School Absenteeism

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (14:32): How long will it take to evaluate the deterrence factor of prosecutions and the long-term effect of convictions on families and children, and how will that be reported?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) (14:32): The long-term effect on the children involved of course is crucial, and that is about the ongoing monitoring of their engagement with school and their successful engagement with school. In terms of the deterrent value, it will presumably take some time to work out if behaviour changes. We don't have so many kids who are in the extreme, chronic end of non-attendance that we could easily do a statistical significance over a short period of time. It will however be of interest to see whether the engagement between the workers and families is affected by the awareness of those families where this has occurred.

But importantly, although it does serve, I hope, as an important and salutary lesson for parents that we do take attendance seriously, we don't proceed to prosecution in an effort to undertake a show trial. A prosecution is judged on its own merits and is only an absolute last resort when the judgement of the workers involved is that there is no other way to encourage or to require the parent to pay attention to the fact that they do have an obligation to get their kids to school.