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 The Educator, more than 54,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported across Australia over the last week – an average of 7,809 cases per day – as states brace for a fourth wave of the virus. NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant recently confirmed that the State was entering its fourth wave. “I can confirm we are entering the fourth wave of COVID. The wave is taking off with some trajectory, it will be quite a steep wave and hopefully the decline will be equally as steep,” Dr Chant told ABC News. Dr Chant said that while modelling suggests that the wave of new cases will start to subside by December, the State is in an “increased risk period”, and she urged people to take protective measures. Despite the insistence of governments that there will not be a repeat of the 2020-2021 lockdowns, the premiers of Queensland and South Australia have also warned that they are entering a fourth wave of the virus as new strains emerge and evade detection.
According to The Educator, Greens Senator Penny Allman-Payne has claimed, “We have elite private schools spending money on plunge pools for headmasters, but the Department of Education can’t tell us where all of those billions of dollars in private sector funding are going and whether they’re being used to support students who need it the most.” However, Catholic and independent schools have hit back over the claims, calling them “unjustified” and “a gross misrepresentation of the facts”. The National Catholic Education Commission’s acting executive director, Sally Egan, said that annual reporting is just “one of the rigorous detailed school and system level educational and financial reports non-government schools must provide”. Independent Schools Australia Chief Executive, Margery Evans, said that independent schools comply with a range of accountability and reporting requirements at both the state and Commonwealth level.
ABC News reports that experts are warning that tech companies need to further step up their efforts to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on their platforms. A parliamentary inquiry is investigating the capability of law enforcement to deal with the exploitation of children and examining the role that technology providers have in assisting authorities. The inquiry was established during the last Parliament before being disbanded – now it has been resurrected with the Federal Police, eSafety Commissioner's office, non-government organisations (NGOs) and government agencies set to appear at a public hearing in Canberra. Acting eSafety Commissioner Toby Dagg will be appearing at the hearing and says that there is an urgent need for tech platforms to be more transparent with authorities. The acting commissioner said that tech companies are getting better, but there's more that tech companies and the Government can be doing.
According to The Educator, on 3 November, the Federal Government announced the Draft National Teacher Workforce Action Plan, which offers $328 million in additional funding to support the teaching profession across Australia. While the response of Australia’s school sectors was largely positive, some experts say that there are a number of questions surrounding the plan’s potential success. One of them is Dr David Roy, a senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle’s School of Education. “All the investments individually are worthwhile, but none of them solve the real issues of an underpaid, over worked, stressed workforce of teachers who are abandoning the profession,” Dr Roy said. Dr Roy says that to raise the status of the profession, teachers need to be supported in their roles and paid a wage that keeps them in the workforce. “We know what we need to do to support teachers in the classroom … Give a 50/50 teaching/admin workload split that can be completed in normal hours.”
According to The Educator, studies show that nearly four out of five Australian children aged 5 to 14 use the internet, and since the COVID-19 pandemic, recent surveys have found that screen time has increased by more than 500 per cent. This statistic might be celebrated as a triumph for digital literacy if it wasn’t for the fact that education is one of the most breached sectors when it comes to cyberattacks. Another problematic factor is the unfortunate reality that cyberbullying is on the rise, exacerbating the mental health issues of many young people across Australia. Kelly Johnson, Country Manager (Australia) for ESET, a software company specialising in cybersecurity, said that schools need to be more careful in monitoring for bullying behaviour, before and especially after anti-bullying activities. Johnson said that ministries and school boards need to ensure that teachers and school staff have the resources that they need to pursue bullying complaints.
According to The Australian, Aboriginal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has branded “cultural training” for teachers a form of racism. In recent Senate estimates hearings, the Coalition senator criticised an “Indigenous cultural competency report’’ produced by the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), warning that it assumed that Aboriginal students could not learn like other children. “I’m surprised by the extensive work that’s been done around cultural competency and cultural safety,’’ she said. “I can’t see it as being of great educational benefit to students, and it seems to make life kind of difficult for teachers at the same time. I’d like to see AITSL use its resources to give teachers pedagogical competency rather than fixate on this separatist idea of cultural competency, which seems to imply that Indigenous students don’t learn the same as non-Indigenous peers,” Price said. “To me that sounds a bit like, well, racism,” she said.
According to the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), under the Teacher Accreditation reforms, NESA is improving the Proficient Teacher accreditation process. From 29 November, Accreditation Supervisors will no longer need to write a supervisor report. Accreditation Supervisors will instead declare whether a teacher’s practice meets the Proficient Teacher Standards.
According to The Educator, the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) recently dealt with a case involving an employee who claimed unfair dismissal when her employer allegedly directed her to resign from employment, or else she would face stricter consequences. The employer challenged the unfair dismissal case, claiming that the employee voluntarily resigned from her job following negotiations with her superior. The worker argued that she was pressured to resign to avoid stricter disciplinary outcomes. The IRC found that the worker was indeed dismissed from her employment. The IRC was satisfied that the worker had little choice but to accept the employer’s proposal. The IRC also said that the worker “could not be regarded as genuinely pleased with the outcome of [the] negotiation” to the point that her resignation could be deemed as having been “given freely and without any undue influence being brought”.
According to The Courier Mail, a Queensland boy whose life was tragically cut short when bitten by a snake has been remembered as a “little hero”, as more details come to light about how his father allegedly ignored his pleas for help. It’s understood that Tristian Frahm was bitten by a snake while he and his father, Kerrod Frahm, 31, were at a friend’s property on 20 November last year. That afternoon, Tristian told Frahm he had been bitten by a snake, but police will allege that Frahm didn’t take his son seriously and didn’t seek medical attention. Police also allege that Frahm and Tristian went to bed sometime later, but that the boy’s life was slowly slipping away. Tristian’s body was found the next morning outside the shed he was sleeping in. It’s understood that Tristian may have gotten out of bed during the night to be sick when he passed away outside. Police and paramedics were called to the property and an investigation commenced.
ABC News reports that a former WA police officer has been sentenced to three years and six months' jail for accessing and possessing "vile, degrading and perverse" child abuse material, which he then discussed and exchanged with users in online chat rooms. Michael Richard Tyler, 39, was a senior constable stationed in the Midwest city of Geraldton last year when the material was found on his laptop computer and on two phones, including one that had been provided to him by the police force. Tyler, who pleaded guilty to 14 charges, maintained that his crimes were not motivated by a sexual interest in children, but Judge Charlotte Wallace rejected his denials, saying that the offences were more serious because the 39-year-old was a serving police officer at the time. Tyler will have to serve two years and three months before he is eligible for release on parole.
ABC News reports that a targeted campaign is being run in Tasmania against plans to ban conversion therapy, including a Liberal MP hosting an upcoming event in Parliament House questioning the move. Survivors of conversion therapies, and LGBTIQA+ groups, argue that the campaign fundamentally misrepresents the proposed laws. Liberal backbencher Lara Alexander will host a Free Speech Alliance event in Parliament House: “Conversion therapy laws – risks and harms?” This comes after the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) ran full-page advertisements in the State's major newspaper saying that the laws would "criminalise parents who question their children's wish to change gender", but this claim has been widely questioned. As with the Victorian laws, criminal charges could only be brought if someone experiences serious injury beyond a reasonable doubt due to conversion practices. Medical practitioners are exempt provided they comply with their code of ethics.
ABC News reports that, six years after Four Corners exposed the brutal treatment of young detainees inside the Northern Territory's notorious Don Dale facility, the program can reveal serious allegations of excessive force in Western Australia's only youth detention centre, Banksia Hill. Officers at Banksia Hill are regularly using the folding-up or hogtie position, which has been banned in Queensland youth detention centres after a review found that it posed a risk of suffocation and death. The Western Australian Department of Justice said in a statement that the restraint was "only authorised for officers to use as a last resort, in the most extreme circumstances, for as little time as possible, where there is a safety risk to staff and other detainees". The Department said that approved restraint techniques "should not cause pain or injury".
According to stuff.co.nz, a teacher who allegedly tied a special needs student to a basketball post and gave another child a wedgie has been struck off the teaching register. Michael Anthony Buckley faced a charge of serious misconduct following 10 allegations against him. They included grabbing a child by the ears and jumping on another child’s back – “as if to ride him” – as the student was on his hands and knees. Buckley’s conduct was witnessed by other staff members who informed the assistant principal and the deputy principal. The school launched an investigation and notified police. Buckley was stood down while the matters were investigated. He was later issued a formal police warning for the offence of assault on a child. Buckley acknowledged that “he had not always shown the professional standard of behaviour expected of him as a teacher”. He characterised some incidents as “boyish horseplay” and said that he never intended to hurt any students.
According to civilrights.org, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Leadership Conference Education Fund, joined by 38 national civil and human rights organisations, called on the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education to update and publish guidance under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to clarify that all students have the right to be free from racial discrimination in the administration of school discipline. “As organisations committed to the fair and appropriate treatment of all children in all settings, we continue to press for changes to policy and practice – and for solutions and strategies to create positive school climates where there are meaningful improvements to school safety, including a positive learning environment, improved student engagement, and healthy interpersonal relationships,” the letter states.
According to the New Zealand Herald, the Education Review Office warns that New Zealand has worse school attendance than other English-speaking countries and many parents don’t care if their children miss classes. In a recent report, the office said that it found that four in 10 parents were comfortable with their child missing a week or more of school per term and a third of students did not see going to school every day as that important. The report found that families were keeping children home due to illness, but also because they were tired, in poor mental health, or being bullied. It recommended that schools stress the importance of regular attendance, alert parents when children were not attending, and make school more enjoyable. The report followed official concern about attendance, which had been falling before the pandemic began, and the introduction earlier this year of targets and a publicity campaign to encourage improvements.