School Enrolment and Attendance Initiatives

The Hon. PENNY SHARPE: I direct my question to the Minister for Education and Training. Will the Minister inform the House about measures the Government is taking to improve the rates of attendance of children at school?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: Earlier today the Premier and I announced an initiative aimed at ensuring that all children in New South Wales get an education and regularly attend school. The vast majority of parents accept their responsibility and give their children a great start to a life of learning. A tiny minority of parents fail to enrol their children or fail to regularly send them to school, and currently they can be fined. The new system is a more active approach from government and enlists support from the wider community and community organisations. It allows swift and effective action to deal with that tiny minority of parents who need assistance and encouragement as well as the even smaller number of students who, despite the best efforts of their parents, steadfastly refuse to go to school.

The Government's new approach will promote the use of mediation and alternative dispute resolution to allow the Department of Education and Training, other government agencies and responsible members of the community to work with parents and children to address the reasons why children are not enrolled at or regularly attend school. The Department of Education and Training will be given the option of seeking a court order to require a parent to enrol their child in school or take reasonable steps to ensure their child regularly attends. The department will draw on the resources of government and the broader community to provide targeted support to families to improve attendance. The department will also identify situations where counselling or other forms of support could help a family deal with the underlying causes and will give more help to parents who have done everything in their power to get wilfully disobedient children over 12 to go to school. Legal protection will be given to friends, family, neighbours and others in the community when they advise the Department of Education and Training they suspect a child is not enrolled in or attending school.

The main focus of this new scheme is remedial, recognising that non-enrolment or non-attendance can be caused by a range of factors, including parents who cannot cope with their responsibilities because of an addiction, mental health issues or other issues including simple social isolation or an inability to interact with the education system, which they may have inherited from their earliest personal experiences in childhood. We are not talking about a child not wanting to go to school because they have a test or have not done their homework or other occasional acts of truancy. We are talking about children aged over 12 who chronically and wilfully refuse to go to school. This presents a concern not only because of the importance of education in a child's life but because disengagement from school is a precursor to juvenile crime and other forms of social dysfunction.

Under the present system, if a parent can prove their child is disobedient, the court can do nothing to address the issue. Under the new system the court will be able to deal directly with the child and use a range of positive strategies to achieve enrolment or improve attendance. No punitive measures will be used against children under this scheme. However, there is a strong punitive element, including heavy fines, and in extreme cases jail for second offenders, for parents who flout the courts and the law. I make no apologies for that. While I anticipate that imprisonment will only be imposed on very rare occasions, it is essential that powers of sufficient magnitude are available to deal with those parents who deliberately seek to evade their responsibility to educate their children to their children's lifelong detriment. This is a serious issue

The Hon. Michael Gallacher: You can't even get jail for armed robbery in this State.

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: The Leader of the Opposition thinks this is a funny matter. It is a serious issue and warrants a serious response. Education is an essential element in anyone's development as a valued, contributing member of society. If we fail to ensure our children attend school, we erode the very foundations for our continued success as a society. These new laws will strengthen those foundations and are another step in the Iemma Government's commitment to ensure the best education for all our children.