Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

I am pleased to introduce the Better and Fairer Schools (Information Management) Bill 2024.

The bill amends the Student Identifiers Act 2014 to extend the system of national unique student identifiers to the schools sector.

A unique student identifier, or "USI", is a unique identification number which represents a single student as they move through the various phases of their education in Australia.

They are already in wide use in the higher education and vocational education and training (VET) sector. In fact, a USI is required for all students receiving government support in those sectors.

This bill will make a USI, in the schooling context called a "Schools Identifier", available to school students across the country. It will allow them to have a single identifier which will travel with them during their schooling career and into higher education and VET.

And it has been a long time coming. And an initiative which has enjoyed bipartisan support.

The concept was first agreed by the Council of Australian Governments in 2009.

COAG said in its communique that a national student identifier would "further support a seamless schooling, VET and higher education experience for students".

A decade later, Australian governments agreed through the National School Reform Agreement to

[i]mplement … a national unique student identifier (USI) that meets national privacy requirements in order to support better understanding of student progression and improve the national evidence base.

That's what the student identifier system is about and this bill's introduction today follows agreement by Commonwealth, state and territory Education Ministers in December 2022 to finally make this a reality.

What this bill does is to set up the architecture for Schools Identifiers to be issued to school students, through the existing Office of the Student Identifiers Registrar.

The bill enables the Registrar to assign, collect, use, disclose and verify Schools Identifiers for school students.

By establishing this architecture, the bill meets the Commonwealth's obligations under the current National School Reform Agreement to get Schools Identifiers underway.

What the bill doesn't do is implement the practical use cases for these Schools Identifiers.

These will be for agreement between me and my state and territory ministerial colleagues through the Education Ministers Meetings.

We have already agreed one use—to allow a student's Schools Identifier to travel with them when they move from one school, system or jurisdiction to another, supporting the robust and timely transfer of a student's information as they move schools.

That's a start.

But there is potential for future use cases to make a real difference in the education experience of our students, and to help support them throughout their learning career.

Some of the use cases that could be considered are:

1. Helping ensure that students don't fall between the cracks by supporting jurisdictions to monitor when they unenroll from one school, but don't subsequently enrol in another. We saw instances of this through COVID and School Identifiers could help address this problem.

2. We can also look to improve the way teachers and parents can monitor a student's progress over time.

For example, NAPLAN reports could show a student's progress over time, and not just in the year they sit the test.

3. The Schools Identifiers architecture may also help us get a better understanding of student pathways, potentially allowing policy makers to better target the support they are providing to students and schools, and improve the design of teaching interventions.

4. We could also look at linking Senior Secondary Certificates to the National Skills Passport currently under consideration.

These are some of the potential use cases that can help provide more support to students and give them a simpler and better experience of Australia's education system.

But importantly, no use case will be implemented without the agreement of all Education Ministers.

That is an important governance safeguard, and an appropriate one because we are talking about our children's data.

For the same reason, the bill includes robust privacy measures to ensure that any data collected is secure and used only for approved purposes.

Schools Identifiers, Student Identifiers and individuals' school identity management information are classified as protected information under the bill. This means that strict legislative restrictions apply to the collection, use and disclosure of this information.

Any information collected by the Student Identifiers Registrar is subject to protections under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

The bill identifies the circumstances under which the collection, use and disclosure of Schools Identifiers is authorised. Any other collections, uses and disclosures will be unauthorised and taken to be an interference with an individual's privacy under the Privacy Act.

The administration of Schools Identifiers by the education systems of the states and territories will also be subject to the specific privacy protections in those jurisdictions.

In addition to these strong privacy protections, Education Ministers will establish a data governance framework for Schools Identifiers that will:

1. implement national uniform restrictions on the use and disclosure of Schools Identifiers and specified information associated with administration by education authorities;

2. set out Educations Ministers' agreed approach to the handling of requests for Schools Identifier data under the Data Availability and Transparency Act 2022 (Cth); and

3. provide guidance and information on the use, data entry requirements and maintenance of Schools Identifiers.

If that sounds like a lot of restrictions on the use of Schools Identifiers it's because there are.

It is very important that we protect the privacy of students whilst they benefit from the opportunities of a streamlined and unified identifier system.

This bill satisfies the Commonwealth's obligations under the current National School Reform Agreement to set up the architecture for Schools Identifiers.

It's a system with the privacy of the student at its centre, and it sets up the opportunity for Education Ministers across the country to agree on measures which will harness that system to benefit all Australian students throughout their education.

I commend the bill to the Chamber.

Ordered that further consideration of the second reading of this bill be adjourned to the first sitting day of the next period of sittings, in accordance with standing order 111.