Wage dispute: NSW teachers continue fight

Thousands of state school and TAFE teachers across New South Wales have walked off the job for two hours to protest against the State Government's latest pay offer.

The teachers will stop work for two hours from 9:00am (AEDT).

The action is part of the NSW Teachers Federation's seven-month campaign to improve the State Government's pay offer.

The federation's acting president, Bob Lipscombe, says he understands the frustration of parents over the disruption.

"Teachers are very reluctant to take industrial action. We'd hoped to avoid industrial action around these matters," he said.

Mr Lipscombe says there may be more industrial action in future.

"We're hopeful that when the Government sees the feelings of teachers in such an obvious way, as they will this morning, that they'll commence negotiations in good faith that will lead to a settlement around these issues," he said.

"But unfortunately if the Government is not prepared to reach some accommodation around these matters, then certainly consideration will need to be given to that in the future."

The Education Department says 90 per cent of schools will remain open, but parents should check directly with their children's school if unsure.

The department's director-general, Michael Coutts-Trotter, says he is disappointed teachers are pushing ahead with the action.

SA teachers to strike today

Half-day strike in SA schools over pay.

Some South Australian public schools will be closed this morning as teachers rally for a pay increase from the State Government.

Teachers unanimously knocked back the Government's pay offer of a 12.5 per cent rise over three years, and are still demanding 21 per cent.

More than 400 schools and preschools will close until a 12.15pm, while nearly 360 will operate as normal.

Anne Crawford from the Education Union says teachers are insulted by the Government's offer.

"The wage rise they have offered is fundamentally less than the cost of living, less than the CPI and the Government has completely forgotten about school leaders, preschool directors, TAFE employees and non-teaching staff," she said.

The Union's state president, Correna Haythorpe, says teachers voted unanimously to strike for a bigger rise.

"We know that over 80 per cent of our members have voted in favour for the stop-work action and parents are advised to make contact with their local schools," she said.

Jan Andrews from the Education Department says parents should already know if their children will be affected by today's strike.

She says year 12 students will not be disadvantaged.

"Schools are prioritising the needs of those students and I'm told that the AEU has had some regard to that as well," she said.

"But the programs in schools that have been affected have been tailored around the year 12s so that their work won't be interrupted even if those children are working at home."

NSW teachers continue transfer fight

Teachers from about 30 schools across New South Wales will stop work for two hours today as part of ongoing industrial action against the new transfer system.

A rally is also being planned outside Chifley College in Sydney's west in support of a teacher who was blocked by the Education Department from making a service transfer to fill a vacancy at a school of her choice.

Six schools in western Sydney will be closed between 9:00am and 11:00am (AEST) so teachers can attend the stop-work meeting.

The deputy president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Bob Lipscombe, says his members are angry about new staffing rules that will not allow the transfer of a Mt Druitt High School teacher.

"High schools in the Mt Druitt area will for all intents and purposes close during the stop-work," he said.

"The teachers there are very angry about what's happened. They're very upset about the staffing changes the State Government and Department of Education have put in place, and they're making their feelings known today."

The director-general of the Education Department, Michael Coutts-Trotter, says the action may affect the operation of up to 50 schools but will temporarily close only six.

"Parents have been notified that in the case of six schools in western Sydney," he said.

"The schools will be shut for two hours this morning in a completely unnecessary stop-work meeting. Those six schools will be effectively opening two hours later than normal."

Hillsong's schools recruitment drive

Parents send their children to public schools in the anticipation that they will not be indoctrinated," Mr Kaye said.

A NETWORK of Christian youth ministries with links to the Hillsong Church is attempting to recruit members in public schools through free lunchtime concerts and barbecues called "Exo days", church manuals reveal.

Exo or Excellent days are free events run by Christian students under the direction of Youth Alive, an arm of the Australian Christian Churches - formerly the Assemblies of God - of which Hillsong is the largest member.

Youth Alive describes the events as "a free lunchtime festival … put on by the Christian students as a gift to the school", but a leaders' manual prepared by the body reveals that Exo days are aimed at recruiting students to their local youth ministry.

A teacher at one public school said students had returned to class after an Exo day concert complaining about attempts to convert them, while the Federation of Parents and Citizens' Associations says it is an attempt to sneak evangelism into schools and reveals the need for new laws.

The Exo day instruction manuals include numerous references to recruitment and evangelism.

"The whole goal for Exo week and Exo day is to see your youth ministry grow," it states.

"The vision is to see evangelism and growth come from the students themselves in your youth ministry."

The manual includes "testimony" from a youth minister working outside Newcastle who states: "Exo day started a rapid increase in the number of salvations within our youth ministry.

"But, most importantly, Exo day has given our young people the belief that they can take their schools for Jesus."

The Youth Alive website indicates that about 30 NSW public schools have registered to hold Exo days.

Manuals given to the Christian students refer to Exo days as an opportunity to "show our peers that God wants us to have an excellent life" and encourage them to promote the event at school. Youth Alive declined to comment.

The revelations follow recent reports that Hillsong was running its Shine program - aimed at young women - in at least 20 NSW public schools.

The NSW Education Act says that "instruction" at public schools must be non-sectarian and secular except in designated religious education classes.

The NSW upper house Greens MP, John Kaye, said Exo days went against the spirit of the act, but that there was a need for new laws specifying "clearly and precisely who is allowed on school campuses and who is not".

Parents send their children to public schools in the anticipation that they will not be indoctrinated," Mr Kaye said.

"What these ministries are doing is seeking to rip off that legitimacy and authority and use it for their own purposes. We need a protocol that makes it clear that these kinds of things should not be happening."

A spokesman for the Department of Education said the events were not a cause for concern as they were not compulsory. He denied they breached departmental guidelines.

Neil Simpson, the principal of Batemans Bay High School, where Exo days have run for several years, agreed they were within guidelines. "It's 40 minutes at lunchtime … there's no hard-core message or evangelising," he said.

Mr Simpson said he was happy for students to be exposed to different cultural experiences, likening Exo days to the indigenous event NAIDOC.

However, a number of public school teachers said students had complained about evangelism.

A spokeswoman for the Federation of Parents and Citizens' Association said religious recruitment in schools was inappropriate. "We need to ensure that children when they go to school aren't exposed to discreet evangelism," she said.

Related:

Hillsong hits schools with beauty gospel
EVERY Tuesday afternoon during the first term at Matraville Sports High School, a group of young women take part in classes intended to boost their self-esteem. Some have personal problems, others have behavioural issues, while a few simply go because their friends do.

Public schools allowing Christian sex ed
The Greens say the New South Wales Government needs to better control which groups have access to public school classrooms. It has emerged that a Christian church-backed program is being taught as part of regular curriculum in some NSW schools.

School attendance and welfare: Amnesty

School attendance and welfare: another blow to human rights

Last week, the Australian Government introduced legislation linking school attendance with welfare payments. Under the new legislation, if children don’t go to school regularly, their principal carer could have their welfare payments stopped for up to three months. The 3-year trial will begin at the start of the ‘09 school year in six Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.

The way that the policy is being implemented specifically targets Indigenous people without seeking to adequately address the underlying causes of Indigenous disadvantage.

Successive Australian Governments have failed to meet their international human rights obligations to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and consequently, Aboriginal Australians are denied rights to the highest attainable standard of health, adequate housing, an adequate standard of living and freedom from discrimination. These failures contribute to Aboriginal children's lower levels of engagement with the education system and are not adequately acknowledged by the governments new policy.

As such, it's questionable whether the policy will actually work. This model has been tried before, notably in Cape York, in parts of WA and through the NT Intervention. The evidence shows that quarantining welfare will have little effect on whether children go to school.

An issues paper by the Australian Education Union shows that the programs that work combined sanctions with case management, supportive services and positive financial incentives. Even those programs showed limited success and this was attributed to the case management, not the welfare quarantining.

Not only that, but evaluations of the trials found that illness rather than truancy was the major cause of absence rather than truancy, and ACOSS cites other factors for absence, which include "a lack of basic education and support services in some areas, poor quality education programs, bullying, insecure housing and health problems affecting children and families."

The most appropriate policy response is one that protects all human rights. It must seek to repair the cumulative effects of the history of rights violations, poverty, exclusion and discrimination and emphasise the restoration a sense of empowerment and dignity not just in the punishment of truants but in the sense of community engendered by the school. Only then will children go to and stay in school.

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No school, no cash 'hardline' benefits plan
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NT election turnout lowest in 20 yrs
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Union calls for $2.9b to fund education shortfall
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Retailers' warning on welfare card shop spies
EMPLOYEES across the country will be at risk of entrapment by government "spies", retailers have warned, under a Federal Government proposal to control fraudulent use of a new welfare debit card.

Abandon NT intervention: Commissioner
The Northern Territory's Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Tony Fitzgerald says the Federal intervention into remote Aboriginal communities should be abandoned and the legislation underpinning it should be repealed.

Income management extended for NT
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has announced income management will be extended for up to a year in four Northern Territory Aboriginal communities.

Aborigines want end to NT intervention
Thousands of Aborigines are petitioning to have the Northern Territory intervention abandoned.

Thousands of teachers walk off the job

Teachers will stop work for two hours from 9am (AEST), in a dispute over staff transfers and the Government's 2.5 per cent pay rise ceiling.

The NSW Teachers Federation has urged 2240 principals to close their schools and has refused to authorise minimal supervision for 750,000 students.

However, Education Department director-general Michael Coutts-Trotter said 88 per cent of schools would remain open during the strike period.

About 250 schools will have no supervision for students, he said.

"Parents have been advised of alternative arrangements by school newsletter or a note home and some schools have placed advice on their websites," he said.

The Government is planning to end the current transfer system, which gives priority for sought-after positions to teachers who have spent time at hard-to-staff schools.

Teachers Federation president Maree O'Halloran said the backlash from today's industrial action was worthwhile if it secured higher pay, retention of the transfer system and proper funding of public schools.

"When you take industrial action you could get the community offside," she said.

"But when you're dealing with the type of government we've got, it seems that nothing other than a crisis makes them listen.

"For these two hours they (the students) won't have lessons.

"But if the State Government doesn't start funding schools and TAFE colleges properly, doesn't start paying teachers properly and doesn't put the transfer system back in place there will be lots of schools who don't have enough teachers."

Ms O'Halloran would not comment on the possibility of future industrial action, saying the federation had successfully negotiated with the department in the past.

Primary school bans cartwheels, handstands

A North Queensland primary school has banned cartwheels and handstands in the playground.

Belgian Gardens State School in Townsville has banned all gymnastics activities during lunch breaks, declaring it dangerous because it has the potential to cause back and neck injuries.

Cali Buschgens, 10, has been reprimanded for cartwheeling on school grounds and her grandmother Val Bryce says the ban is a sad reflection on modern society.

"Sadly I think this is probably linked with the current society where litigation is rife and I feel that schools are probably trying to avoid a child being hurt and an irresponsible mother then trying to sue them for it," she said.

Education Queensland has defended the ban on unsupervised gymnastic activities.

Regional executive director Vicki Baylis says fear of litigation was never a factor in the decision and it was made purely for the students safety.

"The issue around the gymnastics is around the safety of the kids and it was not motivated by any concept of litigation, but certainly [by] that safety and well-being component of those kids when we're talking heads and necks and potentially backs if there were an injury."

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says she is surprised by the decision, and says the school is obviously taking student safety very seriously.

"I'd be interested to hear from this school what prompted them to take this action, because school communities by and large try to meet the standards that parents have in that community," she said.

No school, no cash 'hardline' benefits plan

Withholding welfare payments is unlikely to fix the causes of family dysfunction: Australian Council of Social Service.

Families face losing their welfare for three months if their children continually skip school, under legislation to be introduced to Federal Parliament this week.

Under the Federal Government's proposed scheme, regular school attendance will become a condition for receiving all welfare except the Family Tax Benefit.

If the legislation is passed a pilot scheme at eight schools will begin next year.

This morning Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that the Government made no apologies for the hardline approach.

Mr Rudd says his Government's priority is making sure that all children go to school.

"We think this conditionality - that if individual families are in receipt of income support payments the regular attendance at school by their kids is a necessary precondition - is the right way to go," he said.

"We need, in order to compete with the rest of the world, to boost our current school retention rate from 75 per cent to 90 per cent by 2020, [but] we have real problems of school non-attendance in Indigenous communities and also school non-attendance on the part of certain other kids as well.

"You've got to take a hardline approach."

But welfare authorities have criticised the plan.

Australian Council of Social Service president Lin Hatfield Dodds says there are various reasons why students do not go to school.

She says withholding welfare payments is unlikely to fix the causes of family dysfunction.

"[One issue] is chaos in families' lives," she said.

"Is there anybody around in the morning to help the child get to school?

"If there isn't, and if the family for whatever reason is in a high degree of chaos, then it's unlikely that turning off the income tap to a degree for 12 weeks is going to make any difference in that regard."

Ms Hatfield Dodds says there is no evidence that such a plan would help reduce truancy rates.

"As far as we're aware in the community sector there isn't really any evidence either in Australia or from overseas that involuntary income management actually works on any dimension," she said.

"It's difficult to see how it is going to address the causes of the crisis and chaos in family lives that result in this kind of experience for children."

She says the Government should instead make support programs available to more families.

"So if there's an issue with the parenting, let's wrap some parenting support programs around. If there's alcohol, other drugs, violence - if those things are an issue in the family's life in the adult's life - then let's try and go to the core of those issues.

"With all of these programs there is a strong evidence base for and we know they actually work we know they get results.

"The problem is out there in the community, particularly in areas that are locationally disadvantaged, is that those programs are simply not available to people."

Govt to trial welfare cut scheme in NT, WA

The Federal Government has Western Australia and the Northern Territory on board to trial its new program to cut welfare payments to the parents of children who do not go to school.

Parents in the trial areas who receive income support will be required to prove to Centrelink that their children are enrolled and schools will also be asked to provide attendance information.

The Greens have condemned the scheme.

Senator Rachel Siewert says the Greens do not support an approach which is punitive.

"It won't generate the outcomes they say it will," she said.

"What are they going to do about the children that aren't coming from low-income families or families on income support?

"This is about punishment, it's not about an education revolution that the Deputy Prime Minister is talking about."

Related:

NT election turnout lowest in 20 yrs
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Indigenous welfare quarantine scheme gets go ahead
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Union calls for $2.9b to fund education shortfall
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Retailers' warning on welfare card shop spies
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Abandon NT intervention: Commissioner
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Income management extended for NT
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has announced income management will be extended for up to a year in four Northern Territory Aboriginal communities.

Aborigines want end to NT intervention
Thousands of Aborigines are petitioning to have the Northern Territory intervention abandoned.

Forced to live in hunger

Peter Yoomarie, no more NT intervention

SUGAR, flour, milk powder and bread account for half the calories consumed by people in remote Aboriginal communities, a groundbreaking study reveals.

Fruit accounts for only 1 per cent of energy consumption, and vegetables - including potatoes and hot chips - just 5 per cent in one community in north-east Arnhem Land.

It is the first study to investigate the link between poverty and inadequate nutrition among Aborigines in the Northern Territory. While it focused on the one unnamed community of 2000 people, it offers a damning insight into a broader crisis in the nutrition of indigenous Australians.

It found that fruit and vegetable consumption was a third that of the wider Australian community. Cheap but poor-quality food heavy in carbohydrates made up two-thirds of the diet. This put adults at risk of obesity-linked diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart attack and compromised children's development, said the study leader, Julie Brimblecombe.

Residents were consuming three times the recommended quantity of salt - a major cause of high blood pressure. The unhealthiest foods were the cheapest, with sugar about 30 cents for 1000 kilojoules versus nearly $10 for broccoli - a result of the high cost of transporting fresh food to remote areas.

Dr Brimblecombe, who presented the results to the Australian Indigenous Women's Health Meeting in Darwin, organised by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said previous research had emphasised the quality of the food supply but had not "looked at how people's socioeconomic circumstances affect food choices. They call [flour and sugar] 'long life' foods - foods that are filling them up and keeping them going … When you've got only a bit of money to spend on food and you don't want your children to go hungry, you don't worry so much about the quality."

The study - based on a questionnaire completed by two-thirds of families and analysis of the food available in the local shop, takeaways and school - excluded healthier traditional foods, an important part of the local diet.

But preliminary analysis indicated that a diet that met government nutrition recommendations was not affordable on the budget available, Dr Brimblecombe said.

Short-term measures - such as distribution of fruit and vegetable hampers - were needed to address the immediate problem.

But structural change was also necessary because people did not want to depend on handouts.

Aboriginal Voters Reject Labor (over NT Intervention)

With both major parties supporting the NT Intervention those voters who opposed the Intervention and recognised the many negative features and problems associated with the Intervention were forced to seek some other way of expressing their wrath at both the party political megoliths – Labor and the LCP -- the Tweedledum and Tweedledee who by their actions oppose Aboriginal human rights in the Territory.

To have their voices heard Aboriginal voters and others opposed to the Intervention were forced shout their opposition in silence. They did so by not voting. Throughout the whole of the Territory the average voter turnout of was only two-thirds of those enrolled. Where dissidents did vote, they voted whenever possible for the only political party that had openly supported them in their struggle to stop the intervention – the Greens.

In the electorate of Braitling the Greens polled 3.5% higher than the ALP , and polling booths in Greatorex also showed the vote for the Greens was higher than that for Labor. Both of these electorates cover Aboriginal Town Camps in Alice Springs.

Commentators on the landslide swing against Labor in the Federal Elections have ignored such critical issues as: low turnout at the polls; the high level of informal votes; the dramatic rise in votes attained by the Greens; and swings of up to 18% against Labor in some electorates.

This shows the need for the ALP to drop their support for the NT intervention. Events are being organised around the country to continue the campaign against the Intervention, particularly on September 27, when a national day of action has been called.

Posted August 14th, 2008 by WGAR - Working ...

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Aborigines want end to NT intervention
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Govt moves to take native title claims out of the courts
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New NT laws: 'more Aboriginal people jailed'
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NAIDOC week to focus on Indigenous inequalities
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Income management extended for NT
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Intervention delivering 'empty shipping containers, no houses'
A member of the Maningrida community in the Northern Territory's Arnhem Land says he cannot see any infrastructure changes as a result of the emergency intervention, and wants to know where the money has been spent.

Abandon NT intervention: Commissioner
The Northern Territory's Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Tony Fitzgerald says the Federal intervention into remote Aboriginal communities should be abandoned and the legislation underpinning it should be repealed.

Stolen generation compensation ruled out
A FEDERAL parliamentary committee has recommended a "healing" fund be set up to help members of the stolen generations, but knocked back the suggestion of compensation payments.

Budget to roll out new welfare card
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Racism to blame' for Aboriginal health problems
The Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTAR) group says racism is directly to blame for many health problems in the Aboriginal community.

Police cannot cope with backlash
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2020 Indigenous youth delegate calls for national body
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Call for new indigenous body
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Roxon signs off on Indigenous health pledges
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Discrimination Act should apply to intervention: Calma
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Porn ban in Indigenous communities 'racist'
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Retailers' warning on welfare card shop spies
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Union urges PM to act on Stolen Generations promise
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Govt, union defend remote community schooling
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Aboriginal delegation heads to UN
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Students finishing school 'without basic skills'

A leading education researcher is calling for national education standards to be imposed, saying that many students finish high school lacking basic reading and writing skills.

Professor Geoff Masters from the Council for Educational Research says minimum literacy and numeracy standards should be implemented across Australia.

He says most students can complete 13 years of school and be awarded a senior certificate without having to demonstrate that they have met minimum standards in areas including literacy and numeracy.

Professor Masters says the national minimum standards should be set after the issue is debated nationally.

In New South Wales the head of the Board of Studies, Dr John Bennett, says students are tested regularly in literacy and numeracy and he will not accept a national system which dilutes the the state's standards.

"Any moves for a national curriculum or national standards and so forth we'll look at closely, but they would have to be an improvement on what we have currently got," he said.

"In New South Wales, students are tested in literacy and numeracy in years three, five, seven and nine and they're also tested in the School Certificate in English, Mathematics, Science, History and Geography, Civics and Citizenship and Computing skills."

"All of these tests clearly show the standards students have achieved."

Quote: If students are leaving school without basic skills then swap Citizenship with Social Responsibilities, Communication and Conflict Resolution. That will help them with literacy and keep them out of jail.

Public schools allowing Christian sex ed

The Greens say the New South Wales Government needs to better control which groups have access to public school classrooms.

It has emerged that a Christian church-backed program is being taught as part of regular curriculum in some NSW schools.

The Choices of Life program, devised by the Presbyterian and Baptist churches, has been taught in human sexuality classes in at least three state primary schools and some high schools.

Greens MP John Kaye says the program pushes an anti-abortion and pro-abstinence message, and it is disturbing that it has been allowed into classrooms.

"It's indoctrination of students, it runs counter to the demands of the Education Act that public schools instruction be strictly non-sectarian and secular," he said.

"It also runs counter to the more than 80 per cent of Australians who oppose any restrictions on the rights of women to have abortion."

Mr Kayes says the anti-abortion, pro-abstinence message goes against the Education Act, which demands that public school instruction be secular.

"The Iemma Government has lost control of who gets access to public school class rooms," he said.

"Earlier this week, we had the Hillsong Church with its Shine program running in 20 public schools. Now we've got the Choice of Life organisation.

"There needs to be far better regulation to stop groups getting access to public school classes when they haven't been appropriately vetted."

The Department of Education and Training says it will review the use of the Choices of Life program.

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Hillsong hits schools with beauty gospel
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Call for sexual abuse investigation

Dozens of alleged victims are launching civil action against other former teachers.

Former students of Canberra's Marist College are forming a lobby group to call for a full investigation into sexual abuse allegations at the school.

John William Chute, who taught at Marist under the religious name of Brother Kostka in the 1980s, is now behind bars for molesting students.

Dozens of alleged victims are also launching civil action against other former teachers.

Former student Mike Desmond says those who attended the school 20 years ago deserve to know the full extent of the sexual abuse.

"There's a lot of comment being passed around Canberra, or across Australia, just expressing discontent with the way things are going with what's happened, the general culture at Marist over the last 20 or 30 years," he said.

"Myself and a couple of ex-students thought it would be good to get together a forum or a group so we can discuss this and hopefully get some resolution for the victims."

Marist College Principal Richard Sidorko says the school has always encouraged students to come forward.

"We wanted anyone who was a potential victim or who had been a victim, their families, or others to come forward and to let us know, to make it known," he said.

"The other thing we did right from the start was to take an approach of openly and honestly communicating with the college community."

Indigenous boarding schools 'tragedy'

An Indigenous research fellow at Sydney University says the Federal Government's commitment of almost $12 million to upgrade Indigenous boarding schools is a tragedy.

Vicki Grieves from the Department of Anthropology says governments keep looking for a quick fix when it comes to Aboriginal affairs and tend to adopt a one size fits all approach to Indigenous people.

Ms Grieves says boarding school is not a viable option for remote Indigenous education in central Australia.

She says a more culturally appropriate curriculum is needed.

"How is it that you can shift this Western curriculum into Aboriginal communities and expect it to work?" she said.

"Children need to be able to build on what they already know.

"If you've got an assumption that children are going to know the same kinds of things as kids in suburban Sydney or Melbourne then you're not going to be successful as a teacher."

She says there needs to be a lot more research into remote Indigenous education to develop a more culturally appropriate curriculum.

"If you go there and you find out where they're actually coming from, [if you] actually incorporate their language and Aboriginal English into the classroom, incorporate what they think is important," she said.

"People are now using, for example, the very complicated kinship systems in communities to teach mathematics. How come people haven't thought of this before?"

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Union urges PM to act on Stolen Generations promise
The Australian Education Union (AEU) wants the Federal Government to follow Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations with a significant funding boost for Indigenous education in the Northern Territory.

Union calls for $2.9b to fund education shortfall
The Education Union is calling on the Federal Government to provide an extra $2.9 billion in funding for public schools

Govt, union defend remote community schooling
The Centre for Independent Studies says Aboriginal students in the Northern Territory are finishing school with the numeracy and literacy skills of five-year-olds.

Aboriginal inmates '22pc and rising' of prison population
The Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health says new research is urgently needed to address the worsening rate of Indigenous incarceration.

School drug leaflet 'not anti-education'

Drug leaflet: Advises young people on the use of drugs like ecstasy. (Get Image)

The Sydney West Area Health Service has denied a leaflet it has published encourages young people to take drugs.

The controversial leaflet is titled "Choosing to use but wanna keep your head together", and advises teenagers on what to do if they choose to take substances like ecstasy and cannabis.

It is being distributed at schools and community facilities, and includes advice for students to wait until they turn 18 before experimenting with drugs, and then to "use only small amounts and not too often".

The director of drug and alcohol services, Kevin Hedge, says the leaflet does not encourage young people to take drugs.

Mr Hedge says the leaflet clearly states that there is no safe drug use, but its advice is based on the realistic view that most young people experiment.

"Our materials were designed originally to be distributed amongst agencies that deal with marginalised young people, homeless young people and people at high risk of drug use," he said.

"From that perspective, the materials are a genuine public health approach to preventing harm."

But Jo Baxter from Drug Free Australia says the leaflet will confuse young people who are looking for guidance from drug use specialists.

"They want to know whether or not these drugs are going to harm them," she said.

"A message like that gives a sort of unintended message that they would condone the use and there is such a thing as safe use, when in actual fact we don't believe there is a safe use of illicit drugs."

Education 'necessary'

Tony Trimmingham lost his son to a heroin overdose 11 years ago and has since founded Family Drug Support.

He supports the leaflet and says people have to be realistic about the common use of drugs and alcohol in society.

"They grow up in a world where drugs are prevalent and every single person in Sydney, and in fact the whole of Australia, will in some point encounter drugs and will be faced with the dilemma of whether to use or not," he said.

"We can't evade that and I believe they do need education on how to deal with those occurrences."

Quote: There is a safe use of illicit drugs with the only difference being that they are illegal by state law. That does not mean that they cannot be experimented and used safely or safer. Under the headings of Moderation, Balance, Limit and Lethal all indulgence must be understood. Why? Because it is there...



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Doctors to trial pain relief with cannabis
DOCTORS will prescribe cannabis-based drugs to cancer, multiple sclerosis and AIDS patients in a planned NSW Government trial.

Govt unveils cannabis research centre
As is the case with nicotine and caffeine, THC in Cannabis, it seems, is to protect the plant from herbivores or pathogens. THC occurs mainly as tetrahydrocannabinol. THC has analgesic effects that, even at low doses, cause a high, thus leading to the fact that medical cannabis can be used to treat pain.

Students begin sitting national tests

One million school students will sit Australia's first national standardised tests this morning, amid concerns about the system.

Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard says students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will sit the literacy and numeracy tests over the next three days. This morning's first test is writing.

The new test means parents will be able to get information they have never had before about how their child is performing.

But some state governments are concerned the results will be used to determine funding arrangements, and Education Union president Angelo Gavrielatos is worried it could lower education standards.

"In other countries such as the US and the UK, where they've introduced such mass standardised testing, we've seen the overall educational outcomes of students compromised," he said.

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Students to watch simulated road smash

The NRMA says a driver education forum involving a simulated road crash has helped change the behaviour of young drivers. Twelve thousand Year 10 students from New South Wales and the ACT will attend the Youth and Road Trauma Forum in Sydney over the next three days.

The forum is a joint initiative involving the NRMA, Westmead Hospital and Sydney West Area Health Service. NRMA president Alan Evans says the forum is about demonstrating that road crashes can happen easily and have lifelong consequences. "What the students will be seeing is four young people in a car texting on a mobile phone and trying to show the driver," he said.

"They're then involved in a collision with another user and, as a consequence of that, a number of people are killed and seriously injured. "They'll see how the various emergency service operate and interact."

Mr Evans says it is the third time the forum has been held. "We've been following up their reactions immediately after and then subsequently," he said. "It really does stick in their minds and it does really have a significant impact on them, such that it does alter their behaviour when they get behind the wheel of a car".

Principals agree: cut out social subjects
"The curriculum is far too crowded and we know from our research that not all schools can do what is being asked of them," she said. "The social responsibilities being placed on primary schools are ever increasing, taking time and resources away from our core business

Union calls for $2.9b to fund education shortfall

The Education Union is calling on the Federal Government to provide an extra $2.9 billion in funding for public schools.

Education Ministers will meet in Melbourne today.

Education Union president Angelo Gavrielatos says the Federal Government's promised education revolution can only be achieved by covering the shortfall in funding.

"The minsters own research, which they commissioned a few years ago, shows Government schools are underfunded to the tune of $2.9 billion a year," he said.

"It is time to stop the talking and get on with the action. The research is there, it is time commit the dollars."

101 charges over school rampage

Five teenage boys face 101 charges over a rampage at a western Sydney school yesterday that left a teacher in hospital and 17 children injured.

It is alleged the boys, aged 14 to 16, entered Merrylands High School waving bats, a machete and a sword while the school was in assembly just before 9:00am (AEST).

The schoolchildren ran to their classrooms for emergency lockdown, where they hid while the group allegedly ran through the corridors smashing windows.

Most of the injuries were cuts from broken glass but a teacher went to hospital after a blow to the back of his head.

The boys - two aged 14, two 15 years old and one aged 16 - were arrested at the school.

They have been refused bail and will face Parramatta Children's Court today for offences including affray, assault and malicious damage.

Govt, union defend remote community schooling

The Centre for Independent Studies says Aboriginal students in the Northern Territory are finishing school with the numeracy and literacy skills of five-year-olds.

The "Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory" report says the Territory education system in the bush is second rate and is forcing Aboriginal people into a lifetime of welfare dependence.

Professor Helen Hughes says remote schools don't follow mainstream curricula, have inadequate space and lack sufficient teaching materials, and argues 10,000 young Indigenous people in the Territory are unemployable because they can't speak English, are illiterate and non-numerate.

Professor Hughes says the Territory Government has known for 10 years that the education system for Aboriginal students isn't working, but has failed to act.

The Northern Territory Education Minister Marion Scrymgour says the claims are based on one remote school and can't be substantiated.

"Helen Hughes is talking about Yilparra. I just find it astounding that she bases a report and a generalisation across the Northern Territory Aboriginal communities based on one small homeland centre that she has visited."

The Northern Territory president of the Australian Education Union Nadine Williams has also attacked the report, saying teachers in Aboriginal communities are being unfairly targeted.

"It would be helpful if Helen Hughes had ever been to some of the places she's talking about and if she could possibly cease to stop generalising from a number of individual children and young adults she's met and had experience with to what she says are all homeland schools or all remote schools."

The Territory Opposition Leader Terry Mills says the Professor Hughes report concerns him and he wants an independent inquiry to determine the standard of Aboriginal education in the bush.

"The Territory Government has no option but to immediately implement an independent assessment as to whether the claims made by Professor Helen Hughes are correct or not. Now there is no other option."

Juvenile detainees sharing single cells

SEVERE overcrowding in the state's juvenile detention centres is forcing young people to share cells designed for one person, to sleep on mattresses on the floor and be held in "segregation" rooms usually used as punishment cells.

The Department of Juvenile Justice is shifting detainees who have turned 18 to adult jails despite judges' orders their sentences be served in juvenile detention until age 21 because of special circumstances that can include immaturity, mental health problems and rehabilitation prospects.

Some detainees have been unable to get a place in the centres' schools, and rehabilitation programs are under pressure, staff said.

A departmental spokesman admitted yesterday that some detainees had shared cells on mattresses as "a temporary measure to deal with unexpected surges" in numbers, and youths had been moved to adult jails.

Detainee numbers surged after the NSW Government's changes to the Bail Act in November as well as increased policing, the spokesman said.

Counsellors and lawyers are concerned that vulnerable young people and model detainees who have responded to rehabilitation will come to grief in adult jails.

"My fear is that you get high-risk young people who don't want to be moved into adult prisons becoming another death in custody - all for the sake of a friggin' bed," said Bradley Freeburn, a co-ordinator at the Aboriginal Medical Service.

The State Government amended a law two years ago to enable the department to override a judge's orders detaining young offenders after their 18th birthday. But until the overcrowding problems this year, these orders were countered only if youths were disruptive or a danger to other children, lawyers said.

"A lot of these young people are fodder from DOCS and a high number are Aboriginal kids, and now because of overcrowding they're being funnelled into the adult system," said a centre worker who could not be named.

Ten youths have been transferred this year, and staff said a further 20 are to be moved. A departmental spokesman said the offenders were adults who had committed serious offences including murder, sexual assault and armed robbery.

Andrew Haesler, the deputy senior public defender, has been asked to advise on whether legal challenges to the Supreme Court can be made in two cases to reverse or prevent transfers.

Confidential departmental information shows there were more children than beds in the system virtually every night last month with all nine centres consistently at overcapacity.

School students 'forced to give fingerprints'

The New South Wales Government is under fire over reports a Sydney high school scanned its students' fingerprints without parental consent.

Ku-ring-gai High School, in north Sydney, reportedly scanned all of its students' fingerprints for a new attendance monitoring scheme, even after some parents asked for their children to be exempt.

A newspaper reports parents who complained were told the data would only be deleted if there were still objections later.

State Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell says the NSW Government has mismanaged the program since the beginning.

"[Premier] Morris Iemma needs to explain why this controversial scheme has never been publicly announced by his Government," he said.

"Very little happens in schools that the Department of Education doesn't oversight.

"The Department of Education claims that if parents don't want their children to participate in this high school fingerprinting scheme, those students can opt out.

"Here we have claims again that students are being forced to participate."

'Benefit of the doubt'

State Education Minister John Della Bosca says he will be speaking to the school involved before making any judgement about its actions.

Mr Della Bosca says departmental guidelines clearly state that parents must give consent before their children's fingerprints are scanned.

"Today, we'll be speaking with the school, unlike Mr O'Farrell, who's scoring cheap political points against his local school," he said.

"I think the school deserves the opportunity to explain and the parents and citizens deserve the benefit of the doubt."

He says fingerprint scanning can be a useful tool for schools to keep track of attendance if it is done properly.

"You have to understand that education for people of compulsory schooling age is compulsory and schools do have an obligation to keep an accurate roll of attendance," he said.

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Jail parents of truants, says Iemma