The Australian Education Union says the Federal Government's proposed 'No School No Play' policy will unfairly punish children.

The scheme would see children who want to play weekend sport being asked to sign a pledge committing them to attending classes.

Minister for Sport Kate Ellis says the $2 million initiative will encourage students to value their education and improve attendance rates in remote communities.

But the AEU's Northern Territory branch president, Rodney Smith, says the policy could have the opposite effect.

"I would tend to think that children perhaps may rebel the other way and say well, if that's the way it is, that's the way it is - you're not going to force me to do something that I can't see the value in," he said.

Mr Smith says the policy is not sending the right message to children.

"There's got to be some emphasis put on the value of education, not as a stick so that they can be forced to go to school through the sport idea," he said.

"There's got to be another way of making education viable and something that's appreciated by the community."

Assistant Treasurer Nick Sherry has defended the plans, saying the policy is good for students.

"The Education Union doesn't tell us what to do," he said.

"We will act in education in the best interest of the country and the kids themselves. That's what Julia has very strongly outlined when she was education minister and what she will outline again later today."

The Territory Government has backed the plan.

Chief Minister Paul Henderson says similar programs are already in place and working.

"Certainly this policy looks as though it will build on our Clontarf Football Academies that are already proving to be very successful in keeping children at school as well as our Strong Girl initiatives in a number of high schools around the Northern Territory," he said.

"So I welcome the policy today. It will build on what the Territory Government is already doing."

Mr Henderson says it is "not a one-size-fits-all policy".

"My understanding is that regionally, those codes will be working with those schools to put programs together and it will be a combination of sticks and carrots," he said.

"We've got to keep kids at school to 17 and I welcome any initiative that focuses on this issue."

The program will be developed in partnership with eight national sporting organisations including the ARL, AFL, Basketball Australia and Cricket Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/09/2977109.htm?section=justin

The Federal Government is promising to give incentive payments to schools which show improvements in students' attendance and results.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard will outline the plan as she campaigns in Perth today.

Under the program, all primary schools will be eligible for $75,000 and all high schools could receive $100,000 if they can demonstrate the most improvement in student performance.

It will start in 2013 with reward payments to up to 500 schools. That number will double the following year.

The schools will be assessed using independent standards and a self-evaluation report of case studies and feedback from teachers and parents.

Primary schools will be rewarded for showing the most improvement in attendance and literacy and numeracy results, while high schools will have to demonstrate improvements in year 12 results and the number of students going on to further education or work.

The school communities will decide how the reward money should be spent.

Labor says the program will cost $388 million over five years.

Education Minister Simon Crean says schools that apply would be judged by a nationally consistent set of criteria.

"We will develop that criteria through consultative processes, we will have an independent body setting the measures, each school will be able to apply, and there will be up to a thousand schools each year that will be eligible," he said.

He says the program will be paid for from savings.

"It will not be any additional, new money to the budget, but paid for from savings," he said.

"We want to direct the resources of the nation to encouraging significant improvements in school outcomes we want to reward schools that achieve that outcome."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/09/2976978.htm?section=justin

Equitist wrote on Aug 9^th, 2010 at 11:07am:


I guess so.

I thought in some urban areas there would be great issues of poor attendance as well like in areas such as Redfern, out to Parramatta for example.

I may be wrong.

Also though, Im not overly sure how far $2million will go.

As for banning sports for truants: this is plainly stupid!

IM(not-so)HO it is counter-intuitive - since sports works better as a carrot than a stick for many socially and academically-challenged kids, who otherwise feel inferior and alienated by the academic emphasis in the education system...

another highly successful policy from labor???


Sign a pledge, yeah that will work and again if it doesn't labor will throw money at the school.


Same shite different day from labor.

What is it with labor before we had beazleys knowledge nation now we got Gillards BEr and all other form of failure??

kids these days are dumb as a box of rocks, checkout chicks cant even do their times tables. They are borderline illiterate.