Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Education, Science and Training. What is the government doing to ensure that parents receive accurate and clear information about their child’s progress at school, and are state governments meeting their obligations to provide plain English reporting cards?

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lindsay for her question and I note her concern about this issue. Parents have a right to receive information about how their child is performing at school and they should not be kept in the dark about their child’s progress. Unfortunately, too many school reports were using jargon and language that parents just could not understand. Phrases such as ‘working towards achievement’ or ‘preliminary achievement’ gave parents no sense of how their child was progressing. In response to parents’ concerns, the Howard government made it a condition of the schools funding agreement that parents would receive report cards that were in plain English and that they would be graded from A to E or an equivalent.

Every state and territory government signed up to this funding agreement and promised to deliver to parents plain English report cards. All states and territories have reported that they are tracking well in implementing these report cards except for New South Wales. I can appreciate why the member for Lindsay asked this question. Suddenly the New South Wales government is wavering in its commitment. This is because it is coming under inordinate pressure from the New South Wales Teachers Federation. The New South Wales Teachers Federation wants the New South Wales government to drop its commitment to plain English report cards. You would have to ask why the Teachers Federation would want parents to be denied information about their child’s progress. The answer lies in a public statement from the New South Wales Teachers Federation, where it was said that the new reporting system ‘has the potential to set up a system of ranking schools and then subsequently teachers’. The Teachers Federation is terrified that its members will have to be accountable for their performance. That is why it is demanding that the New South Wales government drop report cards in plain English for parents. They are putting their own interests before the interests of parents and students. I call upon the New South Wales government to meet its commitment to deliver on its promise for plain English report cards and to join with the Howard government in ensuring that parents have the information that they need to know about their child’s progress at school.