Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's stating the obvious to note that COVID-19 has up-ended our lives in ways that we never, ever dreamed possible. The wearing of masks, lockdowns and border closures have ensured that lives have been saved, but they have fundamentally changed the way we act, and we struggle with that. It's a containment of the way we've come to know how we live. But, when we think of the struggles we have as adults here with considerable agency, senators in a parliament, no-one has been more impacted, if you think about the comparison, than school-age children.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations observed that around 1.6 billion students have had their studies interrupted by the pandemic and that over 100 million additional children will fall below the minimum proficiency level in reading. We could have a conference to discuss what the social and economic impacts of that will be. We could be here for days talking about that and planning a response to it. But let's just for a moment allow the scale of that interruption to 100 million children and 1.6 billion who've been interrupted in their learning to sink in. It's an enormous number of young people, with a profound and compounding impact on the future for those individuals and on our shared socioeconomic future on this planet we call home.

The World Economic Forum has warned that today's students risk losing $17 trillion in earnings because of these disruptions. Inequalities in access to remote learning and at-home support are driving the diminishing outcomes. The continuing onslaught of new variants of COVID-19 are disrupting the forward-planning capacity of schools, local governments and parents, who are desperate for some stability to plan ahead for their children. UNESCO figures show that countries such as Brazil, India, Bolivia and here in the Asia-Pacific region with our neighbour Indonesia, with the way they are existing and managing COVID, have been forced to close schools for over 75 weeks since the pandemic began. Learning poverty, the World Bank reports, has risen 20 per cent in low- to middle-income countries to a staggering 70 per cent. That means over two-thirds of 10-year-olds in these countries are unable to read a basic test. These stark figures are only getting worse as the COVID crisis continues.

COVID is also exacerbating already existing fault lines in global education. Girls, those from low socioeconomic backgrounds and those in rural and remote areas are falling further and further behind, erasing hard-fought success that took decades. In just a few years we've lost so much. Fears exist—and, sadly, they are being realised—that those who have fallen out of school will not return. They have left school, never to return, not by choice, not to their advantage but because of COVID and the crisis that it has engendered. Remote learning is an option for some. Zoom is impossible though for millions of children who live without access to internet or electricity. Many parents would be reluctant to send their children into crowded schools in some countries, where vaccination rates remain below 15 per cent. The figures we are talking about here are truly alarming.

To that end, Australia must take its place as an international citizen and participant. We need to support health efforts to ensure that students are able to access education in a safe and accessible manner. Greater support for remote learning must be provided. Rapid antigen tests, masks, vaccinations—all these things will help children access the education that they so desperately need. Not having them poses considerable risk to children's lives. Governments, especially those with more wealth and more resources and less of a COVID burden, must do more than attend to their own nations. As an Australian, I know that we have a vital role to play in our region to support the health, wellbeing and education of young people in schools in this part of the world.

Certainly, we have our own concerns about our families, our businesses, our jobs, the way we are perceived and considered, our community and our health. Sometimes these everyday and immediate concerns that sit with us can overwhelm us. It's essential to address these challenges, but it's not enough. Governments must not stop there. We have international responsibilities. Australia can step up to help other countries. We do and we have done, and we will continue to do so under governments of every colour. Most recently, the Global Partnership for Education replenishment is one important way that Australia has stepped up to the plate, but other multilateral aid efforts must also be undertaken to ensure that the global divides are not widened by the pandemic.

My fellow senators and members of the parliament who, with me, have become members of the Australian chapter of the International Parliamentary Network for Education have already done fantastic work lobbying Marise Payne, our foreign minister, to make a commitment to the global education fund on behalf of the Australian nation. With the efforts of senators from the Liberal and National parties—those who are in government—my fellow Labor senators, senators of the Greens party—which you represent, Acting Deputy President Faruqi—and Independents, we have helped make the government firm in its commitment. But the problem is of such a scale that we cannot look away, and we cannot resile from further action. Preparation for the future and the strengthening of existing health education infrastructure has to be put in place.

Vaccine discrimination must end, and we must start sharing the technology that works with our neighbours and friends across the world so that no child is left behind. Wave after wave of the COVID virus threat is likely if we do not acknowledge the simple reality that the virus knows no sovereign boundaries. We've got to sort this out together at a global level. Every country has a stake in this, and all adults are responsible for the lives of the young. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4 is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Despite disruptions, despite waves of disease and disenchantment, we must always be focused on the future embodied by our children—all of our children, everywhere. It takes political will to give kids a chance so that we might all benefit.

The International Day of Education was on 24 January. It was a chance at that time—and that's why I'm taking this opportunity today to put it on the record—for the examination of our own policies and how our aid and investment in other countries in our region might have the best possible impact. There's currently a clash of ideas globally regarding whether liberty or freedom of expression is the best model for human development and whether we need to go down a path of more repression, less expression and more autocracy. But, if we don't allow all those young boys and girls who need education to reach their full potential, to enable them to open their minds through the wonder of learning and explore the universe on their own terms, humanity will never enter a new, better age.

It does take the right teacher, the right classroom and the right tools. Teachers transform lives. That's why we invest in public education. It is a national asset, and it is a right for children. I thank my colleagues in the International Parliamentary Network for Education here and around the world. Everywhere, we must work together to get closer to SDG 4 to improve the life of the— (Time expired)