REYNELL EDUCATION FORUM

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (15:49): I also want to thank my local community, particularly those who were involved in a recent education forum that I conducted. This is the third of these forums, where the members of school governing councils are invited to come together to consider how they might as school leaders improve the education outcomes in our schools.

The reason this is necessary is that, according to the latest census figures, across greater Adelaide only 15 per cent of the population has less than year 10 or equivalent in education. Unfortunately, in Reynell this is 22 per cent, so that means that there are a lot of people who are not eligible for the jobs that exist today. Other figures show that, in terms of the numbers of our young people participating in TAFE or university study, it is less than half what is happening across Greater Adelaide in general, and, unfortunately, seems to have changed little since I first started analysing these figures in 2001. My school communities are realising that something has to change if our young people are going to be able to participate in the prosperous society that we know South Australia will be in the future.

In looking around at how I might be able to help them, I encountered the region of Inverclyde in Scotland. Inverclyde has the second-lowest life expectancy in the UK, and we know that that is generally associated with low levels of education. But, this community has decided, after the ravages of the Thatcher years, to pick itself up and find new directions through education.

They have been so successful that last year, less than 1 per cent of their year 12 students left without qualifications; that is, five or more subjects at level 3 in their system. I cannot keep track of their A levels or O levels, but less than 1 per cent left without a qualification. In terms of the future destinies of those young people, 36.4 per cent went to university and 27.4 per cent went to TAFE equivalent. I am waiting for the day and working towards the day we will have those figures in Reynell.

I would very much like to thank those school leaders who came together to contribute their understanding of how we can make our children's education more relevant to them, and to improve their educational aspirations. I particularly want to thank my staff and the volunteers who worked incredibly hard to put this together, and particularly our guest speakers: Garry Costello, the head of schools from DECD; David Giles, the dean of the School of Education from Flinders University; and Raymond Garrand, chief executive of DFEEST. Considerable assistance in facilitation of the evening was provided by our local resident, and winner of the Women Hold Up Half The Sky Australia Day Award this year, Katrine Hildyard.

In looking at the themes that came through after receiving a report back from me on some of the developments in Inverclyde, we broke into groups (one focusing on schools, one focusing on university and one focusing on TAFE) on what we need to know about how the system works, what we think is working well, what we think is causing problems at the moment in terms of preventing participation, and what might assist the people present and parents to be more confident about schools, TAFE and university as being relevant and important to their children's lives.

A theme that came through consistently was the need for better career guidance, and that whether it is at school, university or TAFE, people have not been exposed to the wide range of occupations that are now available. They do not know how to get there, they do not know what university or TAFE courses are involved, they do not know how much they cost, and they do not know how you can go about funding the various courses that lead to higher education.