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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-03-22 Daily Xml
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Answers to Questions

Indigenous Education

4 Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (9 September 2015). For Indigenous children

1. What were the monthly school attendance rates for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 financial years?

2. Have the spot audits of school attendance and public reporting requirements been met by the state government as required by the COAG agreement for Closing the Gap and school attendance?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills): I have been advised:

1. The Department for Education and Child Development (DECD) adheres to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority's National Standards for Student Attendance Data Reportingas agreed by all states, territories and school sectors. From 2015, the National Standards require twice-yearly annual reporting of attendance data in semester 1 and term 3, disaggregated by Indigenous status. The latest attendance data is available on the MySchool website.

2. COAG made a commitment that each state and territory will 'undertake on-the-spot audits of school attendance information before the end of 2014'.

DECD's approach to 'on the spot audits' has been agreed with the Australian Government. Daily information on student attendance is provided by schools to the Central Office. It is processed and entered into the DECD student data warehouse. The warehouse is accessible as a standard report by school principals, local leaders, and Central Office staff.

One of the capabilities of the warehouse is detecting data patterns that highlight students that are, or have the potential to become, chronic non-attenders. The warehouse sends automated email notifications to school leaders alerting them to these students. This warehouse function complements the monitoring done by schools by assisting them to identify patterns of non-attendance, especially where they are not immediately obvious.

COAG also set a new Closing the Gap target for school attendance to be achieved between 2014 and 2019. Public reporting of school attendance data will be twice yearly from 2015, disaggregated by school and Indigeneity (subject to privacy thresholds). Under the National Standards, this will be implemented by reporting attendance data for semester 1 and term 3 for all students in years 1 to 10.

I am advised the South Australian Government school sector will be able to report attendance data twice yearly from this year, thereby fulfilling the COAG commitment.

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