Extracts from submissions
Submissions on Indigenous education
Brother John Giacon, Walgett, March 1999
"In my first years in Walgett there were 30 Aboriginal students in Year 7 and none in Year 12 . I have been struck by how extremely difficult it is for Walgett Aboriginal people to try tertiary education. Maybe one or two a year are finishing a degree. At the same time there were no Aboriginal teachers working in Walgett when I arrived. Now there are three.
"From my experience the NSW Education Department is willing to spend extra money on rural schools. They are willing to undertake initiatives such as the Walgett Community of Schools. The staff are generally very committed and competent. However they are often unprepared for the different worlds that country towns and Aboriginal culture are. Too often the programs and regulations are based on another culture. There are also incidents such as the principal who said to an Aboriginal parent, who was distressed that all of one class were in the bottom 20% of the State in a literacy test, 'That's not bad for Aboriginal kids'.
"Recommendations:
- That staff who are going to teach in Aboriginal areas be given specific, substantial cross-cultural inservice.
- That means be found to ensure that staff stay in country areas longer.
- That research be done into what type of education works in country towns and in Aboriginal areas.
- That every effort be made to increase the resources of Aboriginal tertiary units, not just in education but in many other areas (nursing, trades . ) and that further, creative thinking is done to look at appropriate ways of making education accessible to a group for whom it is so often a hostile world.
"Many reports have highlighted the importance of Indigenous language, as does the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The NSW Education Department has adopted a policy in favour of Indigenous languages. However, the actual funding allocated to Indigenous languages is inadequate. It may be that this is because some are not aware of the massive work involved in language maintenance and revival. It may also be that the Federal Government is not committed to this task.
"Recommendations:
- That the NSW Education Department investigate the steps necessary to teach Indigenous languages, and then allocate the resources necessary to do that.
- That the Federal Government allocate major resources to language recording, maintenance and teaching."
Submissions on non-government schools
Brother John Giacon, Walgett, March 1999
"There are extra resources allocated to country Government schools. However Government (Federal and State) funding of non-Government schools is on a per capita basis. This means that, for Catholic Schools, country dioceses are much disadvantaged.
"Recommendation:
That an 'isolation factor' be built into per capita funding of non-Government schools, as it is built into IESIP [Indigenous Education Special Initiatives Program - a federal initiative] and other programs."
Submissions on teachers and other education workers
Evidence from Sharon Grellman, Wee Waa High School, given in Moree NSW, 4 March 1999
"We are on the 5-year system of incentive transfer. We get newly trained staff and then we spend all our resources training them because you don't just get to teach one subject in our schools. You get multiple subjects. We enjoy the fact that you are a PE teacher but you have got sewing, design and technology and sewing. You are also going to do cooking and the person next to you is going to also teach in maths.
"We do a really good job of training those people. We will multi-skill them. We give them all these experiences that they would never gain in another school because more senior teachers are doing. You get to do the year adviser, the support teacher, learning difficulties, the sports adviser. You name it we can do it. We are multi-skilled. We get all these skills then they are right for promotion. They take all those skills and, ironically, they take the skills somewhere else because the incentive is after 5 years to get out of there. There is no incentive to stay.
"In talking to several of the staff and the parents we would like to see an incentive system that offers people incentives to stay in our town; to keep those skills; to keep that experience. The survey that was released last week said the teachers of the top 1% students had an average of 17 years of teaching experience and a dedicated subject teacher. We are not going to get those at our school. They are typically first year out and thankfully they are enthusiastic and we have not worn them out yet. But given the 3 or5 years we can do that. Then they take their incentive and go. Perhaps a system that offers incentives to stay - like after the 3rd year the same pay rise and then offer them incentives to stay - would give our school the continuity that it needs to survive."
Anonymous proposal for an incentive scheme - NSW
Rationale
The current incentive scheme may attract people to rural areas but once they are there the incentive is to leave rather than remain, even for just an extra year or so. The proposal recognises that neither extreme - constant staff turnover; majority of very long stayers - is desirable. It aims for a flow of new ideas and practices while maintaining a large measure of continuity. It is suggested that the costs involved in implementing the proposal would be minimal.
Proposal
- Retain right of
transfer after 3 years but remove right of transfer (applicable in some
schools) after 2 years. Retain current allowances: subsidised rent;
isolation allowance; climatic allowance where applicable; automatic
spouse compassionate transfer; medical and educational support where
services are not available locally.
- Increase rental
subsidy by 50% in 6-point schools and by 60% in 8-point schools.
- Introduce a sliding
scale of incentives to start in the third year of appointment and to
continue for 5 years after that, for example:
- an interest-free loan of $5,000 which increases by $2,000 increments each year for 5 years and which can be taken while in the isolated site of in the 12 months after leaving
- a 5% increment in salary in years 4 and 5 of the appointment, 10% in years 6 and 7, 5% in year 8 and no increment in the ninth and subsequent years
- 1 month extra long service leave for each year of service in the isolated site for years 4 to 8
- locality allowances indexed with salary increases
- a 3% salary increment for people who purchase a home or property in the area (these people currently lose the rental subsidy while making a commitment to the area)
- reduced HECS for tertiary study for dependants in full-time study.
- The senior executive
- principal and deputy principal - appointed to an isolated school should
not be first-timers in those roles although promotion from a lower grade
of principal should be allowed. To facilitate this, principals in isolated
areas should have salary status (but not transfer status) of the grade
above the substantive position.
- Senior executive should not be able to leave a school at the same time.
Extracts from submissions on accessibility
Rick Hutton, Bingara P& C Association NSW
"Bingara Central School provides courses to School Certificate so students must go to Warialda or further afield to study for the Higher School Certificate. Students in outlying areas, who catch a bus to school, cannot link to the bus that takes town-dwelling students to Warialda as this bus leaves too early. Parents can board the students in Bingara so that they can catch the bus or board them at Warialda or the town of the school of their choice. Either way this adds to the financial burden on the family to educate their children, an additional burden on many families who are currently under pressure from the rural recession, as well as the social change in that their children must be away from their homes."
Craig Luccarda, Teacher, Trangie Central School, NSW
"Many schools are not in easy access to TAFE or places suitable for Vocational Education work placement. The travel time and cost involved discourages students from the weekly TAFE. Often there are not enough students to make a bus viable financially therefore unless you can find car transport the TAFE idea is doomed. The DSE needs to fund rural isolated schools specifically for the purpose outlined above if access to these other activities is to be shared by all schools and their students.
"HSC course seminars, HSC marking seminars and experiencing drama associated with English text are some of the opportunities rural students miss out on simply because the cumulative time away (often overnight) and cost involved (expense to student as well as to the school to release staff) make constant trips away impractical. It would be nice to see the BOS and DSE sponsor groups to come out past the major centres to deliver HSC applicable workshops in all KLA."
John Wilton, Principal, Wentworth Public School NSW
"There seems to be little appreciation of the costs which rural families face to offer children access to University or TAFE. Accommodation and transport costs for an average rural student forced to attend university away from home are in the range of $11 000 and $20 000 annually. It should be noted that an income based test for educational assistance lacks relevance if it does not have an isolation factor included."
Andrew Burn, Teacher, Griffith, NSW
"The idea of DET funded excursion accommodation in Sydney came to me out of the frustration of trying to organise an excursion to Sydney for seven students, and being knocked back because the school would not send two teachers. The issue relates to the inequality between city and country schools because a Sydney teacher could take a class for a day excursion, and the school would not need to provide a second teacher."
Michael Horsley, Principal, St Mary's College, Gunnedah, NSW
"One of the most crippling costs to parents is that associated with excursions and sporting opportunities. In order for our students to take advantage of enriching learning experiences beyond the classroom we have to travel large distances. This requires expensive bus hire and accommodation (if overnight stays are required). The cost of providing the breath of educational opportunities similar to those of city students is far greater, and therefore, places rural and remote students at a significant disadvantage. The most significant factors - cost and distance."
Hillston Preschool Inc, NSW
"Pre school education has a very important role in our children's social, intellectual, language and physical development and greatly assists with the transition into primary school . Pre schoolers in the rural and isolated communities in NSW receive enormous benefits from these social and educational experiences. However, at present preschoolers are not being recognised as 'students' by the Department of Transport and therefore cannot be guaranteed safe transport to and from preschool. We ask that preschoolers be included by the Department of Public Transport to have equal. Fair access to their preschool destination."
Lester McCormick, Manilla Community Pre School, NSW
"Currently, pre schoolers are invisible to the Department of Transport. They do not have any rights to be delivered safely to the pre school door. They depend on the goodwill of bus drivers to canvey them or not to town, and even then there is no guarantee a child will be delivered to a pre school, in many cases, only to a nearby local school."
Last updated 2 December 2001.
