Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Training, I certainly welcome this opportunity to comment on the report, Adolescent overload? Report of the inquiry into combining school and work: supporting successful youth transitions. I will begin by thanking the chair, Sharon Bird—the member for Cunningham, who is in the chamber right now—for her leadership and commitment to this inquiry. In fact her own personal experience in education proved to be invaluable in assisting the committee in carrying out its inquiry and its report. I also thank the secretariat, led by Dr Glenn Worthington, for their support and also for their excellent summary of the committee’s work which is reflected in this report.

I particularly thank the committee for coming to my electorate of Makin in the course of the inquiry and visiting Para Hills High School to see and hear firsthand from teachers and students at that school. Regrettably I was unable to join the committee on the visit, but I do frequently visit Para Hills High School. I have a longstanding association with the school and in fact will be attending the school’s graduation ceremony next week. Through that longstanding association, I am very much aware of the school’s activities and its commitment to vocational education and providing career pathways for its students. When I have attended the school over the years—with the previous principal, Trevor Rogers, and with the current principal, Janette Scott—I have seen firsthand how that school is responding through its specific understanding of the needs of the students that attend the school. From my experience of the region generally, each of the high schools are confronted with different challenges, and that is one school that has understood those challenges and responded with the right kinds of policies that have enabled it to give students who attend the school the best possible support that it can.

Combining school with work has both positive and negative consequences, dependent on factors such as the nature of the work, the number of hours worked, the family support, and the personal qualities, characteristics and abilities of the individual—all matters that you, Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, as a member of the committee along with me, would have noted in the submissions that were made to the inquiry. Whilst there certainly are considerable positive elements involved with young people being engaged in work—and no-one disputes them—I want to focus my remarks on the negative aspects of secondary students combining school and work.

Again, the findings are variable. Although it is generally accepted that excessive work hours ultimately do have a negative impact on a student’s educational success and future career opportunities, the fact of the matter is that the effects change from student to student and from region to region, due to a range of factors, including the way the school manages the students who are engaged in work. It would appear to me, however, that combining study with up to about 10 hours of work per week or thereabouts is manageable by most young people without seriously affecting their educational outcomes. Beyond that, the impacts become more noticeable.

A number of members of the committee have commented on young people who work in fast food outlets. Two weeks ago it was McHappy Day in South Australia—and perhaps across Australia—where the McDonald’s chain of fast-food outlets raises money for, in Adelaide, Ronald McDonald House. As I usually do, I went and worked at the local McDonald’s fast food outlet for a couple of hours. It was non-stop work for the couple of hours I was there. I contemplated what it must have been like for the young girl who had been working there since six o’clock in the morning and was due to finish at two o’clock in the afternoon. That would have been an eight-hour shift. All I can say is that I am sure she would have been looking forward to the end of her shift, because the work pressure I observed there was intense.

A survey that was presented to the committee in respect of the hours that young people participate in employment showed that 30 per cent of students in employment work one to six hours, 44 per cent work six to 12 hours, 21 per cent work 12 to 20 hours, five per cent work 20 to 30 hours and one per cent work in excess of 30 hours per week. The good thing about that survey is that 74 per cent, or three-quarters, of the students who are working work for 12 hours or less per week, which, as I said earlier, I believe is manageable. I particularly note the effect of work on male students, with evidence presented to the committee pointing to male students engaged in part-time work being less likely to complete year 12. Evidence from Vickers, Lamb and Hinkley found:

Males who work 5 to 15 hours per week during Year 9 are approximately 40 per cent less likely to complete Year 12 than those who do not, while males who work more than fifteen hours per week … are approximately 60 per cent less likely to complete Year 12

The report further states:

Females who work part-time during Year 9 are much more likely to complete Year 12 than their male counterparts.

I have two observations to make about that. It is clear that young males who engage in part-time work during the course of their high school years are more likely to be distracted from continuing with their education studies and pursuing a tertiary education and may enter the workforce much earlier. That is a concern. It is clear that those effects are not as bad amongst females who work whilst they are at high school.

The concern, however, is that, on the one hand, we may want young people to engage in some part-time work because of the beneficial aspects of it but, on the other hand, we run the serious risk of distracting them from what should be their long-term career aspirations. It certainly is of concern that young males appear to be less able to handle work situations than females. I am not quite sure why that is but it certainly appears to be the case. Those figures that were presented in the report certainly confirm the evidence of my own observations from attending schools over the years and seeing firsthand how many of the young males that undertake part-time work do not ultimately complete year 12. If you want to look at those statistics a bit more closely you will note that when you go to year 12 graduations it is likely that you will see more females graduating than males. And that is confirmation of those trends.

I will take a moment to talk about the educational impacts on young people who are both carers and in employment. These young people are particularly at risk. According to Carers Australia—I refer to paragraph 7.32 in the report—only four per cent of primary carers between the ages of 15 and 25 years are still in education compared to 23 per cent of the general population in that age group. That is four per cent of carers compared to 23 per cent—one sixth—who continue with their education. In that same reference we see:

60% of young primary carers aged 15-25 are unemployed or not in the labour force, compared with 38% for the general population in the same group.

I comment on that aspect of young people in employment for the following reason. I was able to host a forum relating to disabilities in the electorate of Makin with the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services, the Hon. Bill Shorten. At that forum I can very clearly recall two young ladies—both still trying to study—who stood up and said, ‘As carers trying to get an education we need more assistance if we are going to be able to complete our education.’ They were literally pleading with the parliamentary secretary for the government to provide more support for them.

You can just imagine and appreciate their situation. They were trying to go to school but they would come home from school and be full-time carers of their mothers. And, in addition to being carers, they were trying to juggle a few hours of work to make ends meet—not just for themselves but for the household. To see those people, at such a young age, be burdened with such significant responsibility was heartbreaking. So I am pleased that the report touches on that aspect of young people’s lives. I note that the report comments also on the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family, Community, Housing, and Youth, which also made reference to this issue. It is an important issue and I certainly support the pleas for additional government support for young students who find themselves as carers in the community.

Most speakers have already made the point that students often work out of financial necessity, and that is absolutely the case. For years, I have been representing people from the north-eastern and northern communities of Adelaide. It is an area, particularly the northern suburbs of Adelaide, which is considered to be of lower socioeconomic status. Time and time again, I have seen young people, either because they come from broken homes or because the income level of the household is simply insufficient, literally forced to go and work.

It is sad because those young people frequently have the intellectual capacity to be real achievers if given the opportunity to pursue tertiary studies. In fact, some recent studies carried out by the University of South Australia confirm that—that young people from lower socioeconomic status areas who have been given an opportunity to go to university are, once given that break, performing just as well as students from other areas. The sad thing about it is that those same young people, because they are forced into work situations, in turn have their studies interrupted or affected, and sometimes they are unable to perform well at school, simply because of the hours that they are working. In turn, they do not complete year 12 and do not go on to university. So the whole cycle of disadvantage is perpetuated when they, in turn, settle down, have a home and try to survive on a low income, perhaps because they never completed any form of tertiary education.

Another aspect is that, quite often, we see those young people faced with serious health problems as a result of: (a) working too long; and (b) abusing their bodies both physically and nutritionally, through not getting the right types of food into their system, because they are working too long and rushing from one place to another. I am very much aware of that. I think it was Kostas Papadopoulos from Para Hills High School who made the point that many young people, when they get to school, are taking excessive amounts of these energy-boosting drinks just to get through the day. I am very much aware of that because I have seen it for myself.

I will finish by making this point: the Rudd government is absolutely committed to education. The government has invested a record amount of $62.8 billion over the next triennium because it recognises and understands the importance of education both to the individual and to the national economy. It is a commitment and a priority that I thoroughly endorse.

The government investment, however, whilst critical, needs to take into account other factors which may affect educational outcomes. This report, I believe, not only comments about those other factors but also raises awareness of what they are. Dealing with this issue is a complex area of public policy because, as I stated earlier, there are positive and negative aspects of it and there is a wide variety of considerations. But it is an important area of public policy which we, as a parliament, should be aware of when we make and consider education policies. We need to understand what the real world for students is like. Once again I commend the report to the House for consideration and thank all the other members of the committee who I worked with on this report.

Debate (on motion by Mr Danby) adjourned.

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