Principals hit out at “political frenzy”
Principals say a “political frenzy” over child protection in schools has left every teacher feeling tainted – and has meant the leadership of the Education Department is no longer focused on improving educational outcomes.
Jan Paterson, President of the South Australian Secondary Principals’ Association, told InDaily that principals felt they were all being blamed for failures in child protection in the wake of the Debelle Royal Commission, despite the good health of the huge public school system.
“In some ways, it means we face a situation where the educational leadership of the department isn’t focused on education – it’s focused on child protection,” Paterson said.
She said it was “absolutely correct” that departmental child protection procedures should be tighter, with greater accountability and transparency, but “we can’t be so caught up in a political frenzy that we forget the educational agenda”.
Paterson said the good work being done in the public school system was going unacknowledged.
“Everyone’s feeling like we are all being tainted,” she said.
“It’s very depressing for people who go every day to give their all and do their best for the students to only see bad news stories.
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“What they’re feeling is under-valued through this process and none of them have had anything to do with malpractice.”
She said it might be “the reality for a short time” that “political mileage” would be sought from the situation in the lead-up to the election.
“It’s difficult to know that schools are being used as a political football,” she said.
“It’s like we have failed every child in every school in every situation.”
She said, in contrast to public perceptions, there had been progress in strengthening accountability and transparency in the schools system, and schools were generally performing well.
“The whole system is actually very healthy and doing a great job,” she said.
Steve Portlock, President of the South Australian Primary Principals’ Association, agreed with Paterson that the educational agenda had become dominated by child protection issues.
“Certainly safety and welfare are key parts, but we are there to make sure student learning is improving – that’s our main focus,” Portlock said.
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“With the exception of the numeracy and literacy strategies, we have probably lost a bit of our main focus at the moment.”
He agreed with Paterson that teachers were suffering from poor public perceptions of their work.
“I think the constant knocking in the media has certainly knocked around the morale of primary principals,” he said.
“Primary principals are very proud to be working in the public system, but they feel a bit dented at the moment.”
He said principals understood the serious issues raised by the Debelle inquiry and the need for a response, “but they believe that they are doing a very good job”.
More measures were being implemented to provide principals with greater clarity about reporting critical incidents, but in the meantime they were likely to report every significant incident to the department.
“It’s probably not a bad thing,” he said.
“One of the things we have to accept is that instances of reporting will increase – but it won’t be that things have got worse, it’s just that reporting has increased.”
Former Supreme Court justice Bruce Debelle conducted an inquiry with Royal Commission powers into the State Government’s handling of a case in which an out-of-school hours carer at a public primary school was arrested, charged and jailed for the sexual assault of a child under his care.
Debelle’s report was highly critical of the Education Department’s handling of the issue, particularly its failure to tell parents about the man’s arrest in December 2010 and conviction in February 2012.
Information about the man’s crimes were only conveyed to parents late last year after Opposition education spokesman David Pisoni asked questions about the case in Parliament.
