Moving Year 7s to high school in SA would cost $40m a year

MOVING Year 7 students into high school would cost tens of millions every year — and there is no clear evidence it will improve academic results, the Education Department boss says.

• Preliminary investigations into moving Year 7s to high school
• Should Year 7 be left in primary school?
• Year 7 switch documents kept secret

MOVING Year 7 students into high school will cost $40 million a year, but there is no clear evidence it will improve academic results, Education Department chief executive Rick Persse has revealed.

Mr Persse told a parliamentary committee that the annual cost of the Government’s election commitment would be on top of significant building works needed to ensure high schools had the capacity to cope with an influx of students.

High school teachers are paid more and high school students are more expensive to educate because they have more specialist subject lessons.

Mr Persse said specific modelling on the total cost of the move, bringing SA schools into line with the rest of the country, as well as its effect on school zones, was yet to be completed.

“There isn’t a clear body of evidence that it’s necessarily better, is going to improve NAPLAN results or anything like that, but if you talk to principals, particularly secondary principals, they believe it’s going to be a better outcome,” he said.

Labor education spokeswoman Susan Close seized on the cost, saying there were “40 million reasons” not to move Year 7, and no evidence base on which to do so.

She said making some already full high schools take more students would lead to school zones being changed, specialist programs being cut or more buildings built on already crammed campuses.

A project director, Dr Caroline Croser-Barlow, has been appointed to oversee the policy’s implementation.

Education Minister John Gardner said all Year 7s would be moved into high school by 2022, but some schools might make the change earlier. Mr Gardner said the move was necessary because there was “no second opportunity when it comes to educating our young people”.

“Moving Year 7 students into high school will ensure that our students are not left behind their counterparts in other states,” Mr Gardner said.

“Interstate experience shows that Year 7s thrive in a high school setting.”