Every day, millions of children in Australia are entrusted to Schools around the country, we trust schools and the Department of Education to ensure our kids are safe, happy and receive an education. In fact, as parents, many of us blindly send our children to our zoned school as we are led to believe Australia has one of the best education systems in the world. Yet, when we look behind the ‘glossy facade’, it is alarming at just how woefully inadequate our schools, Principal’s and Teachers are supported by the State Government, to ensure the safety of our kids.
I have worked in the field of Safety for over 20 years in Senior Roles in High-Risk Industry, and yet despite my professional background, I had just assumed that my kids would be safe at school. As the mother of a child with additional needs, I worry every single day about her, all of these worries and concerns relate to one theme, her safety
Following my ‘Deep Dive’ on the Victorian Government’s failure in supporting children with additional needs, I decided to take a deeper look into the Department of Education (DET)’s, Safety Performance. The results of this are jarring, Victoria has the WORST safety performance in Australia with the Department of Education reporting a horrendous safety, security and prosecution record.
Student and Staff Fatalities
Victorian Schools have the worst safety performance in Australia with 10 prosecutions laid against Victorian Schools in the past 5 years with 6 students and employees losing their lives at school related events and activities., with blame being attributed to this loss to either the Department or the School.
As a parent, particularly as a parent of a child with a disability, is that of the 6 fatalities Victorian Schools have been prosecuted for:
Three fatality prosecutions involved schools’ failure to manage students ‘disability or medical conditions’ on school excursions and one prosecution was directly attributed to a student with a disability
- Blackburn High School being prescribed Coronial Investigation Actions to improve ‘Student Educator ratio’s’ on excursions following a student’s death on a school excursion.
- Department of Education was prosecuted following the drowning of a grade 2 student at an Aquatic’s Center during an excursion.
- Kilvington Grammar was found guilty following a student death from diabetes complications on an excursion.
- Department of Education was prosecuted following a student in a wheelchair’s death when a student who was holding the wheelchair let go of the wheelchair. Both the teacher and teacher aide were distracted by poor behaving students at the time of the incident.
What is the Department’s legal duties for Safety?
Schools and the Department are underpinned by workplace and child Safety Legislation, this legislation requires schools and the Department of education to:
- Identify and Control risks as far as reasonably practicable
- Ensure safe systems and processes to manage risk
- Provide adequate information, instruction and training
- Consult with employees and other people
These duties extend beyond just departmental and school employees and include Students, Visitors, Contractors and any other person whose safety can be impacted out of the course of the school’s business or undertaking.
How effective is the Department at Managing Safety?
The Department of Education in Victoria has not only seen the worst recorded incidents in the country, but according to their 2023 Annual Report, the Department has reported over 103 Inspection Notices and 99 Improvement Notices, each of these notices has been issued to the department for failing to manage their own risks. If we were to put this in context, the Department employees approximately 95,000 people in Victoria, this is comparable to companies such as Coles, Woolworths, BHP and CSL. These businesses have large and high-risk workforces and whilst don’t have perfect safety records, don’t have anywhere near the track record of the Department of Education in Victoria.
So what is the answer?
In my opinion, the biggest challenge with the Department of Education’s safety system results from their lack of leadership and capability. The key to any organizations success in safety comes from the top, executives have very clear accountabilities and KPI’s for safety and are held to account for these. This, combined with a clear accountability that executives in industry have regarding safety, plus the benefits to their ‘bottom line’ if they have safe and efficient workplaces, can drive productivity outcomes. I would be certain, that the Minister for Education, nor the Secretary of the Department of Education have the KPI’s in place that equivalent leaders in the private sector would have. And I am also certain, that we as Tax Payers aren’t holding them to account for these KPI’s. To be honest, every executive I have ever met would be embarrassed (and also likely lose their jobs), if their annual report included a safety section and data like the Department of Education’s includes.
Whilst the Department does ‘allege’ they have a strategy which includes ‘Safe and Well in Education’, this strategy is clearly falling short to address the deficiencies within the organization. As a parent with great respect for our teachers, I feel nothing but empathy for them, they are on the front line trying to make a difference for our kids, yet the department that is supposed to ‘support them’, seems to overload them with more and more administration at a time when there is a national shortage in Teachers.
If the Department and the Government was really committed to addressing School and Teacher Safety, they would look to do the following:
- 1. The Minister, Secretary and Deputy Secretary’s would broaden their focus and leadership attention on understanding the safety issues facing schools. They would ask teachers, principals, front line staff, parents and contractors for their feedback on the Departments effectiveness at managing safety.
- 2. They would employ a strong safety leader who can establish a safety strategy and measurable and actionable implementation plan that focuses on using data to understand their risk profile, overhaul and simplify their safety management systems and provide support and training to all schools on how to manage risk.
- 3. They would centralize their safety management system and risk assessment processes and provide schools with the tools and resources to manage risks as opposed to the current model that has schools drowning in ‘admin and paperwork’ as opposed to risk and hazard reduction.
- 4. They would overhaul their student support services model so that regional support staff and have these resources deployed to coach, mentor and support school leaders and staff. I would love to see how many ‘school visits’ many of the safety team goes on every week.
These are just some ideas of what schools can and should do better. As a parent, I should have complete assurance that my kids are safe when I send them to school every morning.