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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-11-09 Daily Xml
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EDUCATION (CLOSURE AND AMALGAMATION OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 28 September 2011.)

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (20:06): I rise to respond on behalf of the government. The Department for Education and Child Development (DECD) works closely with school communities when an amalgamation or closure is proposed. Consultation is paramount to the centre of the process. A review is undertaken that involves representatives from the Australian Education Union, local government, the principal, ministers and DECD representatives, and a governing council representative.

In the case of the recent proposed amalgamations some schools also accepted the offer to use one of the minister's spots on the review committee as an extra governing council position. Many schools close or amalgamate for a number of reasons, including declining enrolments, or to form new schools, as is the case of the Education Works school communities at Roma Mitchell Secondary College, John Hartley, Blair Athol North School, Woodville Gardens School Birth to 7, Mark Oliphant College and Adelaide West Special Education Centre. The Education Act provides for the following:

A government school can be closed if a majority of the parents of the students attending the school (or students for schools where the majority of students are adults) indicate that they are not opposed to the closure.

A review must be undertaken in order to amalgamate two or more government schools, or if parents do not support a government school's closure.

The minister may close or amalgamate a government school or schools only after giving due consideration to the review report and the review committee's recommendations.

The minister must give written notice of the decision and reasons for the decision to parliament, where a decision about a government school closure or amalgamation is contrary to the recommendations of the review committee.

The Minister for Education and Child Development runs and manages a system of schools. To manage the number of DECD schools, the minister may need to exercise his/her authority for what is in the best interests of the whole of the education system, not just an individual school.

The recent experience of the Education Works program indicates that many members of the community have difficulty being in the position of having such a considerable role in determining what they see as a decision for government. The current approach sees considerable angst and often division develop within the community. The effect of the proposed changes would see the requirement that regardless of any of the views of the government, or for that matter the review committee, and the process established under the act, such change can only take place in accordance with a resolution of both houses.

Introducing this amendment would see an unnecessary tier of constraint placed on schools seeking to amalgamate. The effect of the proposed amendments would see the need to go to the parliament to get approval, regardless of the views of the school community. Even if universally favoured by parents at a school, any closure would need to be put on hold until the parliament was able to consider the proposed closure or amalgamation.

Given the manner in which schools are staffed and funded, this could mean a school may have to stay open for an additional year while the parliament dealt with a proposal. For example, small school closures are often considered when the school community becomes aware of the school's next year enrolments. This usually happens late in the school year and often after parliament has been adjourned for that year. In small communities the leaving of one family from the community can be the difference between being able to provide a school with a basic curriculum as opposed to having a school enrolment that does not provide enough staff to deliver even a basic curriculum.

In such circumstances, which are usually only determined late in the school year, the community can agree to close the school. Under the proposed arrangements this could not occur and the school would have to open in the following year and provide a program until the parliament then provided for the closure. This is operationally such that the school would most likely have to remain open for that whole year—an inefficient and undesirable outcome that would see poor curriculum and outcomes for children.

It is clear from changing demographics, education and care thinking, along with community demand, that over the next 10 to 15 years there will be a need for the provision of education and care services in a way that can cater for the dynamic changes that will, or are likely to, occur within the state. The need for greater flexibility in the way schools operate and the need for flexible enrolments across schools require an education system that can rapidly change and evolve. The bill's proposed changes would add a tier of intervention that would restrict schools' ability to change, without offering anything that would provide for improved outcomes. For the reasons I have outlined, the government opposes this bill.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (20:13): I rise to speak to the second reading. The bill that has been introduced to amend the Education Act seeks to ensure that a government school cannot be closed or amalgamated except by a resolution passed in both houses. As the act currently stands, the minister can close or amalgamate government schools even after consideration and contrary to report and recommendations of an appointed committee under the required review process.

The genesis to the current round of discussions on amalgamations is that in the 2010 budget, under the budget measures incorporated there, the government announced its intention to save $8.2 million over two years from 2011-12 by amalgamating 67 co-located schools. A further budget measure of associated efficiencies flowing from this, totalling $5.8 million over four years, was also announced in the same budget.

The shadow minister has advised our party that the previous amalgamations under Labor's Education Works super school program were voluntary and subject to a majority vote. He gave the instance of a plan to merge 44 schools into nine super schools in the Upper Spencer Gulf region, which was ultimately rejected by local communities and abandoned by the state government.

The Liberal parliamentary party room has voted to support the second reading of this bill and we indicate our support therefore at the second reading stage. The shadow minister is currently working on a proposed amendment which, at least in principle at this stage, to my understanding is to introduce a sunset clause on the provisions so that it applies to the current round of amalgamations. He has not yet concluded that drafting with parliamentary counsel and we will place it on file prior to the discussions in two weeks' time.

I guess the genesis for this particular debate significantly comes from what the government would see as cleverness and others would see as duplicity in relation to their super schools program. The government, which would see it as cleverness, came up with this notion of super schools to disguise the fact that they were seeking to close a number of schools across South Australia. That was clearly a budget-driven imperative; however, the government was not prepared to acknowledge it as such.

I think, through that process, it has raised expectations through school communities about what its super schools were about. I must say that, having used the term 'super schools' in the original press statement, the government sought to deflect ownership of the term later on by saying it was never a term that it had initiated. That, as I said, is nonsense. It was originally announced by the government as super schools in the original press statements.

I know, through the Budget and Finance Committee, we asked the then chief executive officer of the education department exactly what the difference is between a super school and just an ordinary new school under the old arrangements. It took some questions, but his ultimately frank answer was that there was no difference—there was no different staffing ratio, there were no different facilities.

Indeed, as the years go by you get the latest technology, so the most recent new school, prior to the super schools, certainly had much better IT infrastructure, cabling and computers than new schools of 10 years ago, and they had more technology and better infrastructure than the schools of 20 years ago. That is just an inevitable product of technology and education, but he was ultimately frank enough to concede that there was indeed nothing super about the schools at all. 'Super' was indeed a marketing ploy. The government sought to move away from it. It unduly raised expectations.

Let me hasten to say that any new school, whether or not it is called a super school, in an educationally impoverished area will attract new students and attention. That, indeed, happened before we had super schools. We just, in essence, rebuilt the new school in an area and closed old schools. They attracted new students because they are new facilities, new buildings, a fresh start and, therefore, attracted students and families. They were full, so long as the quality of their programs demonstrated the worth of that particular school.

I am not surprised, and I am sure it will be the case and continue for a while, that some of the super schools will attract significant numbers of families and students, in some cases because they have no other option now, but in other cases because certainly the quality of the infrastructure and technology is markedly improved on some of the previous facilities that they might have had in the communities. Ultimately, whether they will be better schools, only time will tell, because all the educational research indicates that the quality of education leadership and the quality of the teaching are the more important factors in terms of the quality of the educational outputs that come from particular schools and school communities.

I note from the notes that the shadow minister has provided to Liberal Party members a statement from the former minister for education in Hansard of 23 February of this year, when he said:

The truth is that the high school amalgamations do not actually provide much by way of savings—

in relation to the amalgamation process.

What I have said to those schools...is that we will not be forcing them to amalgamate—

This was justifying why he had backed off from some high school amalgamations. That statement is just patently untrue. All the evidence from within the education department is that the most significant savings from closures and amalgamations come through the bringing together of high schools. Just a simple thought process of whether a co-location of a junior primary and a primary, in terms of its savings, or the combination of two primary schools in terms of its savings, or the combination of two high school communities in terms of the cost of facilities, educational provision, staff to student ratios, etc., is significantly higher in terms of savings in the high school amalgamation process. That political spin used by the former minister and the now Premier—as with many other things, sadly, that come out of that gentleman's mouth—is patently untrue.

My challenge to the government members, if they wish to dispute that, is that during the subsequent debate on this, during the committee stage, let them place on the record from the education department the estimates of savings of a high school closure and amalgamation and an equivalent primary school closure and amalgamation or a co-location of a junior primary and a primary.

Essentially, the savings in the co-location of a junior primary and a primary come back to principally the reduction in leadership positions. There is a huge debate in doing that. For many years we have argued in South Australia that one of our strengths has been our early childhood—that is, under the age of eight; that definition of early childhood rather than under the age of five—which included junior primary education and the fact that we have specialist teachers trained in junior primary or early childhood education from our universities, which has set our education system here apart. It is an interesting part of the debate, which we touched on briefly in the early childhood government bill earlier this week, which was looking essentially at childcare centres.

The savings in a junior primary/primary co-location concern the reduction of leadership positions, so instead of having two principals you only need one, obviously. However, in relation to a high school amalgamation, if you have two high schools and you close one down and dump all the students into the one high school—which I understand was part of the proposal in the Whyalla community—there are significant budget savings to be achieved, if you are going to go down that path, contrary to that statement made by the former minister for education.

I am hoping that, by the time we continue this debate, some questions that have been placed on notice with the department for education, through the Budget and Finance Committee, will be provided. I was a former minister for education when much was made by the Labor opposition, the unions and others about, I think, 40 or so school closures during the 1990s, and that included amalgamations as well as school closures.

We have put the education department on notice to indicate the number of closures under this government since 2002. When that answer eventually comes back, members on the government side will see that it is a significantly higher number than the number about which they complained during the 1990s in the immediate aftermath of the State Bank financial debacle here in South Australia. I am hoping that we will have those answers so that they can be placed on the record during the committee stage of this debate.

In concluding my contribution, I repeat again that the decision has been taken by the Liberal parliamentary party room and has been argued publicly by the shadow minister—and I speak on his behalf—that the party's position is that we will support the second reading and will be looking to move an amendment during the committee stage of the debate.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. R.P. Wortley.

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