Northern Adelaide Senior College

The SPEAKER: The member for Napier.

Members interjecting:

Mr GEE (Napier) (14:44): It is hard for those on your left to try to be relevant, sir. My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Can the minister give details of the new Northern Adelaide Senior College and, in particular, how it is supporting early school leavers to re-engage with education as adults?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for the Public Sector) (14:44): I am delighted to answer this question because I had the very great pleasure last week of going to formally open the new Northern Adelaide Senior College, which has come of the former Para West campus in Davoren Park, which for many years has been an incredibly important location for young adults who had disengaged from school and were finding a path back to completing their schooling.

What has happened, though, is that we are now moving into the next level of offering for students in that situation by creating the Northern Adelaide Senior College, which is in Elizabeth. It is adjacent to, and in some ways part of, the TAFE complex there. It has fantastic access for transport so that far more people are able to have easy access to the centre.

What is really special about it is that it has created an environment where the young adults who are re-engaging in education truly feel valued. It is a pleasant, learning-focused area which is highly flexible. It is a school in which the young adults are treated as individuals who deserve respect and attention. I say that not just through my own observation of the physical environment. When I went on the tour prior to officially opening the college, talking to some of the mature-age students who had come back to find success was absolutely inspirational.

Students who had completely disengaged from schooling previously and who had a range of issues that may have been drug related, trauma with their families, bullying, or simply that the school did not respond to the needs that they had, have all been able to find a place where they can continue their education, get their SACE, and, because of the colocation with TAFE, also explore other alternatives which might in fact suit them more than strictly completing their SACE at that time in their lives.

What I said to those students, in opening, was how important it is that they recognise that they have the capability of getting a good education. Everyone in South Australia, because of the way in which the SACE has been designed, has that capability, but not every model suits every individual and some people require more accommodation than others. They require a school that is more flexible and more attune to their needs.

This school, for example, has a crèche available. When young women fall pregnant in high school it is extremely difficult for them to continue to engage in their studies, so this school has a crèche to enable them to come back and do their SACE. It is absolutely impressive and exactly what we should be doing, and I expect even greater things from the Northern Adelaide Senior College than we have already seen from Para West.