Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (12:37): I rise to make a contribution on the Education and Training Reform Amendment Bill 2024. Before I proceed, I wish to acknowledge the tragic event that happened at Auburn South Primary School yesterday. My thoughts and prayers are with the family who have lost their son, the other injured students and their families, the whole school community and also the first responders. It truly is a tragic event.
The bill before the house is for an act to amend the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 in relation to regulatory and enforcement matters and for other purposes. In doing so, the bill amends the principal act to strengthen the compliance and enforcement powers of the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority. Under the bill the VRQA will have the power to issue a notice to produce a document or information that the VRQA reasonably believes is necessary to determine whether a person or body is engaging in conduct in respect of which they are required to be regulated by the VRQA. In addition, the VRQA will have the power to issue a notice to comply to a person or body that the VRQA has reasonable cause to believe is required to be regulated by the VRQA under the act, requiring the person or body to either apply for registration or approval under the act or cease engaging in the relevant conduct.
Under current frameworks the VRQA has insufficient compliance and enforcement powers to determine whether a person or body is carrying on or conducting a school or a school boarding premises that is required to be registered. Without an appropriate regulatory means, the VRQA is a powerless and ineffective enforcement body. But as clause 51 of the bill amends section 5.8.10 of the principal act, the VRQA will now have the ability to adequately deter providers, including schools and school boarding premises, that it has reasonable cause to believe are required to be regulated from operating without registration or approval.
The bill also increases maximum penalties for unregistered schools and school boarding premises. Currently it is an offence to carry on or conduct a school or school boarding premises unless the VRQA has registered the school or school boarding premises under the act. But as a state we should not tolerate organisations touting themselves as schools if they fail to meet the fundamental criteria for the definition of a school. Parents can generally have confidence that any school that they send their child to in this state, whether it be government or independent, will meet the basic safety and educative standards.
Allowing unregistered schools to persist could undermine public confidence in the education system as well as put already vulnerable youth in an unsupervised and unregulated environment. The only enforcement power within the legislation that the VRQA possesses is prosecution for a relevant offence and the imposition of a penalty following a successful prosecution. However, the maximum penalty at the moment is not enough, as identified by the VRQA. It is only 10 penalty units, $1975. This does not provide adequate deterrence, and there is little value in prosecuting these entities for such a small maximum penalty. Instead, in addressing this, the bill will increase the maximum penalties to 120 penalty points, $23,710, for individuals and 600 penalty units, $118,554, for a body corporate. This is a significant increase in the penalties for the offence of carrying on an unregistered school or boarding premises, but also these penalties are in line with others for such offences under the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 and the Children’s Services Act 1996.
As per VRQA’s website, in Victoria as of 30 June 2023 there were a total of 2310 registered schools, along with 38 registered school boarding premises. Of the registered schools, 68 per cent are government schools, 22 per cent are Catholic schools and 10 per cent are independent schools. I will also note that the bill will allow the VRQA to consider whether an applicant for registration or re-registration is a registered training organisation or if a high managerial agent of the applicant has ever failed to comply with the child safe standards, regardless of whether the VRQA is the integrated sector regulator for the applicant.
Another amendment the bill makes to the principal act is allowing a principal of a school to nominate another person or class of persons to make work experience and structured workplace learning arrangements for students in accordance with a ministerial order. Currently school principals do not have this ability, and they are instead required to approve every work experience and structured workplace learning arrangement for students at their school. As a result, this is a large administrative burden for principals, particularly in large schools and schools where a majority of students undertake work experience or structured workplace learning. By allowing school principals to nominate others to make these arrangements, the bill will provide schools and principals with the freedom to approve these arrangements in a way that is appropriate to their school’s individual circumstances. This is a sensible reform measure and much-needed legislative amendment, as we all know in this place the enormous workload of school principals and the role they play in our schools across the state. The last thing school principals want to be burdened with is time-consuming, excessive paperwork, and having to sign off every work experience or structured workplace learning arrangement for their students must be a huge task. I am sure this will be a welcome change and will empower the school staff, who are likely to know best what arrangements will work for each individual student.
The bill also makes some amendments as to how members of a Disciplinary Appeals Board pool and members of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority resign from their positions. Currently, under the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 for any member of a Disciplinary Appeals Board pool or member of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority to resign from office, they must resign in writing to the Governor in Council. However, under the bill, if members wish to resign from office, they will now do so in writing to the minister. Amongst other things, this amendment will speed up the process of standardising resignation requirements with other boards across the state within legislation.
This bill highlights the need to support the education system, but it is clear that there is so much more that needs to be done. In my electorate the state government merged our only four public high schools into one school, Greater Shepparton Secondary College, leaving no choice for students and families in the public system. The school has faced significant challenges, and numbers are declining with parents looking for or turning to other alternatives. At the time, the government expected enrolments to be over 3000 on the one school site. As you can imagine, putting so many students from all of the former public schools together has been a significant challenge for the teachers, staff, students and their families. In 2020 there were 2269 students enrolled, and that figure has dropped down to currently just over 2000.
But as I mentioned, there is no other option in the public system, and many families simply do not have a choice due to financial constraints. Many families have left the region. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work for every student, and it certainly is not working at this school. I know a family that wanted to move back to Shepparton to be close to their family, but their year 8 daughter, who has some anxiety issues, would not cope with the size and model of this school. So they moved to Benalla, still 45 minutes away from the family. The Greater Shepperton region has a population of almost 70,000 yet only one option for a public high school. I am doing all I can to support the school for students and families. We all want it to work. We know that we do have many issues within the education system more broadly, which are not only impacting on the Greater Shepparton Secondary College.
I wish to acknowledge the amazing teachers that are doing everything possible that they can. My daughter is actually a teacher at one of the local schools.
My daughter loves her job and she wants to stay in the system, but we know that there are significant challenges with teacher shortages and teacher burnout. As we move forward into the future there has to be some significant change to ensure that our teaching staff are supported, that families are supported and that we provide the very best education that we can to our students, and provide their families with choice – as I mentioned, that is something that is not happening in my region when it comes to public secondary schools. We are not seeing enough teachers enrolling and we are not retaining enough teachers, and I do feel we just simply need to do better.