Catholic Education Office - Application for Exemption from certain provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984.
Summary of Notice of Decision
The Catholic Education Office ("CEO"), Archdiocese of Sydney, applied to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission for a temporary exemption to allow the CEO to discriminate against women by offering primary teacher training scholarships to male students only.
The CEO stated that the aim of the proposed scholarship scheme was to increase the number of male primary school teachers so that boys have male role models. The CEO also suggested that having access to male role models will help improve the 'substantive equality of boys and girls' in primary schools.
The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) makes it unlawful to discriminate in employment, education, the provision of goods, services, facilities or accommodation, and the administration of federal government programs on the grounds of sex, marital status, pregnancy and potential pregnancy.
The Commission has the power to grant temporary exemptions from the Act. It does so rarely. The Commission's guidelines for granting exemptions can be found at: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/legal/sda_exemptions.html.
Because the application involved issues of broader public interest, the Commission sought submissions through its website and considered other material including the House of Representatives' Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Workplace Relations' inquiry into boys and education entitled Boys: Getting It Right and relevant statistics. Eleven public submissions were received.
The Commission declined to grant a temporary exemption in relation to the relevant provisions of the Act on the basis that the CEO had failed to demonstrate that the exemption sought was "reasonable". Reasonableness, in the context of the Commission's guidelines on temporary exemption applications, involves weighing the nature and extent of the discriminatory effect against the reasons advanced in favour of the exemption.
The reasons for concluding that the "reasonableness test" was not made out were as follows:
- " The reasons for the lower number of male than female primary teachers are varied and complex. In fact, the Boys: Getting it Right report said significant factors raised by teachers for the low numbers included "the status of teachers in the community, salary, career opportunities and child protection issues". It also found "salary progression and promotional opportunities for teachers do not keep pace with the opportunities available outside teaching";
- The CEO provided insufficient evidence to show that the underlying causes of the gender imbalance in the primary teaching profession might be addressed through a scholarship scheme. For example, the CEO did not show evidence that the gender imbalance in the primary teaching profession was caused by financial hardship suffered by male students seeking to obtain qualifications to enter the primary teaching profession or the lack of financial inducements available to males considering entering primary teacher training courses;
- The CEO did not identify any reason why the scholarship scheme could not be provided on a less discriminatory basis (for example, the proposed scheme could have provided equal numbers of scholarships to male and female primary teaching students). A recommendation for such a scheme was made in Boys: Getting It Right.
- There is insufficient evidence before the Commission to support a finding that the gender imbalance in the primary teaching profession will have adverse social or educational effects or will detrimentally affect school culture or the education of boys enrolled as students in primary schools.
The Commission has encouraged the CEO to:
- conduct further investigations into the reasons underlying the gender imbalance in the primary teaching profession; and
- to the extent that a scholarship scheme or other recruitment strategy is pursued, consider means of implementing such strategies in a manner that does not discriminate on the ground of sex.
