Sunny Queensland falls behind chilly rivals
EVEN Tasmania has a better school swimming program than Queensland, despite the southern state lacking our muchloved warm water lifestyle.
Queensland trails every other state in the country for water safety and swimming lessons in primary schools, with no compulsory, comprehensive or certified scheme to make sure our kids are water safe.
In a shock for Queensland parents, even southern states with a reputation for frigid water and cold weather are better regarded by swim and water safety experts.
Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT, NSW, and more recently, Victoria, have implemented school-based programs.
Victoria launched a mandatory swim safety program after owning up to shocking figures that showed how few kids could swim or save themselves.
The compulsory Victorian water safety certificate was launched this year after researchers found an estimated 60 per cent of Victorian children were leaving primary school unable to swim the 50m length of an Olympic-sized pool continuously. Between 2000 and 2014, there were 229 drowning and near-drowning incidents involving children aged 5-14 in the southern state of which thirty-two were fatal and the rest required hospitalisation.
Victoria introduced compulsory lessons this year after a successful pilot program that followed a $9.15m funding boost from its state government.
Queensland Education Minister Grace Grace yesterday pointed to the large expanses of regional areas in Queensland, saying it makes it hard to introduce sweeping rules through schools due to the inaccessibility to swimming facilities.
But experts say the successful, 100-year-old Western Australian model could help fix the distance problem.