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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-05-05 Daily Xml
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Sex Education

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:27): My question is to the Minister for Education. How will South Australia's Keeping Safe child protection curriculum, which falls in line with the federal government's Respect Matters program, assist young people to learn about consent, contraception and pregnancy? With your leave and that of the house, sir, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms BEDFORD: An article on Sunday 25 April, entitled 'Schools' sex ed needs to shape up', highlights that sex education falls short in Australian schools. Online sex education provider 'Normal' surveyed 1,000 Australians of all ages and found that schools did not teach at least half of those currently aged under 24, particularly boys, about consent, contraception or even how pregnancy works.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (15:28): I thank the member for the question. This is a very important issue. The member may or may not be aware that the Keeping Safe child protection curriculum is not just something that has come about as a result of the Australian government's Respect Matters body of work, which is a much more recent body of work, but the Keeping Safe child protection curriculum has been mandatory in all government schools for quite some years now.

Indeed, all Catholic schools in South Australia and a number of independent schools, as well as the Northern Territory, have taken up the Keeping Safe child protection curriculum. Certain sectors elsewhere around Australia, and indeed dozens of schools internationally, are also licensing from the Department for Education our Keeping Safe child protection curriculum. It aligns with the Australian Curriculum, so when the Australian Curriculum deals with matters of this nature certainly the Keeping Safe curriculum aligns to it, but the Keeping Safe curriculum does predate it in many respects.

Indeed, as the years have flown on, the Keeping Safe curriculum has been updated as well. It deals directly and explicitly with consent in the nature of the material at the year 9 and year 10 level. In the early years, indeed going back to children as young as three, it deals with children's bodies in a different way. It is indeed a comprehensive curriculum, one that the educators and the academics who worked on it can be rightly proud of. I commend the previous government for supporting its development. This government is very proud of the work it has done.

In the last couple of years, we have brought in-house in the Department for Education the training program for teachers because, of course, as I think the member referenced in her question, it's not just what is in the curriculum but also the delivery of the curriculum. This is a matter that has been raised previously. Delivery of the curriculum requires competent and thorough training.

More than 31,000 teachers have been trained in the program since its inception, but of course we want to make sure that all our teachers in all our schools have the confidence to deliver the curriculum effectively in the way that it was designed to be delivered. That training is now done within the Department for Education. I commend absolutely those public servants who have been doing that work—a couple of them, one in particular—for a number of years now at a very, very high level, with an outstanding level of success and thoroughness in the teachers they support.

I believe that every student in our South Australian schools should be undertaking this curriculum. That's why it's mandatory for it to be taught. We will continue to look at ways that we can quality assure, if you like, the delivery of the program in our schools, and we are always looking for ways to enhance that. Can I say, the content of our curriculum, I have every confidence here in South Australia, stacks up well. I would go further: I am very confident that it leads the nation in relation to this. Many other jurisdictions around the world identify that. Certainly many schools around the world have identified that work that's being done in South Australia and chosen to take it for delivery in their schools too.

We will continue to work on revisions in the years to come. There are resources that have been produced by other governments and other jurisdictions that of course can potentially be adapted and integrated into the delivery of the program. Curriculums aren't a script, if you like, to be read out. They are something that is integrated into the learning that is done in schools. I commend all the teachers and our South Australian schools who have been working so hard in this area for many years. I think sometimes they are unheralded in some ways. The work they are doing in this area is truly world class and the work that the curriculum writers and the trainers who have been supporting those teachers is equally world class.

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