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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-05-06 Daily Xml
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Child Protection

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (14:44): Supplementary: are schools now reporting long-term absences and truancies to Families SA, and is this by way of the Child Abuse Report Line? It was one of the recommendations.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for the Public Sector) (14:44): I don't know if that is one of the bases on which child notification is required to occur; I will have to check that for you. Truancy and long-term absence is certainly a concern, and the education department has been working very hard on lifting attendance. There has been an enormous amount of work done and attendance has increased dramatically. However, there does remain a small group of students who, regrettably, are not attending and are in what we say is 'chronic absence', so, say, more than 10 days in a term.

We are working diligently not only through the 22 attendance officers where there is the cooperation in working with the family and encouraging the child to engage. I am also interested in the way in which we might use prosecution in a very small number of cases, although I recognise that that can have a perverse outcome and, therefore, there would be a very small number where that might be appropriate.

My concern would be that we don't want children simply to show up to school. We want children to engage with school and that requires schools to be offering what children can benefit from, particularly as they enter into the high school years, where they can feel supported and able to reach their potential. So that engagement is far more complex than could be managed simply through a prosecution; nonetheless, as I say, I have put that on the table with the department as something I would like to explore more deeply.

What we do know is that attendance at school is the most important thing for children. It is a safe place to be, it's a nurturing place to be and it's a place where, if they are able to develop an education and an interest in things, they are most likely to have a long-term future in work and a fulfilling life.

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