Parents, schools ‘passing buck’
More discipline needed
PARENTS and schools are pushing bad behaviour issues onto the medical profession, a pre-eminent child psychiatrist says, as the nation’s teachers grapple to retain control of some of the world’s most disruptive classrooms.
Western Sydney psychiatrist and author Dr Tanveer Ahmed says discipline issues are becoming increasingly medicalised, while many of the students who do need a diagnosis face stigma and shame from their own families.
“There’s a lurch to calling all difficult behaviours ‘disability’. One in four kids is labelled as having a disability, and that’s getting a bit ridiculous. It’s becoming too mainstream,” he said.
“There’s too much of an expectation on schools and teachers to sort out what are often wider social problems, and many of them – understandably – are going ‘this is too much’ and then trying to outsource it to my sector.”
Parents are often the biggest barrier to teachers implementing stricter policies on behaviour, he said, especially in public schools. Meanwhile, discipline is “one of the single biggest factors” why non-government schools are becoming increasingly popular.
Independent school enrolments have grown by 12.5 per cent since 2018, compared to an increase of 1.9 per cent in the public sector. One in 25 students in NSW public schools were suspended at least once in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, and 182 pupils expelled. In Victoria, 125 students were expelled. 5548 South Australian students were suspended in 2022, or 3.2 per cent of enrolments, while 83,093 Queensland kids were disciplined with a school absence in 2021.
Australia is ranked 70th of 77 countries assessed by the OECD’S 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment in “disciplinery climate”, which has prompted a senate inquiry into impacts on Aussie kids’ literacy and numeracy skills.
Centre for Independent Studies education policy director Glenn Fahey said students who are already disadvantaged are the ones who face the worst consequences of poor discipline and “by the age of 15, children who are in more disruptive classrooms are around nine months behind.”
UK school principal Katharine Birbalsingh, often branded Britain’s strictest headmistress said Australian teachers need to be more confident rejecting ‘progressive’ pedagogies, and she wants to get educators here talking about the ideals of traditional teaching and discipline. “It’s our role as adults to envelop children in a safe and secure environment,” she said.