EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP

The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT (Lee) (14:10): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Can the minister inform the house about what is being done to help and attract school principals and preschool leaders to support high quality education in our public schools and preschools?

The Hon. G. PORTOLESI (Hartley—Minister for Education and Child Development) (14:10): I thank the honourable member for this question. I was pleased, just a few weeks ago, to advise the house about a partnership with the federal government to support local school leaders in making local decisions. We are doing that through the Empowering Local Schools national partnership agreement, which is worth about $4 million and which will assist about 61 schools in our community. We take this approach of working together with school principals and preschool directors because they are the leaders in the frontline, and they know their young people and school communities best.

Of course, educational leadership is also critical, and programs such as the PALL program I talked about yesterday, the Principals as Literacy Leaders program, are helping leaders work directly with classroom teachers to help students improve these essential skills. There have been a number of other steps we have taken with principals and teachers to strengthen local decision-making, including reforms to schools to assist principals create the teams around them that best suit their local circumstances. Of course, as David Gonski has highlighted, South Australia already has one of the most decentralised education systems in the country.

However, both here in South Australia and in other states there is a growing challenge to be faced in attracting and keeping our outstanding school leaders. The baby boomer years mean that more of our experienced principals and preschool directors will retire over the next few years; and combine that with the fact that research shows that educational leadership and quality teaching are what makes a real difference to children and their future.

I am pleased to advise the house that we are inviting our school and preschool leaders to contribute their advice and experience on how we can better support their leadership, their capacity to be innovative, and their professional development. I have today provided schools and preschools with a new discussion paper which outlines proposals and ideas to support leadership in public education. That includes a proposal for a new South Australian Institute for Educational Leadership to support their professional development. There are also proposals to support the people who help school leaders to make a difference: of course, our teachers and school support staff.

School principals and preschool directors today work in an environment where technology, social media and community scrutiny is increasingly significant. I am also inviting school communities to contribute their ideas on these and other issues, while also flagging the development of a new social media policy for our schools.

Educational leadership is also critically important, of course, because our future leaders will increasingly be leading the connections between our school child development and child protection services at a local level. All this means that we do need to attract and retain the best and brightest leaders to inspire and support staff, and I encourage communities, and I encourage everyone in this place, to contribute their ideas on how we best do this.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Toni Cocchiaro who was last night awarded the Alby Jones Award for educational leadership. I was very pleased to be at an event last night where she was honoured, and I congratulate all the other recipients who were also honoured last night.