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Perth Now
13-05-2025
- General
- Perth Now
Shocking rate of kids skipping school
School attendance levels have dipped for another year, with the number of students attending classes falling below pre-Covid-19 levels. Across Australia, the attendance rate for students in primary schools and high schools was 88.3 per cent, a slight dip from the same period the year before. However, attendance levels – the percentage of students with attendance at or above 90 per cent – show a different story. School attendance levels have dipped for another year. NewsWire / Sarah Marshall Credit: News Corp Australia According to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the 2024 attendance levels of students attending at least 90 per cent of their classes across government, Catholic and independent schools were 59.8 per cent – a sharp decline from the 74.9 per cent attendance levels in 2019. School attendance levels vary in each state, though attendance rates are generally higher in big cities compared with regional areas. There's also a significant gap with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students attending school compared with non-Indigenous students, though these figures have narrowed slightly by 0.7 percentage points. The pandemic played a role in these figures, but it's not entirely to blame. NewsWire / Nikki Short Credit: News Corp Australia A Department of Education spokesman said the increase in students wagging classes was concerning, and 'every day of school missed is a day of learning lost'. 'Regular school attendance is critical to successful student outcomes and engagement,' they told NewsWire. While the pandemic had a role to play in this figure, they said the 'national school attendance rates have trended downwards over the past decade'. 'The Covid-19 pandemic further exacerbated this trend,' they said, adding 'while national student attendance rates have improved from the lows of the pandemic, they are yet to return to pre-Covid levels'. 'They are not at an all time low,' they said. Students have not been attending as many classes over the last decade. NewsWire / Sarah Marshall Credit: News Corp Australia There were several reasons for the sudden decline in attendance levels, including 'anxiety and worry', Australian Primary Principals Association president Angela Falkenberg told NewsWire. 'Schools look at each student and their family to understand the reasons for non-attendance,' she said, explaining schools will complete 'conversations' with kids and parents to explain their absences. While she said it was 'vital' for schools to work with parents and families to ensure children were in class, Ms Falkenberg admitted that this 'may not always be a reality'. 'Some (truancy) can be due to anxiety and worry which can result in poor sleep,' she said. Another reason why students may not be able to attend school comes down to issues at home, including 'family discord, poor mental health, food and housing insecurity and even transport to school'. 'Some might be due to children's friendship struggles,' they said. 'Schools can work with the child on managing conflict (or) joining in a game.' Anxiety, stress and family issues may contribute to children skipping school. NewsWire / Sarah Marshall Credit: News Corp Australia In April 2024, the Senate Education and Employment References Committee issued an inquiry into the national trend of school refusal and related matters. Following the inquiry, the Department of Education spokesman said the education ministers 'agreed that wellbeing for learning and engagement is one of the priority areas of the agreements, and reforms include initiatives which support student engagement in learning, for example through greater student participation, attendance, inclusion and/or enhanced school-family engagement'.
West Australian
13-05-2025
- General
- West Australian
‘Trending downwards': Shock as school attendance drops below pre-Covid levels
School attendance levels have dipped for another year, with the number of students attending classes falling below pre-Covid-19 levels. Across Australia, the attendance rate for students in primary schools and high schools was 88.3 per cent, a slight dip from the same period the year before. However, attendance levels – the percentage of students with attendance at or above 90 per cent – show a different story. According to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority ( ACARA ), the 2024 attendance levels of students attending at least 90 per cent of their classes across government, Catholic and independent schools were 59.8 per cent – a sharp decline from the 74.9 per cent attendance levels in 2019. School attendance levels vary in each state, though attendance rates are generally higher in big cities compared with regional areas. There's also a significant gap with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students attending school compared with non-Indigenous students, though these figures have narrowed slightly by 0.7 percentage points. A Department of Education spokesman said the increase in students wagging classes was concerning, and 'every day of school missed is a day of learning lost'. 'Regular school attendance is critical to successful student outcomes and engagement,' they told NewsWire. While the pandemic had a role to play in this figure, they said the 'national school attendance rates have trended downwards over the past decade'. 'The Covid-19 pandemic further exacerbated this trend,' they said, adding 'while national student attendance rates have improved from the lows of the pandemic, they are yet to return to pre-Covid levels'. 'They are not at an all time low,' they said. There were several reasons for the sudden decline in attendance levels, including 'anxiety and worry', Australian Primary Principals Association president Angela Falkenberg told NewsWire. 'Schools look at each student and their family to understand the reasons for non-attendance,' she said, explaining schools will complete 'conversations' with kids and parents to explain their absences. While she said it was 'vital' for schools to work with parents and families to ensure children were in class, Ms Falkenberg admitted that this 'may not always be a reality'. 'Some (truancy) can be due to anxiety and worry which can result in poor sleep,' she said. Another reason why students may not be able to attend school comes down to issues at home, including 'family discord, poor mental health, food and housing insecurity and even transport to school'. 'Some might be due to children's friendship struggles,' they said. 'Schools can work with the child on managing conflict (or) joining in a game.' In April 2024, the Senate Education and Employment References Committee issued an inquiry into the national trend of school refusal and related matters. Following the inquiry, the Department of Education spokesman said the education ministers 'agreed that wellbeing for learning and engagement is one of the priority areas of the agreements, and reforms include initiatives which support student engagement in learning, for example through greater student participation, attendance, inclusion and/or enhanced school-family engagement'.
The Age
22-04-2025
- Politics
- The Age
Counting controversy: IPA sticks to claim that maths curriculum is 3500 pages long
Colleen Harkin, director of the Institute of Public Affairs' schools program and research fellow, recently alarmed the good people of LinkedIn by posting four bulging binders full of Australia's maths curriculum, next to Singapore's slimline curriculum. Harkin explained that Australia's prep to year 10 maths curriculum is '3500 pages long – bursting with ideology: climate change, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders History and Culture, Sustainability, social justice etc ( yes – this is in maths).' According to Harkin, Singapore's maths curriculum is about 80 pages long with 'no ideological pollution'. Astounding. Shocking. Also untrue, according to the body that writes the curriculum. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority says the foundation-to-year-10 maths curriculum is only 273 pages long, including optional resources. The core content – the achievement standards and content descriptions – comes in at a whopping 33 pages. In the face of doubters, Harkin posted to LinkedIn that she would be sticking to her guns: 'Unsurprisingly, some people cannot believe the image of our math curriculum. (See my immediate past post). I don't blame them.' Harkin later told CBD that it would not be honest to suggest that the national curriculum is straightforward. More layers of the onion
The Guardian
04-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Jason Clare says the deal to fully fund NSW public schools is a decade overdue. But it'll take a decade to fully arrive
The education minister didn't mince his words when fronting the media on Tuesday to announce the commonwealth had done a deal with New South Wales to fully fund public schools for the first time. 'This is the big one,' Jason Clare said. 'New South Wales is the biggest education system in the country and this is the biggest investment in public education by an Australian government, ever.' After more than seven months of squabbling, all the states and territories except Queensland have finally agreed to a pathway that would fully fund public schools and fulfil the promise of Gonski – with a caveat. But more on that later. In practical terms, it will mean each student will be funded to 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). The SRS is a mechanism, devised by the Gonski review, which estimates how much funding a school requires to meet the full educational needs of its students and reduce the impact of social disadvantage on educational outcomes. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email It is a fixed baseline amount (currently $13,977 for primary students and $17,565 for secondary students), with additional loadings for priority cohorts – like First Nations students or students with disabilities – as well as disadvantaged schools. The new funding, to be rolled out from next year, will be tied to education reforms and targets, including individualised support, evidence-based teaching practices, phonics and numeracy checks, as well as mental health and wellbeing support. Most politicians would agree that fully funding public schools is a no-brainer. 'The bottom line is it should've been done over a decade ago,' Clare said on Tuesday. What's been at issue for so long is who should stump up the money. Currently, under a model enacted by the Turnbull government , the commonwealth contributes 20% of the total funding to public schools, while states are required to fund public schools at 75% – leaving a 5% gap. Data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (Acara) data shows that 98% of private schools are overfunded according to the SRS. The commonwealth initially proposed a 2.5% increase to public schools, to bring its total funding contribution to 22.5%, with state governments to match the rest – excluding the Northern Territory, which will have its contribution doubled to 40%. The ACT, Western Australia, the NT and Tasmania were happy to sign up to the deal, but the biggest states held out, pushing the federal government to increase their funding to 25% because it had a comparatively larger pool to draw from. With the clock ticking, the prime minister eventually intervened, telling the National Press Club in January that Labor would concede to the demands of the major states and ink deals with Victoria and South Australia to deliver the 5% increase. Sign up to Morning Mail Our Australian morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion A deal with Queensland is unlikely. The state's education minister said it had until December of this year, when the current funding agreement expired, to negotiate – despite an election looming sometime in the next two months. But here's the caveat. Under the terms of the deal, it will take until 2034 for every student at every school to reach that full funding. The pace of the rollout means another generation of public school students will go through their entire schooling without the baseline level of funding in most states and territories. Only the Australian Capital Territory has already reached the SRS. Still, Labor can say they got the deal done, and can go to the election with a positive story to tell on education, which, like health, is a core issue for the party. Education unions have been clear that they will be campaigning hard for Labor. As with Medicare, the opposition has pledged to match public school funding arrangements Labor has forged with states and territories. With a mass exodus from the public school sector continuing, and education gaps remaining persistent, the stakes are above politics.
The Guardian
28-02-2025
- General
- The Guardian
The 50 public schools in Australia where parents pay the highest voluntary fees
Many parents with children in public school are paying thousands of dollars a year in fees and contributions at levels rivalling the compulsory fees paid to attend some private schools, leading to concerns the principle of a free, government-funded education is being undermined. At the 50 public schools where parents paid the most in fees and contributions, parents paid an average of more than $1,800 a student, an analysis of the latest funding data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, provided to Guardian Australia by the Greens, reveals. While government schools in Australia are tuition-free, they can request that parents pay voluntary contributions or donate funding towards the curriculum or extracurricular activities. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Seven of the top 15 schools were fully or partly selective, despite selective schools comprising about 1% of government schools nationwide. Canning college in Western Australia had the highest parental contributions, at about $20,000 a year, largely attributed to tuition fees for a high number of international students. The Conservatorium high school, a specialist music high school in Sydney, ranked second overall, receiving an average of $5,928 a student in 2023. Its fees are largely attributed to instrument tuition. More than six in 10 of its students (65%) are in the top quarter of socio-educational advantage nationwide. The Queensland academy for health sciences and the Queensland academy for science mathematics and technology, both selective schools, ranked third and fourth respectively, with parents contributing an average of more than $3,700 a year. Also in the top 10 was Paradise primary school in South Australia ($3,701); selective boys school Melbourne high ($3,627); the Queensland academy for creative industries ($3,602), also a selective school; the Western Australian college of agriculture in Cunderdin ($3,443); and Mitchelton state high school in Queensland ($3,299). Nineteen of the top 50 schools were in Victoria, and of those, 17 in Melbourne, including the affluent areas of Albert Park, Elwood and Brighton. Thirteen were in South Australia and nine were in New South Wales, including eight selective schools in Sydney. Queensland and Western Australia had five schools each in the top 50. Compared with other states, NSW has the highest proportion of selective institutions, with 42 fully and partially selective high schools for 'high potential and gifted students'. Its education department website notes selective schools, except for agricultural campuses, don't charge attendance fees but schools may ask parents to pay for 'curriculum-related resources', such as textbooks and materials, or to cover the costs of school excursions or sports. The fees at many of the schools in the top 50 rival some Catholic schools and independent institutions. The Catholic schools Parramatta diocese, for instance – which represents 80 schools across fast-growing areas in Western Sydney and the Blue Mountains – charges $2,445 for year 7 and 8 students, ranging up to a maximum of $3,459 for Year 11 and 12 students. And while the average tuition fee for independent schools in NSW is about $15,000, according to research published in the Conversation, 12% of schools charged less than $5,000 a student in 2024. Associate professor in education at Deakin University, Emma Rowe, said there had been a 'privatisation creep' into public schools that was normalising parents paying for supposedly free education. 'It's such a problem on so many different levels,' she said. 'Public education should be free and high quality but funding is so stretched, it relies on private forms of funding from parents, which causes a huge amount of inequity.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion She said inequity was particularly pronounced when comparing the selective sector – which typically catered to more affluent families. Her research has consistently found a 'big gap' between fees at select entry institutions and their counterparts. '[Select entry schools] typically cater to quite advantaged student cohorts … often parents have high education levels and come from professional backgrounds, and fees are much higher,' she said. For parents, a voluntary contribution of a few thousand dollars was a 'huge win' compared with the $30,000 a year that private schools may require. 'The more selective a school system is, the more segregated it will be,' she said. 'Parents often see the low fees as a low-cost private school. But it means we have highly segregated public schools that cater to a very small proportion of population.' The Greens spokesperson on primary and secondary education, Senator Penny Allman-Payne, said public school 'should be free', but families were having to 'dig deeper and deeper' as fees increased. 'Decades of underfunding means that 98% of public schools don't have their bare minimum resources. This is driving up competition and costs within the public system,' she said. On average, the total amount parents were paying in public school fees and contributions nationally jumped from $409 in 2022 to $465 in 2023, representing a 14% increase, or $1.2bn in total, the Acara data showed. This followed a 20.5% increase from 2021 to 2022, with an average of $337 paid in 2021. Finnish education expert Pasi Sahlberg said public schools' websites where schools described parent payment arrangements showed financial contributions that were often explained in a way that 'may make some parents think that if they don't pay these contributions, their kids might have lower quality teaching and learning in that school'. In contrast, it is against the law for public schools in Finland to ask for any funding from parents, including for school trips or similar activities. 'In real public education environments in Australia, all schools should have what they need to give every student the best possible quality education,' Sahlberg said. 'As long public schools' funding depends on what parents contribute to their annual budgets, we will continue to see inequities in Australian education systems.'
