Rural 12/11/99 1 HUMAN RIGHTS and EQUAL OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION NATIONAL
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Copyright in this transcript is vested solely and completely in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION NATIONAL INQUIRY INTO RURAL AND REMOTE EDUCATION MR Chris SIDOTI, Commissioner MR Tim ROBERTS, Co-Commissioner TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS AT MELBOURNE ON FRIDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 1999 AT 8.33 AM Transcription by - SPARK AND CANNON Telephone: Adelaide (08) 8212-3699 Melbourne (03) 9670-6989 Perth (08) 9325-4577 Sydney (02) 9211-4077 Rural 12/11/99 1 COMMISSIONER SIDOTI: For the record, this is the hearing of the rural education inquiry in Melbourne on 12 November. Good morning. Thank you very much for coming so early. I'm sorry that we weren't ready for you when you actually arrived, being a longer period. Would you like to introduce yourselves down the line and then make whatever comments you wish to make, and then Tim and I could ask some questions to you? MR COLLINS: Thanks, Chris. I'm Rob Collins. I'm the incoming Chair of Country Education Project (CEP) and I'll take over this afternoon. COMMISSIONER SIDOTI: Thanks, Rob. MR ROGERSON: I'm Ian Rogerson and I am the Secretary/Public Officer for CEP. MS WHITE: Esme White. I'm the Executive Officer for CEP. MR BESTER: Laurie Bester. I'm Principal at Murtoa Secondary College. I've been associated with CEP for 21 years I think now. MR CRAIG: My name is Bob Craig. I am Principal of Leitchville Primary School in Northern Victoria. I've been a member of the CEP organisation for the 12 years I've been in that area. MR BALFOUR: And my name is Al Balfour. I am the outgoing Chairperson of CEP Inc. I relinquish my position this morning. COMMISSIONER SIDOTI: Thanks. [Country Education Project] MR COLLINS: Chris, I'd like to begin by talking about why CEP has a right to be represented at this particular activity. The Country Education Project has as its vision that it would be the leading voice of country areas on issues on rural education in Victoria. It claims to be an advocate for all rural education in Victoria in various ways and so we're very pleased to be able to be here today. The Country Education Project is the only organisation of its type in Australia and we're glad that we're able to put a point of view. What we'll be saying today will be in the context of a general decline of rural areas in Victoria and across Australia and the threat of closure of schools and reduced resources and the population decline and loss of economy in so many of those areas. That's been evidenced by a number of things which have occurred recently, and one being the state election here and the referendum. There's been comments about Rural 12/11/99 2 that all over Australia, so that's the basis on which we want to make our comments. I'd therefore like to hand over so that Ian can speak next. MR ROGERSON: Yes, thanks, Chris. I'm from Hopetoun in North-West Victoria and I've been involved with Country Education Project since it started virtually. One of the things that stands out now of course is that decline of rural population and the effect of that, in that most of that decline is young people. Therefore as we look around towns like mine, the majority of people are elderly people. The Koorong Village, which is the elderly people's home, is full with waiting lists and yet the school populations are falling drastically in that area. [Declining school populations] When I first went to the school there were 250-something students there. There's now 116 for next year. That sort of population decline has occurred right across Victoria in the rural areas. So we lose those young people and we're not able to have them as part of our community structure, and therefore we rely very much on a few people say in their 40s, early 50s, to be involved actively in the community. The elderly people need their support; the young need a lot of support and yet they're the ones who must go away in order to find a job or to find education. The cost of tertiary education remains high and it is a problem continuously that those students have to go away. The parents have to pay the cost of the university education; they have to pay the cost of the children living away from home whilst they're attending university and other education, and of course they never return. The biggest problem with education in rural Victoria is it educates a child to live somewhere else. Unfortunately the jobs aren't there; using their education is not there, it remains in the big rural cities, provincial cities, or it remains in Melbourne and Geelong. We've overcome a lot of those things though. I mean, one of our biggest problems is the capacity to offer a curriculum at schools. We've had reduction after reduction over the years. How do we handle that? It's a positive thing; simply teachers are working harder, working longer. We may have had regulations on how many hours we're supposed to work; we simply can't do that. In order for a school like mine to survive we have to offer everything we can. [Curriculum offerings at Years 11 and 12] For example, next year we'll have only 23 students doing VCE at our school and we're offering 46 different subjects for VCE, including VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING subjects. The reason for that is simply that the teachers will continue to take an increased teaching load or catch up to the students at lunchtime or after school, have weekend classes, because that's the only way that school will Rural 12/11/99 3 survive. If we can't offer the VCE the students will leave and go somewhere else. So that's a very important factor, that we just continue to have to work harder. We've struggled still with the specialist services such as visiting teachers and speech therapists. They're not available in the local area. If they are available through a pooling of resources as an area-wide thing, they normally reside in Stawell or Horsham, somewhere like that. Once again, if we can get them maybe once a fortnight for a couple of hours we're very lucky. So even though we have the capacity to have those people at times, they are not readily available. One of the things with the decline in population is a slight reversed trend that people from Melbourne and other areas are seeing cheap accommodation available - because the houses are empty in town - and are moving into and buying those houses. What that's meant is that we've got a different type of population, because often when they move in their children have been transient and therefore have educational problems. So we often have students who - their parents buy a house in town, they move into town and their education level is probably three years below their age level. Therefore we might, for example, have a student who moves in grade 5 at the primary school and we have to then offer literacy resources to that student, whereas really the resources should be used at prep 1 and 2. Therefore our resources are stretched by the introduction of these people. Some of these people in recent years, we've had a number of people over the age of 21 trying to come back to school. I mean, they've realised as they settled into a tiny town like ourselves that they may be able to go back to school and be accepted there. Now, the government doesn't fund adult education. It doesn't fund schools for being able to have people over the age of 21. [Disability] MS WHITE: Thanks, Ian. Further to the information presented by Ian regarding the range of difficulties experienced by students in rural and remote areas of Victoria, we would also suggest that these are exacerbated for students with special needs. For the purpose of this presentation we include in that group students with intellectual or physical disability, as well as the needs of carer students. In rural areas students with disabilities are disadvantaged by the lack of available specialist support services, particularly in the area of allied health professionals; for example, physiotherapists, speech and occupational therapists. Outreach services are extremely limited or in most rural areas non-existent. Rural 12/11/99 4 One example we would like to highlight relates to children with cerebral palsy integrated into rural school settings. Generally between the ages of seven and 10 years they require follow-up orthopaedic surgery. As a result of that they require specialist physio treatment in the rehabilitation process in order to get them back on their feet and also back to school. There's both a lack of funding as well as a lack of therapists to address this situation and the Australian Physiotherapist Association have actually prepared papers on this issue and could be contacted for further information. Whilst there are real problems associated with accessing specialist practitioners, there's also a lack of choice between integration and some special settings. Specific purpose centres, for example, Yooralla, the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind and live-in accommodation is generally only available in the city, with limited facilities in regional centres.