SENIOR SECONDARY ASSESSMENT BOARD OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA (REVIEW) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 23 October 2007. Page 1080.)

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (21:21): I rise to support the second reading of this bill. In doing so, I will outline briefly the perspective or bias that I bring to the debate. Firstly, I indicate that for 12 years, from 1985 to 1997, I was either the shadow minister or the minister for education in South Australia with responsibility for the bulk of that time speaking on behalf of my party on school and education matters and matters that related to SSABSA. More personally and more recently, for the period from the mid-1990s to a few years ago, I have had experience of the education system as a parent. My wife and I have four children who negotiated the SACE system and, therefore, they were subject to the decisions of SSABSA during that period.

I do that briefly to indicate that I have had a personal interest and a professional and political interest in education matters and matters that relate to SSABSA for 20 years or more and, therefore, (a) I am very interested in this debate and (b) I am very concerned at some aspects of what is occurring in South Australia, as evidenced by this piece of legislation and other decisions. I want to highlight those concerns and I hope to speak to interested members between now and perhaps next week, when the committee stage of the debate occurs, to discuss the amendments that I have already placed on notice and possibly further amendments that I am able to move over the coming days as well.

At the outset I acknowledge the importance of the South Australian Certificate of Education (our senior secondary certificate). I think that when one reads the report 'Success for All', which is the government's bible for change of the SACE and these changes to SSABSA, one sees that it overstates a little the critical importance of the SACE these days. Certainly it is still critically important—I acknowledge that—and, certainly, those of us with young people going through and who have gone through the period know the stresses and strains that they, their teachers and families are under as they go through the system.

But I hasten to say that, in the past 10 years or so, with the changes in tertiary education that we have seen, many of our universities are now accepting young people into their courses later on in life and, in many cases, without having to have completed their SACE or year 12 equivalent.

Those who messed up or messed around, or whatever, during their secondary years but, at a later stage in their life, have decided they want to give tertiary education a go do not always have to go back to year 12, as is commonly thought. There are a number of foundation or foundation-equivalent programs in our universities where one must sit a university-type intelligence exam or test. These days, many people undertake university studies through that alternative pathway. I have no doubt that those alternative pathways will continue in the future. They will continue to expand in the future and there will continue to be many people who, having unsuccessfully experienced the South Australian Certificate of Education in their school years, will still be able to successfully undertake tertiary education and training and attain the qualifications that they need for further success in life. I think it is important to acknowledge that at the outset.

In terms of background, it is important to note the very significant movement that we have seen in the last 20 years or so—I am not referring to just the last few years—between government schools and non-government schools not just in South Australia but Australia, to the extent that probably somewhere between 30 and 40 per cent of young people, particularly in secondary school, now undertake their studies in non-government schools. It is also important to note the very significant growth of low fee Anglican or non-Catholic but independent schools in South Australia and nationally has brought non-government school education within the realms of financial possibility for many more families than may have been the case in the past.

In part, I think this movement—and I do not intend to address this at length—is due to a parental perception of superior performance through the secondary years, and in particular through the South Australian Certificate of Education, of some non-government schools in particular. At this stage, I say that that is the perception. I do not want to enter the debate of government and non-government schools during this particular debate but, in the real world, when one talks to parents, some have their children attend government primary schools but, during the secondary years, will make additional sacrifices to ensure that their child attends a non-government school.

I want to place on the record that I think that parental perception, in part, is driven because there is so little information available about the relative quality of performance in schools in South Australia and nationally. Now is not the time for me to enter into debate—it is my personal view—but my views have changed in the last 10 to 15 years in relation to this issue. Given that there is currently such a paucity of information available to parents in terms of the quality of education provided by various secondary schools—whether they be government or non-government—what little information they get through the media can be important to them.

One of the clearest indicators of perception of relative performance is the annual release of results for the South Australian Certificate of Education where inevitably a very small number of students—generally between six and 11—are feted in the media as being a very select group who have received perfect scores, that is, 20 out of 20 for five or six subjects that they have undertaken at the year 12 level for SACE. A considerable amount of publicity goes towards those particular students on the day that the results are released, and the days that follow. Most parents would note that generally somewhere between 60 and 80 per cent of those students come from non-government schools, and probably a relatively small selection of non-government schools, when one looks at the record.

So, you have—at the most critical period of the year when parents are thinking about secondary schooling, etc., during the Christmas break, or just before Christmas and just after Christmas in previous years—cemented in the perception of many parents and those in the community the fact that the students who perform the best at year 12 have been students from non-government schools. That is potentially unfair in terms of perception because we are only talking about that small group of students who have received the perfect mark for five or six subjects. Information is not available to the community in terms of relative performance of government and non-government sectors and, of course—I know the Liberal Party position has been restated in the house on this debate—league tables are now in comparison between schools.

One of the views that I did want to put on the record—and I stress this is a personal view, it is not a party position—is that I think it is time for us as a state to look at the notion of selective high schools here in South Australia. I do so on the basis that when I was minister for education I took the first tentative steps towards selective high schools by initiating a range of programs to assist academically gifted and talented students, right through from pre-school and primary to secondary. In particular, I refer to the decisions that were taken to announce that Aberfoyle Park High School, Glenunga International High School and the Heights School would be the schools in the state which would have accelerated programs for academically gifted and talented students.

Students would sit a test and, based on passing that particular test, would be accepted into accelerated programs for academically gifted and talented students in those particular schools. They would remain comprehensive high schools for their local area but, like the selective music high schools and others based on that model, they would have select programs for academically gifted and talented students. I note that, as is the way with this government, they have retitled or rebadged those schools. I think they are now called Ignite program schools and they go under the heading of 'Ignite Gifted Education' and 'The Ignite Program'. I will not go through all the details of that, but they were the first tentative steps.

I did that on the basis of having, as shadow minister, visited the Mac.Robertson Girls High School in Melbourne. I have spoken to people about the selective high schools in New South Wales. I have also visited a high school attached to the University of Melbourne, and I have spoken to people about what was required, from their viewpoint, in terms of our encouraging the excellence of our academically gifted and talented students.

I think it is the time now to move to the next step. New South Wales has a strong history of selective high schools (select entry schools). They have 17 fully selective high schools and nine partially selective schools. In Victoria there are two select entry high schools: Mac.Robertson Girls High School, to which I referred earlier, and Melbourne High School, which is for boys only. The current Victorian Labor government is at present looking at another two select entry high schools, which will be coeducational—and that is a Labor government looking at that area.

I have not always agreed with the views of Justice Michael Kirby—I know those in the government are perhaps more simpatico with many of the views that he has expressed over the years—but I recall attending a public meeting he addressed here in the Norwood Town Hall many years ago where he argued strongly for the value of selective high schools. These are high schools where all of the attendees—let us get the definition right—are based on passing tests, whether it be years 6, 7 or 8, and only those students who academically qualify are accepted into those select entry high schools.

Justice Michael Kirby's passionate defence of and support for those schools comes from his belief that it was only through the nurturing of the special gift and talent that he and many others who attended his schools in New South Wales had that he was encouraged to make the best use and value of his talents. He and others argued passionately that if left to the comprehensive high school system many of them would have been frustrated, their gifts and talents would not have been nurtured, and the state of the nation would have been the poorer.

There are many others who have been through those schools and school systems who have argued passionately and similarly that there is great value in the selective high school experience. I will conclude that argument by saying that, when one looks at New South Wales, in particular at the same results released at the end of the year, one will see a significant number of government school students being feted publicly and in the media for their equivalent of our perfect scores—the five 20 out of 20s—in their year 12 assessment. That is of value in terms of highlighting in New South Wales and in Victoria that there are opportunities within the government school system for government school students to excel at their year 12 equivalent, and not just a situation (as it seems) where non-government school students are seen by and large to be feted as the students of excellence in our year 12 assessment.

I think there are also other reasons for selective high schools, but I believe that this one particular issue is important as we discuss the changes to the Future SACE and our SSABSA board in this and other related legislation, and that we consider some of the other policy changes, which I believe governments need to look at if they are going to be serious in terms of, in this case, changing the perception of the quality of students who come out of the government school system. I place some questions on the record to the minister: can the minister indicate the level of government support that is currently provided to the Ignite schools, that is, the additional staffing or resources provided, and how does that compare to the initial resourcing that was given to those schools when the program first started, that is, is it at the same level or has it been increased with the passage of time?

I also ask, at a little bit of a tangent, whether the minister will provide information about the total government assistance for gifted and talented students within the government school system, in particular, if any assistance is provided to the Gifted and Talented Association, and whether or not it is true that the position of the centrally placed officer who was given responsibility for gifted and talented students has been cut in the past 12 months as a result of budget decisions.

The second issue that I want to raise in terms the broad context of this debate is the whole issue of retention rates. Anybody who has been following politics in South Australia for the past 10 years will know that the present government was very critical of the former government because it argued that the retention rates, that is, the percentage of students doing year 12 as a percentage of the same cohort that started secondary schooling in year 8 some five years earlier, had dropped significantly, in particular during the period of the nineties.

The government announced that its policy was going to be that 90 per cent of students, under this retention rate definition, was going to be its particular goal. When one looks at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the recent figures on the apparent retention rates for full-time secondary students, one sees that, in 1986, the figure was 54.8 per cent in South Australia; and by 1991, in those five years, it had jumped very significantly to 83.5 per cent. I think, soon after that, it did go to a high of 90 per cent. In 1996 it dropped to 68.4 per cent, and in 2001 it was 66.4 per cent, and it grew slowly to 71.5 per cent in 2006.

When one looks at those time periods, the one thing that changed in the early 1990s was the introduction of the South Australian Certificate of Education. There were certainly many educators who argued that one of the key reasons for the reduction in the apparent retention rate was related, in part, to the introduction of the South Australian Certificate of Education. There are other reasons of course—there is never one reason—but certainly there was, in that brief period of time, a significant reduction.

In recent times, we have seen only a very small increase and, after six years of a Labor government, it is nowhere near this 90 per cent apparent retention rate which it said was the objective and what it was, in fact, going to deliver. I note that that retention rate figure is still part of the South Australian Strategic Plan, although I think it is acknowledged in some of the press releases that it will be difficult to reach that particular target again. The recent growth, in part, has been due to a decision the government took to increase the leaving age of students to 16 years; that is, by compulsion, requiring students to stay in school for an additional 12 months which, in and of itself, obviously assisted the apparent retention rate debate.

There is another figure that is used in this particular debate, and I asked the question of the minister as to whether there is a figure which talks about the completion of the SACE rate, which is much lower than the 71 per cent. I think the minister has been quoting something like about 55 per cent of students having completed the South Australian Certificate of Education.

I seek advice from the minister as to whether she can give a timeline on those figures. If it is 55 per cent for the past year, what has that figure been over the past five to 10 years? Can she provide a table as to the movement in that particular figure in terms of the SACE completion rate? I also seek advice from the minister as to exactly the definition of that SACE completion rate. Is the percentage that has been referred to a percentage of the same year 8 cohort that the apparent retention rate calculation is calculated on, so that members can be aware of what we are talking about? What is the denominator? What is the base for that particular per cent calculation in terms of the SACE completion calculation?

They are the background issues in addressing this bill. When the government originally announced the changes, some time ago now, to SACE and SSABSA, I must admit that I immediately raised concerns. The minister announced a committee to be led (educationally at least) by Professor Alan Reid. The other members of the committee were a former minister of education, Greg Crafter, and a leading business person, Patricia Crook. The only professional educator, if I can put it that way, is obviously Professor Alan Reid.

My concerns were raised because Professor Reid has what I would call a 'touchy-feely' education approach. I can best characterise it by saying that, back in the mid-1990s, I was minister for education when the former Liberal government introduced basic skills testing. Shock, horror! We actually thought we should be testing our students in primary school as early as possible for literacy and numeracy! We had the view that, unless you identified the problems early enough and did something about it, you would struggle later on in life when it would be much harder to correct the literacy and numeracy problems.

Professor Alan Reid, together with, of course, the Australian Education Union and the Labor Party, trenchantly opposed the introduction of basic skills tests in South Australia. Professor Reid and the others were of the view that testing of literacy and numeracy was harmful to some students because it potentially damaged their self-esteem. That was the general argument that we received at the time from a range of people (the educators, the Labor Party and the unions). The unions, of course, continued to fight basic skills testing measurements, albeit quietly in recent times under Labor governments, as the Labor governments were not game to remove the basic skills tests because the parents and the school system were such strong supporters of them as a result of having seen the value of those changes.

As I said, my concerns were immediately aroused because the SACE is significantly about assessment and how you measure, whether it be a pass or fail or the levels of performance. Minister Lomax-Smith and the Premier wanted a report, and obviously you pick the person you want simpatico with your own particular views, and here we had in Professor Reid someone who over his career had been opposed to simple things such as basic skills testing. If he is opposed to that sort of basic skills testing measurement, I was very concerned about what his attitude might be to things such as examinations and testing in year 11 and year 12.

Greg Crafter is a person whom I am fond of. He is a very nice person and I crossed swords with him as the shadow minister for education but he, too, during that period was strongly opposed to basic skills testing. He was a Labor education minister, he was a captive of, or not prepared to take on, the Australian Education Union or the teacher unions at the time, and he and his party were strongly opposed during that period to basic skills testing.

Whilst I have very high regard for Patricia Crook, I am sure she will not mind my saying she is certainly not an expert in terms of education. She was appointed, I am sure, as a representative of the business community and as a very sensible and capable person to put another perspective, but she was just one vote in a group of three. As I said, the leading educator was Professor Reid.

When I saw the title of the report, which was 'Success for All', again, my concerns were heightened. Whilst we would want success for all, in the real world it is not possible. We can provide opportunity for all, and we should. There should be equal opportunity for everyone to participate, but there are some, through their own choices or their own capacities, who cannot be successful or who will not be as successful as others.

As I said, my concerns were aroused right from the appointment of the committee and the announcement of the title of that particular report. I am sure my colleagues will chuckle to themselves, because I know that they are aware that within recent months in particular (the past year or so) I have been very concerned about the direction of the changes this government is taking us in terms of the South Australian Certificate of Education.

I am delighted that my colleague the Hon. Stephen Wade and others on the Social Development Committee have decided to look at the South Australian Certificate of Education. Before I look at some of the significant criticisms I have of the government and the direction in which it is heading, I acknowledge that I support strongly some of the proposed changes. I have always had concern about the type of year 11 assessment in the first year of the South Australian Certificate of Education. There has been strong opposition from parents, as well, in terms of the level of information given to them about the extent of year 11 assessments.

The reality is—certainly in just about every government school and non-government school—the school report according to the SACE basically says, in essence, 'You have turned up and you have achieved it or you have not achieved it.' Essentially, that is all it says. Most schools actually ran parallel reporting schemes where they reported to parents, whether it be a score or a grade, or something like that. They complied with the SACE requirement but, at the same time, because of parent demand, they provided more detailed information about the relative degree of performance of their students.

Given that we are in the last 10 days of an election campaign, I will not speak in detail of my view on some of the policies in the federal arena, but at least the issue in relation to requiring to a greater degree from schools more information for parents about a student's performance is something I support strongly. Most parents want to see more useful information about the performance of their child. They want information which gives them some relative idea about how their child is performing, whether it be in the class or compared to the state.

We have been through the notion where in excessive detail they are told, 'This is what your child can do,' and they have no idea whether that is the average, better than the average or below the average. It is of no use to most parents, other than if they are professional educators who can read between the lines. Parents want useful information, and certainly the goals of our federal ministers—and I will not comment on some of the mechanisms—are certainly ones that I support. I support recognition of VET within the South Australian certificate, although I do have some questions about that. I believe that is already recognised within the current certificate, anyway.

The first major area about which I have significant concern is the issue of the independence of the board. In South Australia, rightly or wrongly, our culture and tradition has been that education has been to a large degree independent of the political direction and control of ministers for education, whether they be Labor or Liberal. We are probably one of only two states in the nation where the minister for education does not have formal control over curriculum within schools under the Education Act.

The Chief Executive Officer of the department is formally in control of curriculum within schools. In other states it is quite explicit that the minister for education is in control of curriculum content. Consistent with that culture and tradition, the Senior Secondary Assessment Board, because it was responsible for the curriculum of years 11 and 12 when it was established in the early 1990s under the former Labor government, was given virtually complete independence from the political control of the minister for education.

It was an independent board. As I said, it was consistent with the theory that politicians did not control curriculum. The unions and educators and everyone lauded the virtues of South Australian education because it was not captive of the vagaries of politicians coming and going, in terms of curriculum and curriculum content.

I note that, in the debate in the House of Assembly, the Minister for Education and Children's Services, in seeking to justify part of this legislation and the reasons why the independence of the board was being curtailed very significantly (and I will outline in a moment how that is done in the bill), made this very telling comment. The minister said:

It is true to say that currently there is no power to direct the SACE board, which means should the government invest in, for instance, a biotech innovation investment fund—and we have invested enormously in Technology Park at Thebarton—we have no capacity to request that the SACE board consider courses that may be appropriate for that skills area. We have no capacity to suggest that the SACE system should have programs that would get people into the air warfare defence industry or even into the mining sector.

I think that very explicitly indicates what the government is about here. Firstly, what the minister said, in part, is wrong. The minister said, 'We have no capacity to request that the SACE board consider courses.' Of course, any minister can request the SACE board to consider courses or to consider any action. Certainly, under the current act, where there is no power to direct, the minister cannot direct the board, but there is certainly nothing that prevents the minister from requesting.

So, in part, what she said there is wrong. But we know what the minister is driving at. She is saying, 'Look, we don't have the power to direct and, if we spend money in an area and we think it is important, we should be able to direct the board to include courses in schools.' The minister is saying, 'If I as minister want a course in the air warfare defence industry, I should be able to direct the board to do that.'

One can have a debate about this and argue that the best education systems are the ones where politicians control them and, if that is what the parliament decides ultimately, let the buyer beware. There are other states that do it, and we can only sit back and make judgments as to what is best for the system. However, what I warn members about (and, in particular, the crossbench members) is that if the minister says, 'I want to have an air warfare destroyer course because we happen to be spending money; therefore, I should have the power to direct the board to provide courses in that particular area', there is nothing to stop a minister in a future government from saying, 'We are strong supporters of the nuclear industry. I direct that there will be a course on the nuclear industry and the reasons why we should have the arguments for a nuclear industry.'

The minister indicated quite clearly (and she is quite honest about it; I suspect that, on reflection, she might wish that she had not been quite so honest) that, if the government decides—and if she decides—that there should be a course, there should be the power to direct the SSABSA board to provide that course for our secondary schools. As I said, that is a fundamental change in the operation of our South Australian Certificate of Education and our SSABSA board in South Australia.

Before members (in particular, the crossbench members) sign off on it, they need to be quite clear about what they are being asked to support because, as I have briefly highlighted to some of them (and I think a number of members have indicated to me that they had been led to believe that this was a relatively uncontroversial piece of legislation; I am sure that is what the government has been telling people), I believe that there are some fundamental decisions to be taken by this council in relation to this bill. Members, in particular crossbench members, will have to make a decision because we will highlight some of the concerns we have about the reintroduction of ministerial and political control over the South Australian Certificate of Education and the SSABSA board that this minister and government wants. As the shadow minister for education (the member for Davenport) highlighted in another place, it is really up to the government. It needs to highlight to the parliament why it needs the power to have political control over the SSABSA board. What is it that it wants to achieve that it has not been able achieve over the past almost 20 years under the current arrangements?

I will highlight some aspects of the bill at which members should look. Clause 16 of the bill inserts section 17A, under the heading ministerial directions, and basically provides that the minister can give the board a direction about any matter relevant to performance or exercise of a function or power of the board. There is a caveat that no ministerial direction may be given in relation to the content or accreditation of any subject or course under this act or in relation to the assessment of or recording results of a student's achievements or learning. That clearly does not prevent—there are other sections I will refer to—a minister from directing that, as she indicated, if she wants to have a course on air warfare destroyers she needs the power to direct the SSABSA board to have a course on such.

This provision under section 17A(2) does not prevent the minister from doing that. It would prevent the minister from dictating the content or the accreditation of that subject, but the minister would be able to direct the board to say that it shall have an air warfare destroyer subject, or a future minister could say that it shall have a nuclear industry course, a course on creationism or on whatever particular ideological bent a future minister for education might have.

There are requirements for the direction to be given in writing and for it to be tabled in the house. We will move to oppose all of these, but at the very least some restriction ought to be placed on the requirement for the minister to table it within a certain number of sitting days if this provision is to stand. The Liberal Party, as the member for Davenport indicated, will strongly oppose this ministerial directions power, unless the government can somehow come up with a better reason why it needs to assert political control over the SSABSA board and the South Australian Certificate of Education.

Another provision is contained in clause 14 of the bill, which amends section 15. It basically outlines the functions of the board, which are considerable, and then says 'to perform other functions assigned to the board under this act, or any other act, or by the minister'. The parliament is being asked to approve certain functions of the SSABSA board and any other function the minister of the day thinks should be a function of the board. It is extraordinary that this government and minister, in such a sensitive area as this, would want this power, which in essence would be open house or carte blanche for her and a future minister to say that the board shall have this other function; it is that minister's decision alone as to what additional functions the board might have. Again, clause 14(1)(m) of the bill provides:

To the extent determined by the minister or the board, to collect, record and collate information on any matter relating to the participation (or non- participation) of children of compulsory education age...

Again, there is the intrusion of a determination by the minister to direct the collecting, recording and collating of certain information. We will be asking questions in committee about the extent of that power the minister seeks and, in particular, the sort of information the minister could be requiring the board to provide in that area. I do not have as much of a concern about the minister's having access to information as it relates to the operation of the board.

I think that is not a major problem from my viewpoint. I know that many people in the education sector have a concern about the use a minister might make of that information and whether or not it can be released publicly or to others as well. I think that is a debate not just in relation to the issue of league tables for schools but it may well be in relation to other information as well. The other provision about which, I must admit, I am still considering asking the shadow minister to move an amendment relates to clause 14(3)(d) of the bill, which provides:

Without limiting any steps that the board may take on its own initiative, must give effect to any decision, made by ministerial council, that is specified by the minister for the purposes of this paragraph.

Having been on many ministerial councils in my eight years as a minister, this is an extraordinary provision. In essence, it is saying that the SSABSA board must implement any decision made by any ministerial council that is specified by the minister. There might be lots of decisions which the ministerial council takes but which, perhaps, the minister does not specify. However, if the minister specifies a particular decision, the SSABSA board must implement that decision.

In the coming four years, particularly if there is a change of government federally, we may have wall to wall Labor governments sitting at ministerial councils coming up with all sorts of bright ideas as to experiments they would like to conduct on our year 11 and 12 students in terms of educational process. There will be no check and balance, if I can put it that way, of an alternative flavoured state government or an alternative flavoured federal government in those circumstances. People of one persuasion may well come up with lots of bright or balmy ideas, depending on your perspective, as a result of which they will then say, 'Okay, this is a decision of the ministerial council.'

The minister can say, 'This is a decision of the ministerial council. I now require you as a SSABSA board to do it.' It might be something which says, 'Every year 11 and 12 student must study an Asian language.' They do not necessarily have to be decisions of the nature I described earlier where a minister says that he wants a subject on air warfare destroyers, or nuclear power plants or creationism, but they could be educational decisions about which you can argue as to whether or not it is practical or sensible. Nevertheless, if that decision was taken it would have significant impact on the operations of our schools.

The point which I should have made earlier but did not is that I ask members to contemplate that the SSABSA board controls all year 11 and 12 students. It is not just the government schools. There are the Catholic schools and the Independent schools. There are three quite clear and distinct schooling sectors—and that will be the issue of one of the amendments later on.

So far, there has been a balance on the SSABSA board through its composition and operation which has essentially meant that the Independents and the Catholics have been able to be influential in terms of the decisions that are taken. It is possible for a minister for education who has an ideological bent against non-government schools to take decisions and require them of SSABSA which would disadvantage non-government schools and which would make it difficult for the Catholic system and the Independent system if the government knows that, in a particular area—whether it is Asian languages or whatever—that it has locked up all the Japanese language teachers or the Chinese language teachers.

I know that I am not putting a serious example, but there are decisions that you could outline where the government of the day would know that there is an inbuilt advantage for the government system and, by implementing something and requiring SSABSA to do it, it would place the Catholic and the Independent schools at a very significant disadvantage and potentially have significant resource implications for those schooling sectors.

A tenuous balance exists at the moment with the school sectors being represented on the SSABSA board and being able to put a point of view, but with the minister, in essence as minister for government schools, not having the power to direct the independent SSABSA board. The SSABSA board was there—big and cumbersome as it was. That is another one of the changes I do support, that is, the reduction of the numbers down to a dozen or so as in the government bill. That is one of the important issues that I ask crossbench members to contemplate as they look at some of the issues that I raise. This board is critical not just for government schools. If you give the government school minister the power to direct the board, then one has to look at what the potential implications might be if you have a minister who has an ideological bent against non-government schools.

With the greatest respect to my Labor government colleagues in the chamber, we do not have to go back too far in history in this state or nationally to find Labor education ministers who have had a very strong ideological bent against non-government schools and non-government schooling. To be fair, we have not seen much of that in recent years, and hopefully that will continue. One only has to look at the policy of the last federal Labor Party which was an attack on aspects of non-government schooling.

The current Labor opposition is saying that they will not do that. Only time will tell, if they become the government, whether they revert to Latham style policies or whether they stay true to what Mr Rudd says he will do now. I do not want to enter that debate, but clearly there have been examples of ministers with an ideological bent against non-government schools.

That is a critical issue when one looks at all these other provisions in the legislation which talk about the independence of the board. Clause 17 of the bill states:

The board must, at the request of the minister, submit to the minister a statement setting out the board's strategic directions and targets...The minister may approve a statement submitted under this section...The board may not expend money in a manner that is inconsistent with a statement approved under subsection (2) or its budget unless the expenditure is approved by the minister.

Again I will be asking questions of the minister in relation to those powers as to whether they are a further extension by the minister into the independent operation of the SSABSA board and, if so, what is the reason and the argument for it.

There are a number of other examples in the bill, but I have highlighted the four or five most significant ones where clearly what we are being asked to approve is a very significant assertion of political control by a minister of education over the SSABSA board and the South Australian certificate. It is not just this minister but future ministers, Labor and Liberal, in relation to these particular issues. As I said, it is a significant change in culture and tradition, and I think members need to consider that issue closely.

The second issue has been raised in correspondence to members. I refer to it only briefly, because I know members have received correspondence from the Independent schools sector on the issue of the composition of the board.

The key point, which I make again, is that SSABSA looks after government and non-government school sectors, and the independent school sector is arguing that in the new trimmed down version of the board (which we support) there should be guaranteed representation of the Catholic and independent schools. The government school sector will be represented, because obviously the minister for government schools is ultimately responsible for all the appointments anyway. I will not speculate at length on that; as I said, members have received correspondence and will be able to discuss that issue in the committee stage.

I feel as strongly about the next major issue I want to raise as I do about the independence issue—and that is the whole issue of assessment in the South Australian Certificate of Education. There are very some very significant changes being introduced in the future SACE and potentially being underpinned by this legislation. I referred earlier to the debate about retention rates and the issue of the government saying that 90 per cent of our students should be retained in year 12 education, and there are two ways of tackling that. The more educationally defensible way is to say that we need to look at the quality of the schooling we are providing, that we need to raise the education standards and encourage young people to stay in the school system to year 12.

The alternative plan is to compulsorily ratchet up the age levels; we have done that once already and I assume we will do it again when the legislation comes from the House of Assembly. Part of that is also to attack the fundamentals of the South Australian certificate in terms of levels of achievement and attainment, and use this euphemism of 'Success for all' by reducing the quality of the levels of achievement within the South Australian Certificate of Education.

It is my firm view that this government is doing down that particular path and that its goal, through these twin pillars, is to increase the apparent retention rates—one of their Strategic Plan targets. They will be able to say, 'We have more people in year 12 and more people passing the SACE.' Whether or not that is at the same level of achievement as those who previously achieved it will be strongly disputed; nevertheless the government will have its public relations victory.

One of the key changes in the future SACE (and it comes out of 'Success for all') is that the government intends to reduce the levels of public examinations (or external assessment, as they call it) as part of the final assessment. That is, it is saying that for all stage 2 (or year 12) learning units the external assessments will be up to 30 per cent of the final assessment with school-based assessments being 70 per cent of the final assessment. I will look at the wording in a moment but, in essence, that is what the government is saying.

I ask the minister to provide members with the current assessment breakdowns of each of the year 12 subjects offered, because some subjects have 50 per cent public examination and 50 per cent school assessment while some might have 30 per cent public examination and 70 per cent school assessment. There are various other combinations; I think the highest is currently about 50:50 but it can be zero because, obviously, there are some 100 per cent school-assessed subjects. However, where the exam component exists it can be somewhere between 30 and 50 per cent, so I ask the minister to provide a list of those breakdowns. That is examinations, but the wording in the Alan Reid-inspired 'Success for all' report talks about external assessment. The report states:

Assessment plays a significant role in helping to shape how young people view themselves as learners and can have profound consequences on their self-esteem and sense of self-worth.

Earlier, I highlighted that Professor Reid, and many others from the education community, strongly opposed basic skills testing on those sorts grounds because it was in some way dangerous to assess the literacy and numeracy of our young people in primary schools as it could have profound consequences on their self-esteem and sense of self-worth.

Our argument is that, in terms of the consequences for self-esteem and self-worth, there is nothing worse if the competencies of literacy, numeracy and everything else that our education system should provide are not instilled in our young people. Frankly, in my view, the sort of approach taken by Professor Reid, and others in the Australian Education Union, has not assisted the lifting of educational standards in our schools in South Australia.

The report also states that external assessment will be 30 per cent of the year 12 subjects. When this was originally raised with me I still did not like it as I thought it should be 50 per cent for those subjects. However, it is no longer 30 per cent examinations, because the report states 'more than examinations'. It states:

External assessment does not simply equate with written three-hour examinations, which are only one form of external assessment. There are any number of ways in which students can demonstrate their learning to 'outsiders' that can be more closely linked to the learning. It can include performance, vivas, project or artefact production, physical skills tests, and presentation of a portfolio of work to a community meeting or roundtable gathering; and it can happen at any time during the learning process.

So, let us not be deluded about this. We are not talking about reducing the extent of public examinations to 30 per cent. What Professor Reid and this government are cleverly trying to do is say that 30 per cent will be external assessment and then, over a period of time, the percentage of examinations will be further reduced. These other forms of external assessment, which this report, Success for All, argues are part of external assessment, will become part of the year 12 assessment process.

Another issue in relation to year 12 subjects is that there is either moderation or scaling, although I think that the correct word is 'moderation'. In year 12 subjects, there is a school-assessed component (say, 50 per cent) and there is an examination of 50 per cent. What happens under SSABSA is that, if you have a school and a group of teachers who are easy markers because they want all their students to get As, you have to be fair to everyone else in the system. So, the external examination is used as a moderating influence to say that that is how the students performed in the exam. That is compared with the shape of the results from that school in the school assessment; if there is an issue, there is a way of resolving it by SACE.

If there are significant differences in the school assessment—that is, the school assesses all the students as getting As but, when they sit for the exam, they all get Cs—SSABSA says, 'Hello, there's something wrong here. We think that possibly the teacher in that school is marking the students too easily and giving them too high a mark.' As I said, it is unfair on everyone else if a teacher in a particular school gives those students an A and unfairly discriminates against other students who have worked hard and who deserve either an A or B for their performance.

What the government is saying is that it will get rid of that check or moderation. The Success for All report states:

The review panel further recommends that the result from the external assessment and the moderated teacher assessment should be added together to arrive at a student's final result without any statistical intervention taking place.

Unless you know what they are talking about, you would not know what they are talking about, if I can put it that way. What they are talking about there is that you do not have that check; they are saying, 'No, we won't do that.' The report goes on to say that no assessment mode should dominate or be privileged; that is, the argument is that you should not just rely on the exam result to check against the adequacy of a school-based assessment. The Reid report states, 'No assessment mode [he is clearly referring there to examinations or external assessment] should dominate or be privileged.'

There are many other aspects, when one goes through Success for All, which raise very significant concerns about what we are being asked to support in this legislation and other legislation for future SACE changes. Page 136 of Success for All (and I will not go through all the details of this) looks at how stage 2 subjects might be reported, and it talks there about a seven point scale achieved, such as A, B, C, D and E. I at least give credit to the government for including those in the stage 2. However, currently, students are getting marks on a scale of up to 20. The government is recommending that that be collapsed down to a seven point scale in terms of the levels of achievement in the year 12 subjects.

Further on, I again have some very significant concerns about the certification that will be provided. and I will raise some of these issues during the committee stage of the debate. When one looks at the current record of learning achievement that a student receives at year 12, they get the results of their subjects (that is, 20, 19 or 18, or whatever it is), and on another part of the certificate they get an indication of what their tertiary entrance rank will be.

To be fair, whilst there is a lot of publicity about the students who get five 20s, most students I am familiar with (and I can speak about my own children and all their friends and everyone else I have been associated with) are anxiously looking at what their tertiary entrance rank (TER) is going to be, because their TER determines whether or not they have a chance of getting into a particular course they are interested in. In my view, whatever changes this government seeks to implement, the TER or its equivalent will still be a very significant point of interest for students, the community, future employers and others when they look at the record of what a student has achieved in year 11 and year 12. The government is recommending very strong changes to this particular area as well.

I understand the government has not picked up on the recommendation that SSABSA should have no role in the tertiary entrance scoring; it will have a joint role now with SATAC. So, SSABSA and SATAC will jointly work on the tertiary entrance scoring information. However, there is certainly a flavour in the Success for All of limiting the amount of information that is provided both to students and to their parents in relation to the issues.

There is an argument about them being reported in a different way, and certainly there is an argument from the government and from the Success for All report in relation to how it is publicly reported and also how it is reported to the individuals. In relation to the RLA, it would possibly not include the tertiary entrance ranking score at all; it might be on different document that is provided to the students. If that is the case, there would be an argument then as to what the interest is going to be in the results of learning document that is sent to the students.

As I have said, I have very significant concerns about these changes, which have not attracted too much publicity, in relation to the downgrading of the importance of examination and external assessment in our South Australian certificate. As I highlighted earlier, with my background and experience in this area (I do not claim to be an expert, but at least I have had considerable experience of the system), it is certainly my view, based on my discussions over the years, that we are seeing significant examples of cheating within our South Australian Certificate of Education at the moment.

I am not saying that a majority of our students are cheating but we are seeing significant examples of cheating within our system. Our universities are struggling with this issue at the moment and I think that people are deluding themselves if they think that we do not also face a problem with our year 11 and 12 students.

With the internet's being so readily available for students, their families and friends there is a significant number of examples of plagiarism by students in the preparation of work for their South Australian Certificate of Education. There are also examples of parents assisting students by undertaking their coursework—that is, their school assessed work and the work that is being done at home—for the South Australian Certificate of Education. There are also examples in certain cases of teachers in terms of greater than accepted or recommended assistance being provided to students in terms of polishing and redrafting work for assessment in the South Australian certificate.

One bears in mind that teachers want the best for their students. I know of many examples where the same piece of work has been submitted more than half a dozen times to a teacher for remarking, correcting and changes before being finally accepted by the teacher as the final polished work for the assessment. Of course, that can be done in a particular way which is completely acceptable to the current SSABSA requirements. It can also be done in a way which is unacceptable to the current SSABSA requirements.

Again, on equity grounds, one can look at the situation and see that if you are fortunate enough to have come from a family with teachers who are parents or professionals or you have the capacity to provide that sort of assistance to year 11 and 12 students compared to the students who do not have that in-house advantage, if I can put it that way, it is unfair when those students who do not have the in-house advantage are competing with those students with that advantage. It is also unfair for those students who do not have teachers who are prepared to do the sort of things that I was talking about earlier compared to the teachers who are sticking completely to the letter of the law or, indeed, if their level of confidence is not such that they are able to do that as well.

Some people say (and I am sure that the minister would say) that this is just a former minister and shadow minister (a politician) making up claims in relation to problems. I want to put on the record some concerns that the current head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in the United Kingdom, Dr Ken Boston, has put on the record in recent months. Ken Boston is a former chief executive of the South Australian Department of Education and Children's Services. Appointed by a former Labor government, he was then appointed to head up the education department in New South Wales and he has now gone on to bigger and better things and he is the head of the qualifications and curriculum authority in the United Kingdom.

In The Australian of 11 July this year, Ken Boston was interviewed, and the article is as follows:

As with many top education bureaucrats across the globe, Boston is fighting on several fronts to contain the insidious influence of the internet on coursework that students often claim as their own. From next year awarding bodies, the equivalent of state examination boards, will be using the same sort of software used by universities to catch cheats. But plagiarism is not the only problem thrown up by allowing students to complete work outside a controlled environment, Boston says. Helpful relatives pose almost as big a threat. The QCA used a polling company to speak to a wide range of people, including parents, about their input into assignments that were being used to assess students for their GCSEs—

that is the General Certificate of Secondary Education—

'We found that there was, I guess it is not too strong a word to say, some abuse in relation to coursework being done by relatives,' Boston says. In fact, 8 per cent of the parents interviewed confirmed that they had contributed quite significantly to their children's equivalent of the South Australian Certificate of Education. With coursework accounting for up to 40 per cent of the mark in some courses—and GCSE's being used to help determine if a student will proceed to an A-level course and possibly university—it was a problem that could no longer be ignored.

In a letter from Dr Boston in April 2006 to the then education secretary, the minister for education, Ruth Kelly, he said:

We recognise that the practice of students carrying out coursework at home and the wide availability of the internet have created greater opportunities for malpractice. This gives problems with ensuring authenticity—the extent to which we can be confident that internally assessed [within schools] work is solely that of the candidate concerned. This is a threat to the fairness of GCSE.

Dr Boston is there highlighting exactly the same issues that I am highlighting in relation to the South Australian Certificate of Education. The actual report that Dr Boston's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority produced—or one of them—stated:

There were 3,500 cases of alleged malpractice investigated by awarding bodies in 2004—that is just one year—but not all of the malpractice involved course work.

Then further on:

The most common malpractice offences in relation to coursework are: collusion, plagiarism and over-coaching by teachers.

That is the official report of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which looks at the equivalent of our SSABSA boards in England, Ireland and Wales. It is the body that handles all of those examination boards and authorities.

Dr Boston's group has recommended that in some cases coursework or, in essence, school assessment coursework be removed completely from certain subjects. In other cases it has recommended that the percentage be significantly reduced and in other cases it says that there will be what he calls controlled assessments. That is, rather than a student being able to take a particular essay home and have their parents or relatives—or someone else—assist in the writing, or whatever it is, a student will have to actually do the work without doing any writing and then come to a controlled environment, like the school and, under supervision, then complete the essay. So, the student will then have to undertake that particular work within the controlled assessment environment of the school because of the concern that parents and others are actually writing it—or things are being taken off the internet at home—and, supposedly, the student is passing off the work as their own.

Various reports that have come out on these p changes, as I said, make it quite clear that the authority is moving to very tightly control and to try to reduce the extent of cheating within their equivalent certificates in the United Kingdom. As I said, they are doing that by reducing the extent of work that can be done at home and outside controlled environments by increasing the percentage of exams and increasing the percentage of assessment which is, in essence, externally assessed.

When we look at the United Kingdom experience, they are identifying the problem at the moment of subjects where the coursework, that is, the non-examination component, is as low as 20 or 30 per cent. That is, they are saying, 'We've got a problem with subjects that have about 70 or 80 per cent examinations and 20 or 30 per cent school assessment.'

That is the problem; they are now saying that the only way they are going to do this is by the 20 or 30 per cent that they will have to have as controlled assessment, or they get rid of it completely, and for some subjects like maths it is going to be all external assessment, or controlled in some way. But in most cases they will keep course work of some form or other; that is, non-examination assessment in some way, but it will be more controlled to try to reduce the extent of cheating that goes on within the system.

That is from a base, as I said, where they have a system which is already very significantly weighted towards the public examination component; that is, exams, not external assessment, which we are talking about here. What this government is talking about is almost a quantum reverse. We are actually talking about having a system where this form of school-based assessment is going to be at least 70 per cent of the total assessment, and the 30 per cent might not even be examinations anyway; it might be, as I highlighted earlier, presentations, projects or whatever else. It will be an external assessment but not necessarily public examinations.

Dr Boston is highlighting the problems that they have. Can you imagine the sort of problems we are going to have if we go down the path that this minister and this government want us to go down in relation to the future SACE and changes to the SSABSA board? I can only urge my colleagues on the Social Development Committee to see whether or not Dr Boston might present evidence to the Social Development Committee's inquiry into the SACE. He is an Australian, so I am sure he comes back to Australia occasionally, but if not I am sure videoconferencing or something like that could be arranged to take evidence from Dr Boston.

He is someone who is familiar with our system in South Australia. As I said, he was a former Director-General of the education department. He is now a leading authority on the issues of assessment and the problems of cheating, the issues of school-based assessment and examinations and external assessment, etc. I would have thought that the Social Development Committee should at least consider taking evidence from Dr Boston in relation to these particular issues. I hasten to say that I have not had any contact with him in 10 years since ministerial council days when he represented New South Wales, so I do not know whether he would be prepared to assist, but I would be very surprised if he would not be.

I have a series of questions I will put to the minister, and some others that I will pursue in the committee stage. Will the minister indicate how many allegations of cheating have been made that have been investigated by SSABSA in each of the last three years, and what action has been taken in relation to that? How many were found to be proven, and if so what action was taken? What public reporting, if any, is there of the examples of cheating?

One of the examples in the UK is that there is some public recording and reporting of the issues of cheating, or malpractice as they call it in the United Kingdom. What public reporting, if any, is there, and if there is not any, why not? Is SSABSA currently using the software that universities use and the qualifications that the curriculum authority in the UK is about to use in trying to reduce the extent of plagiarism by downloading materials off the internet to assist students in undertaking their year 12 studies?

There is a significant number of other issues in the actual bill that, given the time this evening, I will not go through. I just highlight the fact that there are a number of areas there that I will now have to pursue during the committee stage of the bill, but there is a general area that I will at least highlight. There were a couple of claims made by the minister in the House of Assembly debate that one of the reasons for this change in legislation is that we need to be able to involve taking certificates from the VET sector, non-school based programs, school-based apprenticeships, part-time employment and community service, etc.

As I said, my understanding is that most if not all of them are already currently able to be included in the current SACE. I ask the minister to outline in her second reading response the differences as she sees them in relation to the reasons for the legislation that we have before us. I think I will leave the other questions, which are specific to the committee stage.

I will wrap up by saying that as I looked at this bill I reflected on what the government and in particular the minister have done, and I indicate that I have been personally very disappointed in the performance of the minister in the education portfolio over recent times. I will not go through the detail of some of the decisions that have been taken in the past couple of years; they do not relate directly to this bill. But when I look at this bill and what we are being asked to achieve, and when I look at the fact that a lot of this information is not being publicly highlighted by the minister or indeed by anyone, I am very disappointed in the performance of the minister.

I note, Mr Acting President, as I am sure you have, that in recent times significant discontent has been expressed by media representatives who indicate that members of the Labor Party caucus have been talking to them. I am sure, Mr Acting President, that it would not be you, but evidently there are others who are talking to members of the media about their minister's performance, expressing concern. I certainly know, just from the whispers around Parliament House, that there are members of the back bench who have been openly critical in recent months about the minister's performance. The welsher from the west, Mr Koutsantonis, the member for West Torrens—as I have said, I know him fondly as the welsher from the west—has been openly critical of the minister's performance, and there are indeed others.

I can only say that I join the member for West Torrens and others in their disappointment in the performance of the minister in a number of areas, but in particular, I express my disappointment at what she is asking us to approve and support in the legislation that we have before us this evening.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. B.V. Finnigan.