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Australia: Chisholm mum pleads with Education Directorate for special needs transport

Noticias

Australia/ February 13, 2018/By: Emily Baker/Source: http://www.smh.com.au

Duffy Primary was the best fit for Allan Liang. Autism Spectrum Australia felt it, and so did his mum, Nancy Ju.

It’s a 20-minute drive from their Chisholm home but Allan, now nine, is thriving in Duffy’s learning support unit. He’s made great progress. But Ms Ju is desperate for help in getting him to school each day, a task made difficult by her worsening mental health.

Despite pleas from her psychologist, representations from Labor MLAs and low-level advocacy by community organisations, the Education Directorate and Transport Canberra have refused Allan access to special needs transport.

The directorate argues Allan could attend a closer school and has repeatedly pointed to Ms Ju agreeing she would organise Allan’s transport when enrolling him at Duffy Primary in 2014.

But Ms Ju, a single parent from a non-English speaking background, said she agreed to the condition as she was given a day’s deadline to get him enrolled. Her health has declined since then. She claims another student in Allan’s autism unit was offered transport support, though the Education Directorate said it was «not aware» of students using special needs transport to travel from Tuggeranong to Duffy Primary.

«Special needs transport is provided by Transport Canberra for students to travel to their closest appropriate and available learning support program,» a directorate spokesman said.

«It is not normally available if a family chooses a different program in a further location.»

The situation has become a bureaucratic nightmare for Ms Ju, who has been repeatedly encouraged to access transport funding through the NDIS only to be knocked back because Allan attends a school outside his priority enrolment area.

In a statement on Friday, the Education Directorate again suggested Ms Ju «discuss this further» with the National Disability Insurance Agency. The NDIA told her in December it was unable to fund special needs transport without the permission of the Education Directorate.

Ms Ju is adamant her son stay at Duffy Primary.

«Allan has shown many positive improvements since he attended the autism unit at Duffy Primary,» Ms Ju said.

«He requires being secured with this environment for his education with consistency and the routine that he is familiar with.

«In the past three years, the stress of challenging this unfair condition has impacted on my mental health. Additionally, there has been the significant financial impact as a result of that unfair condition being imposed.»

The Education Directorate spokesman said: «The Education Directorate understand the frustration of the family regarding this situation.

«The directorate and schools work hard to accommodate the needs of all students and school communities as much as achievable.

«In a situation like this, families are advised that enrolling a student in a learning support unit at a school that is not nearby, when programs are available closer to home, will usually mean that special needs transport is not provided.»

The spokesman said it had also encouraged Ms Ju to «continue to seek support from the ACT Disability, Aged and Carer Advocacy Service».

Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/act-news/chisholm-mum-pleads-with-education-directorate-for-special-needs-transport-20180209-h0vurm.html

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Australia: Closing the Gap targets in childhood mortality and early education back on track

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Australia/February 13, 2018/By: Paul Karp/ Source: https://www.theguardian.com 

Three of seven key targets to reduce Indigenous disadvantage are on track to be met – but four still lagging after 10 years.

Three of the seven Closing the Gap targets were met in the past year compared with just one a year earlier, with the national childhood mortality and early childhood education measures back on track.

The updated measures of Indigenous disadvantage, which will be reported to parliament by Malcolm Turnbull on Monday, show the most promising results since 2011, and a marked improvement from figures released a year ago when only the goal of halving the gap in year 12 attainment by 2020 was on track to be met.

The remaining four targets, including a key one to close the 10-year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by 2031, are lagging.

As well, three of the remaining four targets – to halve the gaps in employment, reading and numeracy, and in school attendance for indigenous students – are due to expire in 2018.

The Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, said Turnbull would use the occasion to build on the government’s $1bn Indigenous procurement policy and “unveil a range of new measures to turbo-charge the Indigenous business sector”.

In response Bill Shorten will promise a $9m compensation fund over three years for stolen generations survivors in the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory, part of a $17m package to address Indigenous disadvantage.

According to figures from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, child mortality has dropped by 33% between 1998 and 2015, with overall mortality down 15% in the same period.

Chronic diseases were also down with fewer Indigenous people dying from circulatory disease, which was down 45% from 1998 to 2016, respiratory disease was down 24% from 1998 to 2015 and kidney disease down by 47% from 2006 to 2015.

Scullion said “solid progress” had been made in other target areas compared with a decade ago, even where Australia is not on track to meet the benchmarks.

But progress varies across states and territories. All states and territories except the NT achieved the early childhood education benchmark.

South Australia, Western Australia, the NT and Australian Capital Territory met the grade for year 12 attainment. Only New South Wales met the employment benchmark. For reading and numeracy only Tasmania and the ACT did so.

In his speech to parliament Shorten will unveil a commitment to boost support for the families of stolen generations survivors and efforts to tackle the rising number of Indigenous Australians in out-of-home care.

The announcement comes 10 years after Kevin Rudd’s apology to the stolen generations as debate rages about the effectiveness of the Closing the Gap goals, following a report claiming the strategy has been “effectively abandoned”.

The Labor package would include payments of $75,000 to stolen generations survivors who were removed from their families, responding to a recommendation in the 1997 Bringing them Home report.

If Labor is elected, the scheme would be accessible to about 150 surviving members of the stolen generations in the Northern Territory and any survivors in the ACT and Jervis Bay, and includes $7,000 for one-off payments for funeral costs. Victoria is the only state not to have a similar compensation scheme.

Labor also proposed a national healing fund for the stolen generations and their families to pay for programs such as family reunion, return to country and aged-care services.

Since 2008 the number of Indigenous children removed from their families has risen rapidly from 9,070 to an estimated 17,664.

Shorten will promise to tackle those “unacceptably high” rates of out-of-home-care, with a national summit on First Nations children in the first 100 days of a Labor government.

Shorten will say the apology was “much more than a set of well-chosen words”.

“It was not just an expression of sorrow or regret – but a declaration of intent, a promise for action.”

He will say the commonwealth must live up to its rhetoric by not just saying sorry but “making good”.

The Indigenous health minister, Ken Wyatt, who suggested on Sunday that the government could still legislate an Indigenous voice to parliament outside the constitution, said the government is “committed to making a difference”.

“Closing the Gap is not just about government responsibility, it is also the responsibility of the myriad first nations and non-Indigenous organisations that receive funding for programs designed to address targets,” he said.

Kevin Rudd, who introduced the Closing the Gap strategy, said the original targets were always going to be hard to meet because “overcoming 200 years of disadvantage is a bloody hard thing”.

“So when people say they’re too hard and we’re not on track to meet them all, I say, ‘so what?’,” he told Sky News.

“Let’s not bash the targets, let’s enhance the targets but we should not water them down.”

Closing the Gap: progress report

• Close the gap in life expectancy by 2031: On track with overall mortality rate down 15% (from 1998 to 2015)

• Halve the gap in child mortality by 2018: Down 33% (between 1998 and 2015)

• Have 95% of all indigenous four-year-olds enrolled in early childhood education by 2025: On track

• Close the gap in school attendance by the end of 2018: little progress

• Halve the gap in reading and numeracy for Indigenous students by 2018: on track in the ACT and Tasmania

• Halve the gap in Year 12 attainment by 2020: on track

• Halve the gap in employment by 2018: on track in NSW

Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/12/closing-the-gap-targets-in-childhood-mortality-and-early-education-back-on-track

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The Education State? Students lag behind state government goals

Henrietta Cook

By: Henrietta Cook

The performance of Victorian students has gone backwards since the Andrews government set ambitious targets as part of its Education State agenda.

New figures obtained by The Age also reveal that parents’ trust in the state school system has taken a hit, with only 51.7 per cent reporting high levels of confidence in the sector.

high levels of confidence in the sector.

The state government launched the targets as a centrepiece of its Education State policy in September 2015 but has since remained quiet about how schools are tracking.

The measures are calculated using a combination of NAPLAN results, the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), parent and student surveys, retention data and Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority assessments.

The Age can now reveal that out of the nine targets that have reported data for 2016 and 2017, only two areas improved.

These were year 5 reading and year 9 maths.

But this coincided with a decline in the proportion of students reaching the highest levels of achievement in year 9 reading, year 5 maths and critical and creative thinking.

Under the new targets, this is meant to increase to 39.9 per cent by 2020.

The achievement gap between the most disadvantaged year 5 and 9 students and their peers also grew wider between 2016 and 2017.

There was also a drop in the proportion of year 9 students who remained engaged in education until year 12. This dipped to 96.3 per cent,  down from 96.6 the previous year.

And the proportion of surveyed families who reported high levels of confidence in the government school system dropped from 55 to 51.7 per cent. This is a far cry from the goal of 65.9 per cent by 2025.

University of Melbourne laureate professor Dr John Hattie said policies aimed at reaching the targets had not had enough traction in schools.

«I am delighted that we have those targets and there are promising areas but we need to be much more vigilant in terms of making sure schools meet those targets,» he said.

«We have committed to these targets so let’s move them up.»

Victorian Education Minister James Merlino said he was confident more children would move into the top achievement bands as the government’s Education State initiatives rolled out.

«Anyone can jump over a low bar – that’s not what we are about. These targets are hard to meet because they’re real targets that will see real improvement in what our students achieve at school.»

He said there were early and exciting improvements, with some of Victoria’s lowest-performing students moving into the middle achievement bands.

«It may not be headline grabbing, but it’s the first step in seeing the long-term improvements we want to achieve.»

He said changes in the second-year-target figures were not statistically significant and «do not paint a full picture of improvements in the sector».

Education is emerging as a key battleground ahead of the November state election.

The state opposition recently pledged to review the curriculum if it won government and called for a greater focus on «Australian values» in schools.

The opposition’s education spokesman, Tim Smith, said the new figures showed that it was time to declutter the curriculum and focus on literacy and numeracy.

«We want to improve student outcomes, instead of weak slogans and a part-time education minister,» he said.

«The education state slogan is not worth the number plate it is written on.»

The five and 10-year targets include boosting the number of students achieving excellence in reading, maths, science and the arts, breaking the link between disadvantage and outcomes and improving confidence in the school system.

The Grattan Institute’s Dr Peter Goss said consistent improvements during the earlier years of school were key to hitting the targets.

«For Victoria, I’m seeing good signs in reading, but less improvement in numeracy. Much more needs to be done to be improve writing, but that is also true across Australia,» he said.

He said change took time and the metrics used to measure progress bounced around from year to year.

«This creates a risk of jumping at shadows if a metric slips marginally,» he said.

«That said, improvement is always better than not, and the government will no doubt be working to understand what is going on where metrics aren’t improving.»

Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority chief executive Dr David Howes said that while the best result would be improvements across the board, there were encouraging signs.

«The 2017 NAPLAN results show we’re lifting students out of the bottom three bands in reading and lifting performance in the early years,» he said.

«We will see improvements in the year 5 target data as these year 3 students move through primary school.»

He said the latest NAPLAN results showed that Victorian primary students were the country’s top performers in six out of 10 domains.

«Nevertheless, further significant improvement will be required to reach the ambitious Education State targets in both primary and secondary schools,» Dr Howes said.

Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/the-education-state-students-lag-behind-state-government-goals-20180201-p4yz7g.html

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Australian Education Union SA branch calls for two years of preschool

Noticias

Australia / 24 de enero de 2018 / Por: Tim Williams / Fuente: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/

PROVIDING two years of preschool, initially for the most vulnerable children and eventually for all, must be on the next state government’s agenda, the teachers’ union says.

The Australian Education Union’s SA branch has released a position paper that is both an election wishlist and a longer term blueprint for public education.

It says the first priority for young children must be to boost the proportion who attend 15 hours of preschool a week in the year before starting school. While all SA 4-year-olds are enrolled, only 75 per cent attend the funded hours.

The union says whoever forms government after the March election must also develop a longer-term strategy to provide “two years of high quality preschool education for all children”, previously estimated to cost $60 million.

“Quality early education sets the foundations for cognitive, physical, emotional, social and language development …” the paper states.

“Such a strategy should make the provision of two years of quality preschool a priority for all children for whom 15 hours (a week) for a year is not enough to meet their development needs — significant numbers of children from low SES backgrounds, Aboriginal children, children with health problems, children with disabilities, children from non-English speaking backgrounds and children in rural and remote communities.”

The paper also calls for:

A GUARANTEE embattled TAFE SA will receive at least 70 per cent of vocational training funds, leaving no more than 30 per cent as “contestable” between the public and private sectors.

FUNDING all public schools to 100 per cent of the national benchmark known as the Schooling Resource Standard.

GENDER equity strategies, including research and possible employment quotas, to put more women into school and TAFE SA leadership positions.

The State Government currently funds 12 hours a week of preschool for 4-year-olds and the Federal Government the other three hours.

Last month Premier Jay Weatherill revived the idea of two years of preschool and suggested the Commonwealth fund a trial.

But federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham said Mr Weatherill had “no proposal and no funding to roll out this idea” and was trying to distract from the crisis engulfing TAFE SA.

SA Aboriginal children and those in state care are already entitled to attend preschool from age three. Tasmania plans to offer 10 hours of preschool a week to disadvantaged 3-year-olds from 2020.

Fuente noticia: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/australian-education-union-sa-branch-calls-for-two-years-of-preschool/news-story/03507c3f6f0771696f075ff7ba35c1da

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Pay of Australian university heads called into question after UK protest

Noticias

Australia/Enero de 2018/Fuente: The Guardian

Resumen:

Los australianos deberían cuestionar cuánto ganan los vicerrectores de la universidad, ha declarado el ministro de educación, en medio de la controversia en el Reino Unido sobre el «escandaloso» salario del vicerrector de la Universidad de Bath, que era solo la mitad del equivalente mejor pagado de Australia.

Simon Birmingham dijo el jueves que las universidades deberían reconsiderar los pagos de sus altos ejecutivos, algunos de los cuales ganan más de un millón de dólares al año en beneficios salariales y de alojamiento.

El miércoles, la vicerrectora de la Universidad de Bath, Dame Glynis Breakwell, se retiró después de la controversia sobre su salario de £ 468,000 al año ($ 812,500). El furor provocó una conversación nacional y llevó a los estudiantes a las calles en señal de protesta.

Australians should question how much university vice-chancellors earn, the education minister has declared, amid controversy in the UK over the “outrageous” salary of the University of Bath’s vice chancellor that was only half that of Australia’s highest-paid equivalent.

Simon Birmingham said on Thursday that universities should reconsider the pay packets of their senior executives, some of whom earn more than a million dollars a year in salary and accommodation benefits.

On Wednesday, the University of Bath vice-chancellor, Dame Glynis Breakwell, retired after controversy over her salary of £468,000 a year ($812,500). The furore led to a national conversation and drove students to the streets in protest.

According to the Australian, 12 vice-chancellors in Australia took home more than a million dollars in 2016, and the University of Sydney’s Michael Spence nearly doubled Breakwell’s total pay at $1.44m.

Breakwell was paid less than UNSW’s Ian Jacobs ($1.25m) and the Australian Catholic University’s Greg Craven ($1.24m), among others. The vice-chancellor of Oxford, Louise Richardson, made even less at £350,000 ($600,000), putting her below the heads of Newcastle University, James Cook University, and the University of Southern Queensland.

Birmingham said the international comparison should prompt taxpayers to ask if they were “getting value for money”.

“While Australians recognise the high level of skills needed to run a university, many taxpayers would question why remuneration should exceed global benchmarks.”

Vice-chancellor salaries are set by each university’s board or senate without government input.

The president of the National Tertiary Education Union, Jeannie Rea, said the salaries were “extremely embarrassing” and “out of proportion”.

“It used to be the case that a vice-chancellor would be paid some proportion, or related to that of a senior professor, plus some. They saw themselves as leaders of an academic institution, now they see themselves as CEOs.”

Belinda Robinson, the chief executive of Universities Australia, said the minister’s attack on salary was an attempt to distract from the government’s recent $2.2bn cuts to university funding.

“This distraction strategy will not hoodwink the community,” she said.

Rea agreed: “It’s somewhat flippant to say you can redistribute vice-chancellor’s salary and be able to pay for a whole lot of things. The underfunding of university places is a much bigger problem than that.”

Guardian Australia contacted several universities about the salaries of vice-chancellors.

The ACU’s deputy vice-chancellor, Stephen Weller, said Craven’s salary included the accommodation costs of managing a national, multi-campus university.

The University of Sydney, UNSW and the University of Queensland similarly said the million-dollar sums included superannuation and a housing allowance.

A spokesman for the University of Queensland, whose vice-chancellor Peter Høj earns $1.15m a year, said “the combined annual salaries of all Australia’s vice-chancellors comprise about 2% of the government’s latest cuts to the university sector”.

“UQ has 52,000 students and is ranked in the top 50 of more than 10,000 universities globally. As a point of comparison, the University of Bath has 17,308 students enrolled.”

Fuente: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jan/22/pay-of-australian-university-heads-called-into-question-after-uk-protest

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Australia: Students’ skills ‘no issue’ for employers

Noticias

Fuente: The Australian

Resumen:

Las universidades y académicos han rechazado las afirmaciones de que algunos graduados están mal preparados para el trabajo, acusando al ministro de Educación, Simon Birmingham, de usar las tasas de deserción estudiantil como «forraje político» y cuestionando cómo los recientes recortes de fondos de $ 2,200 millones mejorarán el sector.

El Senador Birmingham dijo ayer que las nuevas cifras sobre las tasas de finalización y la idoneidad del grado en la fuerza de trabajo mostraron un aumento en las no finalizaciones y una caída en los niveles de satisfacción de los empleadores y los graduados, «así que tenemos que cortar eso de raíz».

Una encuesta anual de satisfacción del empleador financiada por el gobierno reveló que más del 10 por ciento de los graduados encuestados dijeron que su calificación «no era para nada» importante y otro 15 por ciento «no tan importante» para su trabajo al poco tiempo de comenzar.

Innes Willox, directora de la organización de empleadores Australian Industry Group, dijo que la encuesta mostró que algunos nuevos participantes en el mercado laboral estaban «llegando al desempleo» debido a que sus credenciales terciarias no eran relevantes para el campo en el que se encontraban.

Universities and academics have hit back at claims some graduates are being poorly prepared for work, accusing Education Minister Simon Birmingham of using ­student attrition rates as “political fodder” and questioning how ­recent $2.2 billion funding cuts will improve the sector.

Senator Birmingham said yesterday that new figures on completion rates and degree suit­ability in the workforce showed an increase in non-completions and a fall in employer and graduate satisfaction levels, “so we need to nip that in the bud”.

An annual government-­funded employer satisfaction survey found that more than 10 per cent of graduates surveyed said their qualification was “not at all” ­important and another 15 per cent “not that” important for their job soon after beginning.

Innes Willox, head of employer organisation Australian Industry Group, said the survey showed that some new entrants to the labour market were “verging on the unemployable” ­because their tertiary credentials were not relevant to the field they were in.

Universities Australia chief Catriona Jackson saidg employer satisfaction had risen in all categories of graduate skills since last year’s survey, including employability, teamwork, adaptability and general communication skills.

“This survey gives us important, transparent information to guide our understanding of the complex transition from study to work,” Ms Jackson said.

She said the research found that more than four in five ­employers were satisfied with university graduates who worked for them, and 88 per cent of ­graduates felt their qualification prepared them well for their current job.

She stepped up criticism of $2.2bn in funding cuts recently pushed through in the form of a two-year freeze in federal grants funding.

Senator Birmingham yesterday defended the cuts, saying they were designed to “actually see outcomes from unis that are a value to not only taxpayers but importantly to the students themselves and, of course, to our overall economy”.

National Tertiary Education Union president Jeannie Rea ­accused Senator Birmingham of creating “political fodder” out of university outcomes.

She said the question of whether ­students found their ­degrees relevant immediately upon entering the workforce needed to take into account “ongoing qualification needs” in many industries.

“The more interesting thing is to look five years out, so that someone might start in a job with an undergraduate degree, then in order to progress their career go on to a masters, and so on,” Ms Rea said.

“One of the things that’s also missed is that it’s not all people in their early 20s, but many are ­mature-aged students who’ve had to change their job; sometimes they’ve been made redundant and had to choose a new field where they start again at the bottom of the pile.”

Fuente: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/students-skills-no-issue-for-employers/news-story/388ba9ae9f2956157897028da50e95c9

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Brisbane is Australia’s most expensive city for faith-based education

Noticias

Australia/January 16, 2018/By: Felicity Caldwell/Source: http://www.watoday.com.au

Brisbane is Australia’s most expensive city for a faith-based education, according to research released on Tuesday.

The ASG Planning for Education Index predicts it will cost $251,866 to put a child born in 2018 through a Catholic, Anglican, Uniting Church, Buddhist, Islamic or Hindu school in Brisbane.

The cost jumped $7902 from 2017, unlike Melbourne, Perth and Hobart, where the forecast cost fell.

The Brisbane figure was $11,187 above the national metropolitan average ($240,679) and $63,124 more expensive than Hobart, Australia’s most affordable capital for a faith-based education.

But there was some good news for parents considering the private school system, with Brisbane predicted to be the most affordable capital city in the nation.

The forecast cost of a private education for a 2018 baby in Brisbane fell $3464 compared with last year, to $368,573 over the course of their schooling.

This was $106,769 below the national metropolitan average and $178,841 cheaper than Sydney ($547,414), Australia’s most expensive city for a private school education.

The index also discovered the forecast cost of a government education in Brisbane ($58,352) had dropped $1783 in the past year.

Brisbane was now significantly cheaper than Melbourne ($75,263), Australia’s most expensive government school system.

The forecast cost of a government education in Brisbane was $7968 below the national metropolitan average.

The fall in the forecast cost of education across Brisbane’s private and government schools was heavily influenced by slower price rises within secondary education.

But while school fees were a major education expense, there were other hits to the hip pocket, including extracurricular activities, computers, travel expenses, uniforms, school excursions and camps.

Based on more than 13,500 responses, the index predicted Brisbane parents who educated a child in the private school system for 13 years could fork out $49,365 for other non-fee education costs.

At faith-based schools it would cost $44,971 and $38,661 at government schools.

Brisbane mum Zhiqin (Grace) Cao, whose daughter, Emily, is in Year 2 at a Lutheran school, says she has already underestimated the costs of education.

«I calculated the costs of tuition, uniforms and textbooks but forgot to calculate other activities including ballet lessons, ice-skating and intensive school holiday classes, so I’ve had to budget for an extra $3000 a year,» she said.

«Emily also started gymnastics in the second half of last year because of the influence of her friends, and coding camps cost $150 a day and can last a week during the holidays.»

Ms Cao, an ASG member, said she valued a quality education despite the cost.

«As long as I can see Emily is benefiting, I will continue to support and encourage her,» she said.

Outside the capital cities, regional Queensland was Australia’s most expensive region for a faith-based education, with parents spending $198,012 for a child born in 2018.

Acting ASG COO Bruce Hawkins said the cost of education had risen at more than double the rate of inflation over the past 10 years and outstripped the growth in wages over the same period.

The overall cost of education had skyrocketed 61 per cent in the past decade, dwarfing the 34 per cent rise in wage growth in the same period.

«This means that education costs are demanding a far greater share of the family wallet than in the past, placing more burden on the average family, already challenged by the rising cost of living,» Mr Hawkins said.

«If you have three children, the cost of education at a Brisbane private school could top $1 million.

«That’s significantly more than the purchase price of the average family home.»

Originally published on brisbanetimes.com.au as ‘Brisbane is Australia’s most expensive city for faith-based education‘.

Source:

http://www.watoday.com.au/national/education/brisbane-is-australia-s-most-expensive-city-for-faith-based-education-20180115-p4yyi9.html

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