Older school age remains issue for Tassie

Terry Polglase calls on the Education Minister to hang tough on reform bid

MINISTER Rockliff’s goal to see the compulsory starting age of our students lowered to 4.5 is logical and if ever there was a time when we need his leadership it is now.

Why the Minister sought to have children enter kinder at 3.5 years of age is a mystery as other options exist.

Until Tasmania moves to the national average starting age of 4.5, any comparison of our NAPLAN results with other states will continue to be tainted and if we are genuine in wanting to improve retention levels at year 12 our students must not continue to be six months older than those elsewhere. They finish year 12 at an age of up to 18 years 11 months compared to 18 years 5 months elsewhere.

Does anyone think a student will want to be studying year 12 in a classroom at Oatlands a month away from turning 19?

The Government must stick to its task as there has never been any criticism levelled by anyone of the Minister’s goal. It was always the lowering of the entry age for kindergarten students that was untenable.

The solution would be to stagger the enrolment of 3.5 year old children into kindergarten from the time they turn four. Other states, NSW for instance, have progressive enrolments as birthdays are reached.

The range of ages now entering kinder is a full 12 months and children born in January need to wait a full year before enrolling. The model I propose would see the normal enrolment requirement retained (four at January 1) with progressive further enrolments as a child reaches their fourth birthday up until June 30. Enrolments would then cease for the year. This latter group would benefit from six to 12 months of schooling that they do not currently receive. This cohort would lead to only a one-year bulge for entry into prep with the minimum age being 4.5. This is as it would have been under the Minister’s model.

The following year’s kinder enrolment group will contain only a half of what we would normally have now (as the rest are going into prep) and will have their entire intake year completed by June 30 as children turn four and become eligible for enrolment. The effect on the play-based early education sector would be reduced by 25 per cent from what was proposed by the Minister and whatever reduction in employment predicted would be more than made up from the increase in employment within schools.

The Minister and Tasmania would accomplish what we must have, national comparative ages through 12 years of schooling and those students born after January 1, who currently just miss out on enrolment in kinder, having not turned four, will receive up to an additional six months of earlier kinder enrolment. None will commence kinder before they reach four.

If we miss this chance, we will never see our children taught at national equivalent ages as they move across states. It must be done and the $10.5 million funding per year needed for it to occur needs to be retained or replaced and used for the purpose it was intended.

With the euphoria surrounding the Minister’s reversal of his position, it is worth contemplating what the feeling would have been had there never been a proposal to lower the starting age and instead an announcement that an additional $10.5 million per year would be provided to support play-based early learning centres. There would have been an outcry. The compulsory sectors are in desperate need of more funds as they want the Government to address the special needs crisis, the underfunding of high schools, the loss of the pathway planners, the trimming of specialist music in primary schools and the burgeoning workloads of teachers. I know what the feelings of those working in the public system would be as the $10.5 million per year would employ 120 teachers permanently or build the premier’s mooted inner city school using only two years of the funding.

Being six months out from an election and within days of finding out that a poll of 1000 Tasmanian adults showing 76 per cent oppose lowering the voluntary school starting age to 3.5 are not good enough reasons for the Minister to abandon his goal.

Terry Polglase is a former Australian Education Union state president and past principal of Bowen Road Primary and Tasman District Schools.