Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Better and Fairer Schools (Information Management) Bill 2024, which is concerned with extending the unique student identifier to students in the schools sector. The unique student identifier has been in use for higher education and vocational education and training students since 2015. It is an important reform measure implemented by the former coalition government's National School Reform Agreement. The unique student identifier is a simple but powerful tool. Allocating a unique student identifier—a number issued by the Office of the Student Identifiers Registrar—to every school student will help provide a better understanding of a student's progress throughout their school life. As has been agreed between federal, state and territory education ministers, the student identifier will effectively travel with a student when they move from one school to another, from one school system to another or from one state or territory to another. This enables the efficient and timely transfer of a student's information, meaning key information about learning progress can be easily identified.

Subject to the agreement of education ministers, there is also the potential to use a student identifier for a broader range of purposes such as supporting the identification of students who are falling through the cracks or to target students needing additional support throughout any part of their school life. This could assist with building the evidence to deliver improved teaching methods or identifying issues surrounding school refusal, non-attendance or withdrawal from school.

We know that the unique student identifier works. Since 2015 more than 15.6 million unique student identifiers have been generated for higher education and vocational education and training students. Of course, it's important to recognise the privacy considerations with a policy measure like this and ensure that there are appropriate privacy protections in place. Protecting an individual's personal information is of the utmost importance. Importantly, this bill specifies the limited circumstances where the collection, use and disclosure of information is authorised. Any other collections, uses or disclosures of this information will be unauthorised and taken to be an interference with an individual's privacy under the Privacy Act 1998. I do note here that we are yet to see the long-promised reforms to the Privacy Act that the government states that it is committed to. The bill also provides that the Student Identifiers Registrar and any other entity of administering school identifiers would be required to protect this information from misuse or unauthorised access.

The universal student identifier is hardly the only matter deserving of the urgent attention of the minister for education. Last week's NAPLAN results show that, as a nation, we have a lot of work to do to raise school standards. We need every tool in the toolkit to support student learning, engagement and progress from primary school through to higher education. One in three students is effectively failing NAPLAN. In my home state of New South Wales the report card is dim. The results show more than 29.5 per cent of New South Wales school students are now below the national minimum proficiency standards in literacy and numeracy. That compares to 28 per cent last year, with the youngest children assessed in the testing program struggling the most. The latest results of the OECD-run Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, released late last year reflect stagnation in the short term but a long-term decline. The average year 10 student is one year behind in their learning compared to 20 years ago. PISA tells us that nearly half of all students tested perform below expectation in maths, with 43 per cent failing to meet the grade in reading and 42 per cent in science.

The coalition is strongly focused on the need for a back-to-basics approach in education, sharply focused on literacy and numeracy, underpinned by explicit teaching and a knowledge-rich, commonsense curriculum. As the Australian Education Research Organisation continues to show, evidence based teaching methods are critical to raising school standards. Perhaps the minister could spend less time coming up with heartwarming stories for question time and more time knuckling down on his ministerial briefs.

I also wish to note with concern the government's failure to deliver the next national school reform agreement. While there is a signed agreement with the Northern Territory and an agreement in principle with Western Australia, a full-blown school funding war has erupted between the Commonwealth and the remaining five states and the Australian Capital Territory. It's worth noting that all of these but Tasmania are Labor governments. The Western Australian government has agreed in principle only, while the other states continue to engage in a public war with Minister Clare over funding arrangements. This says a lot about Labor's misleading election commitment to provide 'full and fair funding' and the education minister's failure to work constructively with state and territory education ministers.

While the draft agreement proposes a number of important reforms, including evidence based teaching, screening tests such as the year 1 phonics check and improved student attendance and performance targets, the reforms are both light on detail and inadequate. We continue to urge the government to respond to the coalition's Senate inquiry on classroom disruption and include important recommendations such as a national behaviour curriculum into the next National School Reform Agreement, which was initially due to be finalised more than a year ago.

The PISA results tell us that we have some of the unruliest classrooms in the world, with the most recent findings from the Journal of School Violence revealing that a quarter of all Australian teachers feel unsafe at work. It is incumbent on the government to take action on this very important issue.

I conclude by observing that it is pleasing that the coalition's leadership in relation to the unique student identifier has attracted strong bipartisan support. This is an important measure for school students now and into the future, when its use could potentially be expanded. We trust this will provide meaningful, practical support to young Australians and their families and lead to better school outcomes. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.