some infectious disease experts say it's important to recognise that vaccine hesitancy exists — whether it's felt by a young person or their parents — and that people under 18 should have direct access to reliable, authoritative information so they can decide for themselves whether the vaccine is safe and necessary. The head of clinical microbiology at Saskatoon's Royal University Hospital, Joseph Blondeau, agreed to field questions from kids about side-effects, booster shots and clinical trials during a livestream hosted by CBC Saskatchewan. When Grade 5 student Sarah Campbell asked him this question — "Can we achieve herd immunity without kids under the age of 12 being vaccinated? — Blondeau said that's not likely and seized the opportunity to encourage all children to be "part of the solution."
The Educator reports that a recent report has found that education was one of the three most breached sectors when it comes to attacks by hackers, prompting experts to call for schools to review their cybersecurity strategies and improve “cyber-hygiene” as a matter of priority. Recently, leading tech bodies from Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK have collaborated to launch an automated threat sharing platform to help educational and research institutions mitigate the risks of cyber attacks. The coalition uses malware information sharing platform (MISP) to inform each other of attacks in real time, increasing the likelihood that they can either put in effective preventative measures or reduce the impact of a cyber attack. The Federal Government is supporting the partnership through the AustCyber Projects Fund, a three-year initiative worth $15m designed to help bolster the country’s cybersecurity industry both domestically and worldwide.
The Hill reports that “Young queer and trans folks, particularly LGBTQ youth of colour, can be significantly harmed by sex education that cultivates stigma and enables hostile school environments”, Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director of Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity (URGE), said in a release. Only seven states and the District of Columbia require LGBTQ inclusive sex education and less than 8.2 percent of LGBTQ students reported ever receiving inclusive sex education in school, according to a new report released by URGE. But the same survey found that 85 percent of parents support discussion of sexual orientation as part of sex education in high school and 78 percent supported it as early as in middle school. LGBTQ Americans were disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic and continue to struggle without access to gender-affirming health care, which research shows could save the lives of transgender teenagers. The report offers recommendations for parents and families, youth, educators, and policymakers.