Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse in Queensland, school parents have been unpleasantly surprised by the government's suddenly allowing schools to switch to a four-day week from 2024. At a time when Australia's school education outcomes are falling against international benchmarks and teachers are leaving the sector in droves, the last thing we should do is shorten the school week.

Australia fell from 14th to 19th in 2023 rankings published by the OECD's Program for International Assessment, or PISA, with China and Singapore at the top. Our schoolkids are two years behind their counterparts in China and Singapore on science and maths. Back in 2017 UNICEF ranked Australian school education outcomes 39th out of 41 high- to middle-income countries. We're in the fifth year of the Gonski 2.0 reforms, a commitment to more than $300 billion dollars in additional spending, yet our standards and outcomes keep falling. Maybe if our schools stopped frightening kids about climate change or making five-year-olds write apologies for the British settlement of Australia, we'd have better outcomes. Apart from forcing COVID vaccines on them, teachers are leaving in droves because of undisciplined classrooms and heavy workloads. In addition to delivering a poor curriculum, they're taking on the roles of parents, counsellors and babysitters without adequate training or support. Cutting school hours in Queensland will only further dumb down our children. Over the decades we have allowed schools to become childcare centres and institutions to push political agendas instead of real information and useful life skills. What hope do we have for the future?

One Nation will fight this change at the Queensland state election, getting back to the basics that are the best foundation for a good education, and giving teachers better support. It's not about investing more money; it's getting the right people to do the job, and doing a four-day week is just absolutely— (Time expired)