Information Literacy in Schools

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (15:00): My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills. Can the minister advise the house how schools are responding to combat misinformation and disinformation and ensure academic integrity?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (15:00): I thank the member for Adelaide for this excellent question. It was a pleasure to join her just last week, in fact, at Prospect Primary School to see a program which is directly related to this issue in action. At Prospect Primary School, students are taking part in what is called the Newshounds program. It teaches our youngest learners to distinguish fact from fiction and to stop, think and check before believing everything they see, read or hear. I think we can all agree in this place, particularly this week, that this is not an optional skill set in today's world. In fact, it is an essential part of preparing children to navigate an environment where information can be inadvertently wrong or, at times, even deliberately wrong.

As students move into the secondary schooling part of their journey, this work continues. In high school, students are taught not only to identify misinformation but also how to use new technologies such as artificial intelligence responsibly. This focus on truth and integrity runs right through our system. In fact, the Premier himself has spoken in this place on many occasions about the importance of equipping young people with the tools to detect misinformation and disinformation. That need was one of the driving forces behind our civics reforms and the recent civics convention at Adelaide Oval, where we saw more than a thousand year 10 students from right around the state come to learn about these really important issues.

This week I also joined the member for Florey at Adelaide Botanic High School to announce the rollout of our EdChat AI platform to public high schools. There is a very important disclaimer that appears at the bottom of every piece of information that EdChat produces. It says this: 'EdChat can make mistakes. Validate important information.' I think this is a lesson for all of us, but particularly I think it would seem this is a lesson for Frank Pangallo, the Liberal Party's own fake newshound. We have learned today that he used AI to generate a list of peer-reviewed documents and references, failed to fact-check them and then submitted faulty links as if they were reliable sources. We have all heard of 'frank and fearless', but this is more like 'Frank and peerless'.

Indeed, if he was a year 12 student, he would have failed the assignment. Under the SACE, students are bound by strict requirements to conduct honest and ethical research. They must not fabricate, falsify or misrepresent evidence, data or authorship. The penalties for doing so are rightly severe, but it would seem that our senior secondary students in this state are held to a higher standard of accountability than the opposition's own watchdog. Our students would never get away with the excuses that Mr Pangallo has made this week. They know the penalties. They know the importance of integrity. They are trained and prepared to meet those standards, yet somehow Mr Pangallo gets a free pass from the Leader of the Opposition, who I think by this stage must be feeling a bit like the dog owner at the park who has run out of bags.

Yes, our schools are responding. They are embedding digital literacy, critical thinking and ethical research into every stage of learning. They are preparing students to be discerning citizens who can spot misinformation, understand the risks of AI and meet the standards of honesty and accountability. It is particularly ironic that just days ago the opposition's education spokesperson, the Hon. Ms Girolamo, who also happens to be the Chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, the exact committee where Mr Pangallo aired those dodgy documents, went on 891 to say this:

It is so important that in the younger years that numeracy and literacy is front of mind, and problem-solving skills, critical thinking, things like that, rather than just relying on AI. It can be inaccurate so there are certainly concerns from that perspective.

But it seems that no-one told Mr Pangallo that, who I think has now probably cooked up more sources than Maggie Beer.

The SPEAKER: Speaking of the Barossa, the member for Schubert.