Tuesday, 10 September 2024

Literacy education

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:49): (1132) My adjournment is for the Minister for Education, and the action that I seek is for the removal of excessive compliance requirements in our schools and the restoration of education that prioritises reading, writing and arithmetic. According to an article in the Herald Sun this week there are at least 3468 education positions advertised on the government’s job portal, including for teachers, principal roles and support staff. Schools and students in our region of Eastern Victoria are suffering. They are faced with chronic teacher shortages and are unable to fill positions or cannot even at times find relief teachers. This means that schools are constantly finding various ways to cope, including merging more classes, telling students to stay home, providing more non-teacher-specific events and even having students study under the principal’s supervision in boardrooms. One of the reasons that teachers are leaving the workforce is they are being stretched beyond their limits. They say that excessive red tape is one of the issues. They say that their role goes well beyond the traditional role of teaching kids a curriculum that is going to prepare them for their future. Recently I spoke to a local principal who explained that in his 25 years of teaching there has never been this level of regulatory burden on schools, a lot of which has to do with ensuring school policies satisfy the government’s inclusion guidelines, with many others having to deal with the ongoing risk assessments and mandatory reporting standards. This principal told me that education has become more about political ideologies and trying to navigate this minefield to avoid getting sued or deregistered and that it has stopped being about delivering educational outcomes for children.

Thirty per cent of Victorian schoolchildren are not meeting standards. This is an absolute devastation. The Grattan Institute found that one in four Victorian children cannot read properly and this increases to half across areas like mine – rural and remote areas. Minister, schools, teachers, principals and parents are already being pushed to the limit. Schools are struggling to find the resources to fulfil their responsibilities, and parents who are working hard to earn money to cover the rising cost of living are trying to cope with uncertainty on a daily basis, which is making it difficult for them. Minister, when will this government ditch the stranglehold of needless regulation and get teachers back teaching the basics so kids can be prepared for their future?