Page 4316 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
students and teachers. However, it is equally important that the needs of the individual in question are also given due consideration.
There has been considerable research undertaken over many years in relation to the suspension of students from schools. In 2004, Professor Alison Elliott, research director, early childhood education, at the Australian Council for Educational Research, contributed to an opinion article in the Brisbane Courier Mail on trends for suspending students from schools, and I quote:
Removing troubled students certainly makes the teachers jobs less stressful. It reduces classroom disruption, increases learning opportunities and creates safer environments. But there are big problems with suspensions. Suspending troubled students compounds existing problems and results in new ones. Students can end up at home alone, or more worryingly wandering shopping malls and riding trains. They are rarely provided with an alternative education.
Unsupervised children and teenagers, already prone to trouble, are likely to engage in more inappropriate behaviour—fights, drugs and theft. Suspended students are the least likely to have the personal or family capacity to help themselves out of their difficulties. They need school and adult support.
In 2007, a study conducted by the University of Melbourne across 4,000 years 7 and 9 students in Victoria and Washington State—so that is Victoria, Australia and Washington State in the US—established that the detrimental effect of suspension is over and above other influences on student behaviour. These include family conflict, social and economic disadvantage or mixing with friends who get into trouble. It was also found suspension increases the risk of academic problems, school disengagement and drop-out, participation in crime and delinquency and alcohol and drug use.
With regard to those who are being suspended, students from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds are overrepresented in national statistics of suspended students and Indigenous students are more likely to be excluded from school than students from other cultures. There is also the issue that for some children suspension is seen as a reward of additional leisure time and recreation, particularly if parents are unable to take time off work to look after the child.
The issues I have raised are of concern enough for those children fortunate enough to be living at home in a stable environment. However, in the case of children in care, their supervision, if suspended, is even more difficult to manage. There is an acute shortage of foster carers in the ACT. In the ACT a far greater proportion of carers are in full or part-time work, more than in other states, and are not available to provide extra care during school hours if a child is suspended.
The greatest impact of these proposed changes will be on children who have already been identified as “at risk”, maybe by care and protection, or who are now in care and are as such the responsibility of the territory. As we understand it, it is not a requirement that the “territory parent” give consent for a suspension of a child in care. We are talking here about the most disadvantaged and underachieving group of all children in terms of educational outcomes, future employment prospects and poor physical and mental health.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .