Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2006 does contain some welcome additional support for Indigenous students. However, it is a missed opportunity to deal with some of the problems which have been identified and should be being addressed in this legislation. I will go through those. The bill provides an additional $43.6 million over 2006 to 2008, mainly to extend tutorial assistance support for school students in year 9 and for students at TAFE and with other providers of vocational education and training.

The bill does not deal with some of the serious flaws in the government’s policies and programs. These flaws, as I say, have been apparent for some time. In June last year in a speech to the parliament, I described the inherent problems and the unfair ways in which Indigenous education funding is provided for Indigenous students, parents and communities. We had a number of other opposition speakers outlining their concerns as well. Unfortunately, there has been no mention of these issues either in the legislation or in the minister’s second reading speech and no attention given to the problems that both my colleagues and I have raised many times. It seems there is continuing indifference to the problems which I am sure the government knows about and which we would certainly like to see addressed.

That said, Labor certainly will be supporting this bill, because it does provide additional funding. We want to see that urgently needed additional funding out and into our schools and TAFEs as quickly as possible. Given that our underlying concerns remain, I intend to move the second reading amendment that has been circulated in my name. I move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1)

condemns the Government for:

(a)

failing to deliver urgently needed funding for Indigenous students by insisting on complex and bureaucratic administrative arrangements that prevent many schools and communities from benefiting from education programs;

(b)

causing a $126 million underspend in Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives expenditure in 2004-05 through bureaucratic bungling;

(c)

imposing impenetrable red tape that has led to a decline in the involvement of Indigenous communities in the parent-school partnership initiative;

(d)

failing to provide sufficient resources for early intervention programs in schools to raise Indigenous children’s literacy standards;

(e)

reducing the number of Indigenous school children who access tutorial assistance by making eligibility requirements more restrictive and short term; and

(f)

presiding for ten long years over continuing gaps in educational and training participation and performance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students;

(2)

requests the Government to reform its funding criteria and guidelines so as to the address the above concerns and provide all Indigenous students with the opportunity to achieve quality schooling  results”.

I want to go through why we believe the parliament should voice these concerns, and I call on the government to address them. They are very serious indeed and have been around for some time. The report on the review of Aboriginal education in New South Wales, Freeing the spirit: dreaming an equal future, laments in the following terms:

How can it be that, in a country like Australia, there is a group of young people whose early years do not prepare them adequately with the skills and confidence to enjoy a meaningful role in society and a share in the country’s wealth?

Indigenous people are looking to the nation’s political leadership, particularly members of this parliament, for an answer to this and other questions. The member for Kingsford Smith in last year’s debate referred to the march from Melbourne to Canberra by Michael Long. This well-respected Indigenous leader walked from Melbourne to speak directly with the Prime Minister about the needs of his people. He took the Prime Minister’s word in his election night speech in 2001 that he wanted to place Indigenous issues, including Indigenous education outcomes, at the centre of the government’ policy agenda. We saw on television that Michael Long got a cup of tea from the Prime Minister. Unfortunately, he, like the rest of us, is still waiting for a response to the substantive issues affecting Indigenous people, particularly in education.

Just the other day the member for Fremantle told us about another story of Indigenous people reaching out for help. In her question to the Speaker last week she referred to the actions of two women who arrived at the parliament after walking across the Nullabor. The women wanted to draw attention to the need for action to eliminate racism in our communities. They wore aprons with the words ‘Steps towards healing’ on the front and a map of Australia on the back with black and white hands reaching out for each other for succour and friendship. The women were confronted, unfortunately, by parliamentary bureaucracy when they arrived, but that is not particularly the point I want to make here; rather, this is another case of Indigenous people calling out for understanding, support and, in their words, ‘healing’.

The government has been in office now for a very long time—time enough, I would say, to assess its effectiveness in making progress in the education of Indigenous people, despite the difficulties. I acknowledge that there have been some improvements, and all governments and communities, federal, state and territory, should be given credit for these. I think one thing for which people need credit is the fact that there are more Indigenous students completing secondary schooling. The retention rate to year 12 for Indigenous students in 1998 was a very low 32.1 per cent, which is a difference of over 40 percentage points when compared with the rate for non-Indigenous students, who had a completion rate of 72.7 per cent in that year. By 2005 the retention rate for Indigenous students had improved to 39½ per cent, so we certainly have witnessed an improvement since 1998. The retention in 2004 was slightly higher, so I hope we are not seeing a reversal of the trend in 2005.

The biggest problem we are aware of is that there is still a very substantial gap between the retention rates for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. The retention rate for non-Indigenous students also increased in 2005, to 76.6 per cent. So we have a gap of over 37 percentage points between non-Indigenous and Indigenous students when it comes to completing year 12, and I do not think anybody in this chamber would say that this massive difference is acceptable.

There is also some evidence of some improvement in the literacy and numeracy standards of Indigenous primary school students over recent years. Once again, the gap in these standards when compared with non-Indigenous students remains extremely troubling. For example, around 60 per cent of year 7 Indigenous students achieved the national reading benchmark in 2001, compared with just under 90 per cent for all other students. By 2004 the achievement rate for Indigenous students had improved to 71 per cent, but I would have to say that that is still unacceptably low when compared with the level for all year 7 students, which was 91 per cent.

Unfortunately, there has been very little improvement in the percentage of year 7 students who have achieved national benchmarks for numeracy. The rate for year 7 Indigenous students hovered around 50 per cent between the period 2001-04. If you compare that with all Australian students, you find that their benchmark achievement was about 80 per cent. So the year 7 numeracy benchmarks were 50 per cent for Indigenous students and 80 per cent for all other Australian students, and that is plainly still totally unacceptable.

When we look behind this data at the differences between the states and territories, unfortunately we see some very big disparities. The percentage of year 7 students achieving the 2004 national reading benchmark in the Northern Territory, for example, was just 39 per cent compared with the national result for Indigenous students of 71 per cent. So you can see that, even among Indigenous students themselves, there is a huge disparity between the achievements of children in year 7 in the Northern Territory and the results of Indigenous students elsewhere. The rate for year 7 Indigenous students in Western Australia in 2004 was 58 per cent, and in New South Wales and South Australia it was 69 per cent. By contrast, in Queensland, the rate was over 85 per cent. Clearly, things are in much better shape in Queensland.

The numeracy rates for year 7 Indigenous students, as I said before, are worrying. Only around half of the students are achieving the national numeracy benchmark. The rate for year 7 students in the Northern Territory was a very low 27 per cent. It is bad enough that only half the Indigenous students nationally achieve the numeracy benchmark, but in the Northern Territory it is a very disturbing 27 per cent.

One of the problems, of course, with the results we get from the national literacy and numeracy benchmark tests is that they only provide information about minimum standards at the various stages of schooling. The gap in performance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is very stark. One of the other things that have been done is that these test results have been translated into months and years of schooling. The Report of the review of Aboriginal Education in New South Wales advises that the gap between basic skill test results for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in year 3 is equivalent to 19 months of schooling. In other words, Indigenous children in year 3 have been going to school for only three or maybe four years and, on average, even by year 3, they are about 1½ years behind the level of achievement of their non-Indigenous counterparts. So, even by year 3, they are falling a long way behind. Unfortunately, things do not improve the longer they stay at school. By year 5 the gap is around 24 months. The gap in the writing and language results for Indigenous students in year 7 rose to around 60 months—that is, Indigenous students find themselves five whole years behind.

Each and every one of us knows just how important writing and language skills are for success in secondary schooling. Children cannot hope to do well in secondary schooling if their literacy and numeracy is not up to scratch. It is as plain as can be: these very poor literacy and numeracy results are of fundamental concern when it comes to Indigenous education. Compounding these concerns is a very high rate of absenteeism among Indigenous students. It is about twice the rate of non-Indigenous students. Suspension rates are six to nine times those of non-Indigenous students. The absentee rates for Aboriginal girls in year 10 in New South Wales secondary schools is around 28 per cent—that is equivalent to about 60 days of school missed each year. It is no wonder that they are having trouble keeping up with the standards they should be achieving.

The government’s key strategy for dealing with Indigenous literacy in primary schools has been the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme. The guidelines for the scheme say:

In-class tuition provides Indigenous students who do not meet the Year 3, 5 and 7 literacy and numeracy benchmarks with up to 2.5 hours a week of literacy and numeracy tuition for up to 32 weeks each year.

That means that this funding is available to Indigenous students in years 4, 6 and 8, after they fail to meet the national benchmarks in the previous year. The guidelines go on to provide some flexibility for principals to allocate funding for students who are at risk of not meeting the relevant literacy and/or numeracy curriculum outcome levels for their age.

I remind my fellow members of parliament that, in response to opposition criticisms on this point in parliament, the previous minister for education indicated in last year’s debate that he had apparently allowed a degree of flexibility at the school level for principals to decide how they might best allocate the resources. I would certainly appreciate the new minister for education updating the House on whether or not principals are, in fact, able to spend the literacy money where and, most importantly, when they think it will most help students learn to read and write. As many principals have told us, this is most likely to be well before the child fails the year 3 test. We do not want children having to wait until they have failed the year 3 test before they get help with their literacy and numeracy.

The key point remains that what is needed are guidelines that encourage early intervention strategies at a school level. I say to the minister that we would like to know whether or not principals and teachers are getting the flexibility they have called for, as well as getting the resources when they need them the most. And that really is at the earliest time so they can identify and prevent or minimise failure, not try to pick up the pieces when it is too late. We do not want to see support that is so late that Indigenous students, at the end of primary schooling, are up to five years behind their non-Indigenous counterparts, which is what is happening at the moment.

There are other problems with the way the government administers its tutorial assistance program, which, as a result of this legislation, will now be extended to year 9 students. For example, tutorial assistance funding is not available for students in metropolitan areas that enrol fewer than 20 Indigenous students. That means, of course, many students miss out on the urgent assistance they need.

The guidelines for this funding also state that the money is limited and that students in remote locations will be given priority. Nobody in this parliament would say that Indigenous children in remote areas do not need more support. Of course they do. With only 20 per cent in remote areas achieving national reading benchmarks in year 3, we certainly must be putting the extra effort needed into those remote schools. But it does not mean that Indigenous students in regional and metropolitan areas do not have educational needs. Of course we know they do. Funding should be available to all Indigenous students who need help with their reading, writing and numeracy. It should not be based on competition for scarce resources between one group of Indigenous disadvantaged students in remote areas and similar disadvantaged Indigenous students in metropolitan and regional locations.

That really is an incredibly nasty way of going about allocating this funding, especially when you contrast this approach with the open-ended funding available under the schools General Recurrent Grants Program, which provides automatic per student funding to all students. Some of that money, of course, is going to some of the best resourced schools in the country. So I think we should find a way through this program to make sure that all disadvantaged young people and children, especially Indigenous children, are able to have the same criteria applied so that they can get the help to learn to read and write and help with their maths at the earliest time.

I have had a lot of feedback from principals and schools. They are very frustrated with the way the government organises and delivers this money. I want to quote from a few principals and teachers who have voiced their concerns. One primary school principal advises:

We have only 8 Indigenous students here, but 3 have huge literacy problems ... if we want these kids to make serious sustained improvement they need expert intervention for a sustained period ... there are no quick fixes.

Another primary school principal says:

... with hard work and creative additional learning assistance, we (previously) achieved 100 % of all year 3s and 5s above the national benchmark ... AND THEN THE FUNDING STOPPED ...

That was when the previous minister said the money had to be removed from these metropolitan schools that had small numbers of Indigenous children. Another principal says:

We have a small but significant Indigenous student population—11 students, which represents 10 % of our total enrolments ... we need to base support on very early assessments, such as Kindergarten checks on reading level so that effective intervention programs can be implemented early.

The point that principal is making is the one I made earlier: we do not want to wait until those children in that school fail the year 3 test; we want the kindergarten children and the children in year 1 and year 2 to be getting the checks, to be getting the additional tutorial support, before they fail the year 3 test.

Other principals have made the point that many Indigenous students with poor attendance records may have been absent when the benchmark testing was done. It is more than likely that these children are going to be at risk and would not be eligible for funding. These are practical problems that I hope the minister will take into account.

Many of these frustrations from principals are also matched when it comes to concerns about the operation of the Parent School Partnerships Initiative. Once again, the previous minister for education dramatically changed the way in which this funding is delivered to schools. There has been a very significant increase in bureaucracy in this program, and it has had the effect of excluding many parents and community members. Parents now have very little understanding of the processes and feel very remote from them. Many of us on this side of the House raised concerns about these issues last year. I am pleased to see that the department has made some changes, but schools are still complaining that the funding arrangements still require them to undertake considerable work to access what I think everyone would say is pretty modest funding. Schools are complaining that they are spending more time in submission writing and paperwork than in actually designing and implementing educational programs for their students. This is an example from one primary school principal:

We now have no Indigenous involvement despite having quite a high number of Indigenous enrolments. Indigenous parents have commented to me about how the process has kicked them out of real engagement ...

Another principal says:

Since the change to funding we have had no involvement. We have Indigenous children but the work and complexity of getting funds is simply not worth it. Perhaps they (the government) have achieve their purpose, I.e. money stays in consolidated revenue ...

Another says:

During the process we became extremely frustrated ... on two occasions people dealing with the submission (on a homework centre) ... were reduced to tears and were prepared to walk away.

In my last dealing (with the Department) I had to provide information on a program. I was emailed two sets of instructions on managing the database: they would not open and crashed my computer a number of times. When I finally got them to work, the instructions did not match with what was appearing on the screen ...

My experiences mean that I want as little to do with (the Department) as possible. Its (processes) need to line up with the realities of school operation.

The result of all this is chronic underspending of Indigenous education programs. What an extraordinary outcome when we know that the need is so great. The minister’s department has admitted to Senate estimates that there was a $126 million underspend in 2004-05. It really does show that this government does not have an effective strategy to actually deliver the support that Indigenous students need. I would say to the minister that principals in schools who want to do the right thing are saying things are just not working. I honestly hope the minister will now take charge of these processes to make sure that funding is delivered to where it is needed. The administrative processes need urgent attention. It is only through those changes that we will in fact see the money going where it needs to go.

As I said before, we do support the additional tutorial assistance in this bill that is going to go to TAFE and other forms of vocational training. There is no question that Indigenous people rely heavily on TAFE for their training, and also for second chance opportunities that TAFE provides. In 2005 the enrolment of Indigenous students in vocational education and training was around 62,700—about 3.8 per cent of total enrolment. We have seen Indigenous enrolment increase in 2005, which is welcome—especially after two years of decline.

Unfortunately, though, completion rates for Indigenous students at TAFE remain very low: around 43 per cent for completion of apprenticeship or traineeship contracts. This is much lower than the overall completion rate of 52 per cent for all apprentices or trainees. The bill does not cover funding for Indigenous students in higher education, but I did want to mention that it is disturbing to note that education department data indicates the number of Indigenous students starting in higher education continues to fall. The 2004 commencements represent a nine per cent decline since 2002. These are very worrying figures indeed.

These trends are compounded when you look at Indigenous students’ completion rates in higher education. The March 2006 report of the Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council advises that the course completion rate for Indigenous students is only about 42 per cent—two-thirds of the completion rate for other students. So once again we have a serious problem with the number of Indigenous graduates declining as a proportion of total Australian graduates. These are unacceptable figures. In the white paper we put forward on higher education, we have foreshadowed that one of the initiatives we would like to see implemented is increased support to our universities to enable them to provide the support that Indigenous students need as they progress through their second, third and fourth years of a degree course. It is very important to get Indigenous students into university, but we also need to improve the graduation rates.

In summary, the bill before us certainly does provide much needed additional funding. It will be welcome, but there is no point to it if it does not get to where it is needed. We will support the bill, but I commend the proposed second reading amendment to the House.

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