Interview - ABC Adelaide with Jules Schiller and Sonya Feldhoff

JULES SCHILLER: There is a meeting of State and the Federal Education Ministers today to look at issues surrounding education. Always a very popular topic here on the ABC, as it should be, Jason Clare. Welcome to you.

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: G’day, mate. Great to be here.

SCHILLER: Let’s get to the child care sector first, because this has been a bit of an ongoing rolling conversation. I know Four Corners tackled it. There’s an Auditor-General’s report into subsidy and fraud. But let’s first get to child care and safety. I know Four Corners had a report saying that many of the for-profit child care centres have not been properly regulated. We’ve heard issues around staff-to-child ratios and pay. Are you going to regulate this industry properly?

CLARE: This is the number one issue on the agenda for Education Ministers today meeting here in South Australia, meeting for the first time since the election. There’s more than a million Australian families who have their kids in early education and care, including me, I’m one of them, so it’s personal for me.

You mentioned the Four Corners story. Even before that there was the arrest of a paedophile in Queensland a couple of years ago and subsequent conviction. That led me as the Minister, working with the states and territories, to ban the use of personal mobile phones in child care centres. There was a reason that we had to do that. And also changes to mandatory reporting rules from seven days to 24 hours where there’s evidence or allegations of sexual or physical abuse in child care centres.

That Four Corners story was really concerning. It produced evidence there of neglect and mistreatment and physical abuse of children in child care centres. Anyone watching that would say that you can’t sit by and do nothing. I’ve said that we will introduce legislation into the Federal Parliament which basically cuts off funding to dodgy operators. If you’re not meeting the quality standards, then you won’t get the subsidy that helps to fund the centre. And we won’t let you expand and open new centres, but not just that.

That Four Corners story produced evidence that people that were once working in child care were moving into the NDIS. We need to take steps to stop people working and neglecting people in one part of the care sector from moving into another. So, they’re things that we’re already doing. Yesterday the New South Wales Government released an independent report following that Four Corners story into the actions that they think are necessary. And they’re going to report to Ministers on that today so that we can work on what are the next steps. This work is never done. But what are the things that we need to do next to make sure our kids are safe.

SONYA FELDHOFF: Can we avoid anything other than an official regulator, though? I mean, are there other options?

CLARE: There are already regulators. There’s a national regulator and there’s state regulators and they work together. That doesn’t mean that everything is hunky dory, though.

FELDHOFF: I was going to say, these things have still happened, though, haven’t they?

CLARE: Exactly right. And so, some of the things we’ll talk about today are beefing up the penalties for providers when it’s proved that they’ve let children down and they’ve let families down and how do we make sure that we get better information faster to families when things aren’t up to scratch.

SCHILLER: This is an issue with quality ratings, isn’t it? Only 10 per cent of all centres, I think – well, 10 per cent don’t have quality ratings. And, look, I mean, to be kind of blunt here, we’re talking a lot about the for-profit centres as well. And, you know, I went to the – there’s a Reddit page on child care in Adelaide, so child care workers talking on Reddit about problems in their industry. Almost uniformly, people who work for not-for-profit centres seem to be happier than many people in the for-profit centres. And you hear stories about staff chipping in for books and toys themselves. They’re very concerned about, you know, children to staff ratios up to three. I think it’s one to five, it gets over three and it’s one to 10 and 11. They’re saying that parents expect them to, you know, parent their kids more than they do, and they’ve got kids with special needs and, you know, obviously they don’t think that they’re paid enough.

CLARE: Firstly, when it comes to quality and safety, whether it’s in a private for-profit child care centre or a not-for-profit centre, my expectation is that everybody meets the quality standards. You’re right, there are different ratios for children depending on how old they are. For little children, zero to two, the ratio of educators to children is much smaller. And that’s all about safety and quality and protecting those children.

In terms of salary, you’re right, early educators historically have not been paid enough, and that‘s why people have either chosen not to become an early educator or have left the job to go and work at Woolies or at Bunnings. We’re rolling out now a 15 per cent pay rise right across the board for the entire sector. Ten per cent rolled from December last year, another 5 per cent from this December. And we did something similar in aged care. It’s designed to help boost the workforce, recognise the important work that they do but hopefully encourage some people who’ve left the industry to come back and work.

We’re seeing evidence of that already: Goodstart, one of the biggest not-for-profit early education provider in the country has seen a massive increase in job applications in the last couple of months, that’s a really good sign, as well as a drop in vacancy rates.

FELDHOFF: It’s 17 minutes past 7. Sonya and Jules with you here. And in the studio with us is the Federal Education Minister Jason Clare. With the introduction of the three free days child care for most families, is it going to be easier or less easy to bring this regulation in? Because we need policing of these things that are going wrong, don’t we?

CLARE: One doesn’t necessarily affect the other. Let me make sure I’m pretty clear about the three days. The 3 Day Guarantee. That’s three days guaranteed access to the subsidy. It doesn’t mean it’s free, but depending on your income, it means that your subsidy for child care could be up to 90 per cent of the real cost that’s charged by the child care centre. And why are we doing that? Because the evidence shows us that kids from really poor families are the children that are most likely to miss out on going to earlier education and care at all and are the ones who need it the most. This isn’t just about looking after children; it’s about the early education of children.

If a child goes to early education and care, they’re more likely to be ready to start school, less likely to start behind, get that early literacy and numeracy and social skills that can help get them off to a good start when they start school. At the moment, we know it’s the really disadvantaged kids that are missing out. So, guaranteeing that subsidy for every child is important.

FELDHOFF: Sure, but we’re not on top of things with fewer children in the system. This is going to see more presumably in the system.

CLARE: Because of two things – number one, we’ve cut the cost of child care over the last two years. For the average family they’ve saved about seven grand on child care fees that they would otherwise have had to pay because of that change we made in the last couple of years. And because of this pay rise for educators we’ve now got about 100,000 more children in the system today than when we made those changes a couple of years ago. So, there’s more kids in early education and care, but still not all of the kids who need it. I’m talking about those kids from really poor and disadvantaged backgrounds, and also kids who might live in regional parts of Australia where there’s less likely to be a centre. That’s why another thing that we’re doing is rolling out a billion-dollar fund to build centres where they don’t exist.

SCHILLER: Well, let’s get to some other issues. 891 ABC Radio Adelaide, Sonya and Jules at 20 past 7 with Jason Clare, the Federal Education Minister. Yeah, we’re hearing lots of reports of teachers who feel unsafe in the classroom. This is because of, you know, bullying or violent behaviour of their students and, let’s face it, parents as well who are emailing them. You know, I know from teachers that, you know, they’re constantly contacted by parents who are asking them to, you know, make sure their kids eat the right food. And because of these issues teacher retention has been kind of difficult in Australia. So how are you going to deal with these issues around teacher safety, around teacher workload that is affecting people wanting to become teachers? And if we don’t - everyone listening right now could think about that teacher that changed their lives, that put them on a course, that created a passion in them that might be the employment they’re currently in. How do we get the best and brightest to stay in teaching?

CLARE: I’m glad you asked it and that you asked it in that way, because I think this is the most important job in the world. And it’s a harder job than it was 20 years ago. And you see that in some of the stories in the media today. This is really serious. It makes parents worry but also, it’s the reason why teachers leave the job they love. They’re attracted to this work because they want to educate children, they want to change lives. It’s that moment when that sort of invisible light bulb goes off and they know that they’ve helped someone learn something and understand something they never did. And then when there’s violence or bad behaviour in the classroom and it all becomes too much it can force people to leave the job.

There are some good things happening. The ban of mobile phones in schools right across the country has had a massive impact. I was talking to Blair Boyer, the South Australian Education Minister, last night. He made the point that kids are more attentive in the classroom now because they’re not distracted by the phone, they’re focused on the teacher. Kids are talking to each other and playing more in the playground than ever before because they’re not doing what adults do – look at their phone. He again got a complaint from students the other day that they’re bored now and that they want more clubs and things to do at lunchtime because they’re not looking at their phones; they’re actually –

SCHILLER: But the problem goes further than that, though, doesn’t it?

CLARE: It’s deeper than that. I just use that as one example. Another one is vaping. You ask teachers and principals they’ll tell you vaping can often be the cause of a lot of problems in schools. We’ve seen a 50 per cent reduction in suspensions in South Australian schools in the last couple of months because of the crackdown on vaping. But none of that means that the job is done. This is a serious issue. It’s one of the things we’ll talk about today, about what more tools can we give teachers, both when they’re training at uni to manage bad behaviour, manage children with complex behavioural issues, but also what we can do in the classroom.

FELDHOFF: Do we need more SSOs – I’m assuming that’s the term now still – SSOs in schools now to deal with some of these behavioural issues that are often medically based?

CLARE: It’s part of it. Often it will be somebody who’s providing special support for people with complex issues. Autism is a classic example of that. Could I just add on to that, because it’s also something in the media today, around bullying generally. Bullying at schools is different today than it was when we were at school. It’s not just push and shove or stealing the lunch money, it can often be what happens online. And it’s not necessarily what happens on the laptop in the classroom, it’s what happens at home. And there’s stories in the paper today about deep fakes. I can’t think of anything more horrific or terrifying than this, but when one student cut and pastes the face of another student and then puts it on to a nude body and then puts it on to the internet to bully or harass other students, but not just other students, female teachers as well. And that’s another thing that’s causing teachers to leave the profession, and young people, it’s affecting their mental health and wellbeing.

SCHILLER: I mean, is this a police matter, do you think?

CLARE: It is.

SCHILLER: Because, I mean, you’ve not only got that, you’ve got explicit pictures being taken of other students on mobile phones that are shared, which, let’s face it, is a criminal offence. So, do you have to get police involved in that?

CLARE: Yes.

SCHILLER: And charge students to make them realise how serious this is?

CLARE: There’s a couple of things you need to do. The eSafety Commissioner today has released a tool kit for schools about how to manage this. We’re going to get her to brief Education Ministers in a couple of months about this as well. She’s made the point, number one, ring the police. Number two, here are some tools to help with this. But we also want to set national standards around how do we deal with this, and that’s another thing that we’ll be discussing at the meeting today.

FELDHOFF: Now, we are fast running out of time. Can I throw a couple of questions at you for really quick answers?

CLARE: Go for it.

FELDHOFF: First of all, Adelaide University, we’re going to see that come into place in January next year. I know this week the domestic numbers are increased. What about the international student numbers in terms of how that might impact this new university which relies on that economic injection?

CLARE: The good news this week was the number of Australian students starting a uni degree is at record levels, the highest it’s ever been, except for COVID. And this new university, when it comes together next year, will be the biggest educator of Aussie students in the country.

FELDHOFF: In the country?

CLARE: In the country. This is going to be a seriously big university when it comes to educating Australian students. But they’ll educate international students as well.

FELDHOFF: And that’s important for the economic bottom line of that university, too, isn’t it?

CLARE: Absolutely, as for all universities. All universities to some extent educate students from the other side of the world who come here for an education. Doesn’t just make the uni money, it means that young people who come here and fall in love with Australia take that love for Australia back home with them. We’re setting numbers for different universities about how to do that. That is rolling out well and we’ve set a special number for the merged university to take into account the fact that it’s merging together next year.

FELDHOFF: And very quickly, should HECS debts cuts be visible on your bill by now?

CLARE: They’ll be visible very soon or as soon as possible. I’ve got to introduce a bill into the Parliament when Federal Parliament sits on the 22nd of July, so just about a month’s time. That will cut everyone’s HECS debt by 20 per cent. It’s got to pass the Parliament and then we’ve got to get the Tax Office to cut that off. But I guess the important message for anyone with a HECS debt listening, you don’t have to do anything; it will all happen automatically.

SCHILLER: And just looking at the text line before you go, Minister – where with Jason Clare, federal Education Minister, 26 minutes past 7, 891 – look, many people are worried about the for-profit childcare centres. You know, there’s texts coming through that, you know, that there’s a childcare centre in Adelaide that has not met standards for 10 years. Other people are talking about bullying in schools. Teachers are also being bullied. Students don’t understand the constant harassment, even low-level harassment, of bullying of teachers, and it’s exhausting teachers. And I think parents as well are getting involved at this level, too. So, yeah, lots of issues for you to discuss, you’d have to say?

CLARE: And it tells me that the agenda today is on the money. It’s the issues that parents care about and teachers care about, quality and safety in child care –

SCHILLER: Because no-one should be in child care to, you know, primarily to make a profit. I mean, primarily it’s kids’ safety –

CLARE: They should be there to care for and educate our children, right? That is number one. We’re talking about that, but we’re also focused on behaviour and bullying in our schools and outside of our schools, but how do we build our teacher workforce. We still don’t have enough teachers. And also the implementation of the agreement that we signed last year, the extra billion dollars for schools in South Australia, an extra $16 billion dollars across the country. Today we start the work on the implementation of that agreement.

SCHILLER: Jason Clare, thank you so much for your company. He’s meeting with the state education ministers today. At 28 minutes past 7.