South Hedland community meeting, 21 May 1999 - notes
Background
The Pilbara region has four state senior high schools (Years 8 to 12) and three district high schools (primary through to Year 10) in total. Excluding the district high schools, there are 17 primary schools in the Pilbara. Secondary school student numbers steadily decline after Years 7 and 8. A number of children from the Pilbara travel to Broome or to Perth to complete their secondary education and to take advantage of increased curriculum offerings. A large number of children do not complete school beyond Year 8, and for some, beyond primary school. In many communities, secondary education is not provided. Children must travel long distances to participate in education beyond primary school. Given that there is no public transport and the transport facility available in the Pilbara is privately owned and run, this makes secondary education inaccessible for remote children.
The Year 12 classes at Pilbara schools are often very small. Schools rely on the School of Isolated and Distance Education (SIDE) to supplement the curriculum offerings. Insufficient student numbers seriously limit the educational options of the children in the Pilbara. Small student cohorts and specialist teacher shortages create a tension in the subject offerings at these schools.
Suspension rates and absentee rates are very high from Year 8 through to Year 10 in Hedland.
Pilbara District Office education priorities
The District Office, Education Department Western Australia (EDWA) provides school support and strategic initiatives and direction in the Pilbara region. The Office provides a Psych Service and Aboriginal Liaison Officers. The Aboriginal Liaison Officers work with teaching staff rather than with the children.
According to the District Office, the crucial issues for education in the Pilbara are to improve the educational outcomes for Aboriginal students and to improve the recruitment and retention of teaching staff in schools.
The District Office finds that the educational outcomes for Aboriginal students in the Hedland area are unacceptable. There are very poor retention rates beyond primary school, and high rates of absenteeism. Certain EDWA initiatives are in place to improve this situation. Some of these initiatives include breakfast programs and education/employment programs.
Hedland has difficulty recruiting and retaining 'quality' teaching staff. The District Office has encouraged EDWA to put in place initiatives to encourage teachers to come to difficult-to-staff schools. EDWA is currently considering cash bonuses and various rights of return strategies. According to the District Director, the biggest fear for Hedland teachers is being 'stuck in the bush'. An equal opportunity ruling in WA has meant that rural teachers do not get priority transfers. Instead they have to 'merit out' in order to move between schools.
Aboriginal Education
"On average in our remote primary schools we have 80% Aboriginal attendance. In secondary schools we have 30% absenteeism. We have run a number of initiatives through Hedland High School. Rather than fining parents when children don't attend school, (we found that it didn't work) we are looking into why children are not attending school. We have a project in Wickham looking into these issues and trying to make school more attractive for these children. We are also looking into Early Childhood literacy. In Roebourne we are trialing the Aboriginal Literacy Net program with some success."
"The paper and pen tests do not work for Aboriginal children so we are always being hit on the head with this. We also are running Aboriginal Awareness program for teachers. Some of the young teachers coming here have never come across an Aboriginal person, let alone taught one."
"There is concern about the cultural appropriateness of strategies to encourage children to come to school, particularly those children from itinerant families moving through remote outlying communities and coming into town from time to time. There is a movement of significant numbers of children moving from one community to the next."
"We had a program about 10 years ago where children were encouraged to come to a youth centre and it was funded by Family and Community Services WA. It is no longer running. There are also specific problems of attendance for children from outlying communities such as Tjalku Wara and Tjalka Boorda. Children must catch the bus at 6.30 in the morning if they want to come to school in Hedland. This makes it very difficult for the children and the families. There is no time for breakfast."
Education standards
"I'm concerned about the level of education of Aboriginal secondary students. Our children come up through primary school and they can barely read or write. I think that the primary school should concentrate on literacy. There is a lot of support given to our kids in high school and there is barely any support in primary school."
"The CDEP [Community Development Employment Program] has put more workers within the schools and this seems to be working well. It helps with attendance when the children can see someone they know."
Recruitment and retention of teachers
"We have real difficulty in staffing our schools here. It is the specialist areas that are hard to staff. This includes computing and maths and science. We have advertised interstate and internationally for teachers. There is a world wide problem in the supply of maths teachers."
"The government has not settled the permanency and the cash bonus issues yet and this affects the staffing at schools. There is currently teacher permanency after 3 years of service in Western Australia."
"Permanency does impact on placements in Hedland. This year when they announced that after 3 years you could get permanency the whole nature of applicants for positions in the Pilbara changed. I'd been trying to get male psychologists to work here and only had one in 6 years, as of this year I have three. All applicants used to be first year out graduates, now we are getting people with experience. The deciding factor for these people was that they would receive permanency. They have families and the last thing they want to do is to come to the bush for uncertain employment. So the 3 years permanency policy change has made a big difference."
"The next issue is whether these people can get back to Perth. We need to sort out the transfer situation now. There is gridlock for rural teachers wanting to move from one school to the next. The higher up you go in the professional hierarchy the harder it is to move or to get a transfer back to Perth."
"We have one computing teacher at the school and she is married to the only physics teacher at the school. Now if they were to leave then we would lose 2 subjects at the school. These positions would be very hard to replace."
Relief teachers
"We don't have a pool of relief teachers to cover for teachers when needed. When staff are ill they often go to work because they know the stress it will put on the school. This means that it puts stress on the individual and it is another reason that they might not want to stay in the Pilbara in the longer term. I have known classes to be sent home because we just don't have the teachers."
Professional development
"Since we get a lot of new graduates here, they really need to do a lot of professional development. Because there are not relief teachers the staff have to do their professional development outside of school hours.
"The cost of professional development is higher here in the Pilbara than in Perth. We don't have access to the same resources. In my experience of working here for 30 years, I think we have the best staff that we have ever had. They are committed and enthusiastic and at times they find themselves in very trying circumstances. The education staff are some of the most important staff in our community."
Teacher housing
"A trade assistant at BHP works 48 hours per week, 4 days on and 4 days off at $73,000 per annum. These workers will get a fully air-conditioned house that is completely subsidised. The government workers are housed in sub-standard accommodation; some of it appalling, and the graduate teachers are on $32,000. I don't believe that we pay our teachers enough to come up here, to leave their families and to work and live in such an expensive town."
Allowances, subsidies and the cost of living
"The expense of living here means that it not really viable for teachers to come here given the retail monopolies and the cost of living. Teachers need the air-conditioning subsidies. Air-conditioning is not a luxury here; it is a necessity."
"Teachers in Paraburdoo get an $18,000 location allowance over the 3 years. In Hedland the allowance will depend upon the 4 levels outlined by the department. In the Headland district it is about $10,500 over the 3 years. This is allocated over the 3 years and increases from about $2,000 in the first year to $4,000 in the second year and so on. The problem is though that you lose a lot of this money in tax. Once you have paid for a trip to Perth to see the family once a year the money is all gone."
"I think that the unions should work to develop specialist packages for teachers in remote communities."
Transfer rights
"Moves toward merit based appointments and transfer are very important in theory, but in practice it creates a brain drain on the bush. The transfer-merit system also relies on professional development opportunities. Enhanced professional development equates with enhanced merit. Clearly there is not the same opportunity for professional development here in the Pilbara.
"People will just not come here now because the equal opportunity ruling means that they never know if they will be able to get back to families and friends."
Teacher demographics
"The majority of teachers in the Pilbara are young. I think this is terrific. My children enjoy being taught by young and enthusiastic teachers. These teachers are role models for the children. The problem for the teaching staff is that they don't have enough role models in older and more experienced teachers. There are quite a few students who want to study away from Hedland and then come back here to teach."
Transport
"There are children who live about 3 to 4 kilometres from town. The bus service is privatised in Hedland and it is scheduled to fit in with the movement of BHP employees. These times do not always suit the school children. If the children miss the bus, there are serious weather considerations if they are to walk to school. Extreme heat and rain are a disincentive for children to attend school."
"At Roebourne they have just negotiated with Onslow to put a bus back on to take the children from Bindi to school. This bus only goes one way; it takes the children to school and does not take them home. Public transport is an issue in the bush because it just does not exist."
"Where there is low motivation for school attendance from the communities and the children, transport issues can compound the problems."
Incentives for school attendance
"A breakfast program at one of the local schools has doubled the student attendance from the Twelve-Mile community. Where they were regularly getting 5 students each day at school, they are now getting 12."
Government responsibility
"In 1992 the Commonwealth and State provided funding for 2 school/community liaison positions. One position was for Muslim community liaison and the other provided liaison between schools and 'students at risk'. These positions no longer exist. With devolution of responsibility to local schools and the Department shedding its responsibilities to children, I think it is a furphy for the Department to demonise schools and talk about literacy when they have withdrawn resources. If you talk to most state school teachers they will tell you that we do more and more with less and less. There is a terrible shedding of responsibility and resources from the education system here in Western Australia."
Chronic unemployment
"There are generations of people here who walked off the stations in 1947, 1948 who have never worked."
Standardised education
"It is not possible to standardise education across all schools. You have a different set of circumstances in different schools and a standard form or formula of education does not suit all schools. We have a very multicultural society in the Pilbara and we have a lot of itinerant people who come through the region."
Aboriginal & Islander Education Workers
"In the remote schools here in the Pilbara, the AIEW's are the key personnel because they are the constant personnel within the schools. With teachers being offered 3 year contracts through the Remote Schools Agreement, it is the AIEW's who maintain the continuity with the school community. They are there in the community year after year."
Shade trees
"There are no large shady trees in this area. We are only 18 feet above sea level and we are on the edge of a desert, but the lack of trees means that there is no communal outdoor space. Part of the problem is that the council has to chop all the trees down for cyclone season."
Itinerant families
"There is no appropriate accommodation for people who come into town from the communities for a few days. You would think that the local hotels were constantly full because when we try to find rooms for some of the itinerant families the hotels are always full. We have a lot of homeless people in town and that includes a lot of homeless children. We have an APEC hostel that was built in 1946, but we really do need some sort of short term or crisis accommodation. We need something really simple that is designed in the appropriate manner to suit the needs of these families."
"People here assume that the homeless people in town are from the Western desert communities, from Warralong or from Strelley, but this is not always true. We have large numbers of people here who have nowhere to go. At any given night we will have 30 to 40 homeless people and this is the average, but we could also have 300 or 400 on some nights when there is a particular event or if they need to come and buy food. These people sleep in cars and in ditches."
Health services
"There are also problems with the health service. Some doctors refuse to see some of the clients. We have a publicly funded health service here and we have a doctor working from this facility who does not bulk bill. This is not unusual in the Pilbara to accommodate doctors in this way to keep doctors out here."
Specialist subjects
"My daughter has to fly to Perth to do her music exam. This is at cost to our family. My daughter needs to be accompanied by an adult and again that is money that we have to find."
"One group of students is planning to participate in a band competition. They need to raise $27,000 for this activity."
"With the fluctuation of numbers each year, some subjects may not run in Year 12 because there are not enough numbers. An example of this would be calculus. So a kid gets to Year 9 and the family see that a particular subject is not running so they send the kid to Perth for the rest of their secondary education."
Curricula
70% of the Year 12 Geography course requires a study of the South-West Perth Metropolitan area. This is a daunting task for students and for teachers. Schools and the community fundraise to send the Year 12 children to Perth so that they can observe the geography they are required to study. Parents, teachers and the school children expressed the inequity of this curriculum program.
Boarding schools
"Some of the companies such as BHP, Hamersley and Woodside offer their employees a boarding school subsidy of $3,500. Many of the parents take up this offer and this means that some of our top end of our academic stream are sent to Perth. So we start off with a less robust group of students anyway. This also means less students, so less funding and less subject choices for the remaining students."
Children with disabilities in schools
The Education Support Units provide one teacher for every 8 to 12 students with disabilities. Thirteen to 15 children with disabilities are entitled to an extra 0.5 or 1.5 teachers. Two teachers will be provided for 16 to 18 children with disabilities. There may be additional support for children with severe disabilities. Children with intellectual disabilities are placed in Education Support Units. Children with physical disabilities are placed in mainstream schools.
Some of the concerns of parents include the need to establish Individual Education Programs early in the schooling of children with disabilities. Currently, this intervention is occurring late in the educational development of the child.
The other specific problem concerns the fact that special education teachers may have a major in recreation or primary teaching and may not have specific training in working with children with disabilities. If these teachers are employed in the Pilbara, the professional development offerings are non-existent.
"At Hedland a grassroots parents group has been established to provide support to families and to review resources, obtain funding and facilities for children with disabilities. A recreation project has been established through the Disability Services Commission because there is virtually no recreation for people with disabilities here in the Pilbara. There was also an employment agency established for people with disabilities."
"In small schools, the formulae do not work for these children. This is a resource issue and there needs to be differential formulae for these small schools. The child's needs are not 0.2 of a position, or 2 hours before morning tea. The child's needs are all day."
Schools of Isolated and Distance Education (SIDE)
"There are 5 schools of the Air in WA. SIDE provides its own support staff for children who have learning difficulties.
"One of our biggest problems is the communication issue. The High Frequency (HF) radio was never designed for education; it was to be used in emergency crises. There has been talk of moving over to a Tele-conference situation, though this would cost us over one million dollars per year in telephone charges. Yet the problem is that many children have problems hearing the HF radio."
"The programs in Distance Education are improving all the time. We continue to move towards individual programs."
"We run a home tutor seminar for 4 days at the end of term one. Both the tutors and the children attend. The children then have access to a whole range of health and support services."
"We have a mid-year camp for Years 3 to 5 students. There are also some mini camps, though this requires the support of the parents. We do get PCAP funding to assist with these camps. We have a Point Perron camp for Year 4 to 7 and that camp runs for 8 days."
"Our staff also visit the children at home 3 times per year. During these visit they work with both the children and the home tutors. This is called the Visitation program and involves all of our teachers."
"School of the Air provides for 44 children. Seven of these children are Aboriginal and they are located at 3 isolated communities. We use the Aboriginal Homelands materials for these children. The materials are adjusted for the individual needs of the children. Unfortunately the return rates of materials are usually very poor. The system really relies on an adult who is able to read the materials and motivate the children. In some of the communities there may be no adults who are able to read. This really compromises the success of the program."
Last updated 2 December 2001.
